3 Days, 3 Exams, 12.7 Hours’ ….Things to consider.
From salt tablets to the bullet point technique. How I (without being dramatic) survived…
Get a cup of coffee, this is a long one.
Setting the Scene
It’s Monday 7th November 2022. After 3 years and 12 exams, I am moments away from sitting my final 3 Accounting exams which will (fingers crossed) lead me to become a Chartered Accountant.
Please sit back and ingest what I’ve learned from this marathon of examinations.
1. Revision
The Oldie but Goldie… Nothing beats good old-fashioned question practice. Past papers and mock exams allow you to get used to the style of questions that will be asked along with homing the ability to dissect the relevant information from the scenario.
But… BIG BUT…. When your exams are 4 hours long, made up of 2–3 questions, One needs to allocate at least 1 hour to practice only 1 requirement. The commitment, especially if you are like me and have a full-time job, is significant and hard to fit in if you want to spend time with loved ones and continue your hobbies.
To overcome this, I would only do Mocks on the weekend and during the week, I would do practice questions using the bullet point technique.
What is this technique you ask? Well, you spend half the time on the question, and instead of writing your answers in full, you bullet point the key points that you will make. This allows you to practice assimilating the information and identify the key points from the scenario and perform the main calculations. This allows you to save time and energy whilst also allowing you to get through more questions and speed up your comprehension of the information given.
Of course, in the real exam and your mocks, you would write full sentences!!!
2. Time management
From day dot, we are all told, “When you are sitting an exam and you get stuck, move on to the next question as there are easy marks to be had”. It is so easy to forget this and instead spend twice as much time on a calculation or topic which, isn’t worth many marks and lose out on other areas which are mark abundant.
Your first thought is, “Oh, it’s 4 hours long, There’s plenty of time” incorrect. Everyone knows that Exam time is different from real-time. Exam time is the equivalent of hanging out with your friends at a bar, the time flies! And there is a reason it is 4 hours+ long…. There is a lot to do.
So use techniques that will allow you to manage your time more effectively.
For me, I would practice reading the questions and allocating marks to each area, I will then time the marks by 2, to give me my allocated time for that area. Example:
If a question is 40 Marks, I will guess I should only spend 80 minutes on this question and then move on. Furthermore, if the question is made up of 3 requirements, I will try to guess the mark allocation. So, I know that requirements surrounding “Ethics” are typically worth 8–10 marks. Therefore, that leaves me with about 30 marks left. I will then look at the other requirements and think “okay, this requirement has a lot to do” or “this requirement is focusing on financial reporting and treatment, therefore, I know that these are typically worth 20–15 marks” thus I would allocate 18 mark to one requirement and the remaining 12 to another.
3. Hydration and energy
I was told that when you are dehydrated, your mental capability drops by a third. When your exam success is linked to your employment, this cannot be ignored. However, as the exams are time-pressured, there is no time to go to the toilet as this will result in:
Raising your hand to leave, be escorted to the bathroom, escorted back once you are done, and finally, sat back down and get back into the headspace of the questions and back into the rhythm of thinking.
Altogether, this could easily eat up 5 minutes which you cannot afford to lose. Therefore, planning for hydration and nutrition is important. I treated the exam as if it was a marathon. I will not eat a huge breakfast before a marathon with the risk of feeling sick or bloated during the exam. Nor will I down a gallon of water ahead of my sitting.
There are several techniques that I’ve heard people use such as “having time cues to when to drink in the exam. A sip every hour and then drink as much as you want when you have 30 mins to go.”
Taking salt tablets increases the body’s sodium level, thus retaining more water.
Eating fruits and veg before the exam as they are filled with water.
Taking Hydration pouches… the list goes on. For me, I took the strategic sipping of water technique.
This is not an exhausted list of techniques, but the cornerstones of my performance.
Thank you for reading and please let me know what exam techniques have helped you in your studies.
