Exam 101:  Tips that will help you in passing your exams

I have written several exams and I have been successful in many and have also failed some. But when I fail I only try to understand my reason for failing rather than quitting the exam. I have been able to identify some TIPs for passing exams based on my research throughout the period I have been writing exams till date that has worked for me and others and I believe sharing the information may be of help to you in passing your exams.

Question Requirement

So many student read the question first before the requirement paragraph which in most case might  not make much meaning and the they get to answer the question based on their mind set. The best way to understand a scenario based/ case study question is when you read the requirement paragraph first and this will then set a tone to which you may understand what you are looking for in the scenario based question. So reading the requirement is key to passing the exams.

Time Management

As student, time is not our friend in the exam all and if given one day for and exam we would still ask for more time. But the problem we face is how we manage our time in the exam hall is where the problem lays, time management as to do with many factor such as knowledge of the course, understanding the question etc. in a situation where your exam time duration is for 3hours, this means you have 180minutes (i.e 3 * 60minutes) which means you are to utilize 1.8minute for one mark (i.e 180minutes/100marks) but you are not expected to utilize all the 1.8minute rather you just 1.5minute of one mark and the 0.3minute left is used for review of your work. The essence of this time analysis is to make sure you don’t write unnecessary things when answering the question rather write the major points and move to the next question.

Knowledge of the course you are writing exam for

When preparing for exams you are expected to understand the whole syllabus and not some specific part of the syllabus because this will help you to answer the question within the time frame you want to achieve to answer all the requirement of the questions.

Compulsory questions are not important

Yes when I say compulsory questions are not important I don’t mean you should skip them rather am saying you should be able to answer other straight forward questions first then move to the compulsory question when you are done attaining all the easy marks then you can go for the difficult questions last that may you won’t miss the easy marks and also you would have been able to attempt all the questions.

Psychological factors

There are so many psychological factors that could affect people when preparing for an exam and the best way to avoid such factors is by keeping an open mind everything and try as much to be perceptive to information rather than been receptive. And positive mind set also help in exams because ones you have a negative mind set as to an exam this would in turn affect your performance in the all.

Practice of questions

Practising exam question is key to passing an exam and when I talk about practising question am not talking about what most student do which is to read the solution immediately they get stock in a question they are trying to practise. All trying to participate in mock exams also help in building your exam confidence but many student tend to wrote away from mock exams because they believe they are not prepared and they take that mind set to the exam all.

Attempting all question

It is important to attempt all question in exams because ones you miss a question it means you have succeeded in marking yourself down because you can’t get marks for questions you have left not attempted. A good example I use when I teach my student is that when you are engage for an assignment as a professional accountant, are you going to give the client half done work because you didn’t have time to finish the work. Then why did you take on the assignment.

Reading Time-table

The day you make your mind to write an exam then from that day your normal activity schedule should change by creating a timetable on how you intend to read for the exams. This timetable might be a minimum of 1hour or more to your own convenience. But the more time the better and they timetable should be followed religiously like your daily meal because consistency helps a lot.

Finally, taking a lot of rest days to the exams is also better and it gives you the right mind set, don’t take the exams like it is a do or die affair, study as shown that when you pressure yourself too much something you might not get the outcome you are expecting so make sure you are relaxed and not tensed up.

I believe if you are able to follow this tips it will go a long way to helping you passing any exam you set to write.

Taiwo Jimoh ACCA, CISA, AAT, ACFE, AHRP.