How to Read and Understand the Question paper in the best possible way
While appearing for an exam it is essential to understand the question paper thoroughly. You should take 15–20 minutes just to understand the questions. Look through the whole paper properly. Decide which questions are easier and attempt those questions first.
Try to think of the possible answers of those questions especially of MCQs. Reading the question paper carefully makes helps you to understand the questions, it helps you to distribute your time to each question and makes you understand which questions are easy and which ones are difficult.
Methods to read and understand the question paper
- The stress of the situation can cause you to misread a question, plan your answer out, start writing your response and then realise you made a mistake and wasted vital time. Even though you generally won’t be writing answers to every question on the paper, reading all questions thoroughly will ensure you make the right choices and can highlight how much you know about the topic.
- Don’t forget to attempt all the questions that you have selected. Reading the question paper well will ensure that you are going to attempt questions with first priority, which you have studied very well.
- You have to be very strict regarding the time management. Once you have assigned a time limit for each question, you MUST move on once you hit it or you won’t be able to give the next question your full attention.
- Remember to leave yourself some time at the end to go back over your answers and add in little notes or pieces of information about the topic. While reading the question paper, you should get a clear picture about how much time each question will take. This will help you in distributing the time on each question and you will be able to attempt all questions without any shortage of time.
- Many questions you approach will look as though they seek a straightforward answer but in reality they have twisted the question and they want a different and a specific answer from you. Hence study each and every question properly and get the clear idea about what type of answer they are expecting from you and write according to that.
- Don’t just jump into writing your answer. Take the first few minutes to read and understand the question. Prepare about what you are going to write in the answer, especially long answers and try to write them in a point form. Regroup about which important points you are going to write.
- Spot the easiest questions in the question paper and do them first. There is absolutely no reason to do the questions in the order they are printed in the exam. You should be doing the easiest ones first. Getting one question safely under your belt at the start of an exam is a wonderful boost to confidence, and can help reduce any feelings of panic that might arise when looking at the harder questions.
- The easiest question is likely to take less time than the average. It also means that when you get round to the most difficult question, you are free to spend all the time you have left on it.
- Look at marking scheme of the questions properly. Read carefully about how much marks each particular question contains and write accordingly. If a four mark question is given you should make sure that you at least write six points to get full marks, and if it is one mark question there is no need to write 3–4 points.
- Avoid writer’s block, you haven’t got time for it. If you get stuck on a question, move on. Start doing another one. Staring at a question you don’t know how to answer is a waste of time, and you’d be amazed how often, when coming back to a question after half-an-hour, it suddenly becomes clear.
While writing an exam, keep all this points in your mind about reading and understanding the question paper. It is very essential if you want to score good grades. To get a proper grip about how to solve these exams, solve all the previous question papers and see which type of questions are asked.