Year: 2022

In Week 3 of Exam Essentials, we’re focusing on Thriving in the Exam Environment.

We’ve already explored how to plan your revision and choose the most effective techniques, but what happens when you actually get to the exam? When the day itself comes, how do you stay healthy, keep alert, and perform your best under exam conditions?

In this week’s workshops we’ll explore these techniques in two settings, first in the online environment, then in on-campus invigilated exams. While there are some differences between these settings, the majority of the tips are the same.

Here are our top three suggestions to get started:

• Stay Healthy – Make sure you’re eating, sleeping, and getting plenty of exercise throughout the exam period, and possibly even during the exam itself (if you’re writing a 23hr exam, for example). If you’re writing the exam in-person, make sure to have a good meal beforehand and bring a bottle of water. If you’re writing the exam at home, get yourself a selection of healthy snacks, like fruit and vegetables, to keep you going.
• Know the Format – Make sure you know what the exam is going to look like. How long is it? How many questions? Do you get to choose, or are they all mandatory? Then, once you get to the exam, look over the full paper first and read every question carefully. It’s easy to make mistakes by jumping in too quickly, but it’s important to understand every question before you begin answering.
• Test your Tech – If you’re writing your exam online, make sure to test the technology beforehand. Locate your exam module, and read any key guides available online. If you have issues in the exam itself, know how you can troubleshoot them, perhaps by using a different browser, clearing your cache/cookies, or emailing Help4U@dundee.ac.uk for support.

Be sure to check back here for Wednesday’s post, where we’ll share the recording of the online workshop as well as highlighting some useful resources about revision techniques, and again on Friday when we’ll pick up on some of the key themes from the week.

Once again, thanks to everyone who joined one of our Exam Essentials workshops this week, where our focus was on Effective Revision. If you missed the workshops, you can view the recording of the online session at https://eu-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/5ab52ea85d5f404d82bf174f96633b9d

Meanwhile, here are some of the key takeaways from this week’s workshops:

1. You may not need to change much – talking to people this week, one striking thing was just how much good practice is already going on out there. Many people are using at least some active techniques in their revision, and also recognising where certain approaches are increasingly unsustainable. So it’s really a question of constantly refining your approach, reinforcing your good practice and wherever possible eliminating the less effective techniques.

2. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ – we’ve explored lots of different active revision techniques across this week’s workshops and blog posts, but not all of these techniques will work for you, and the ones you do like won’t necessarily work in every context. The important thing is that you experiment and find out what works for you, and in which situations. Think of it as a toolbox – you use different tools in different situations, and some of them you just don’t use at all.

3. Study with the type of exam in mind – one important thing to consider is the format of the exam(s) for which you’re revising. For example, essay-type exams are likely to require a different type of revision than multiple-choice exams. Make sure you know the format your exams will take, and think about what you need to get out of your revision as a result. Then apply the appropriate tools for the job.

Next week we’re tweaking the format slightly. We’ll still have our regular blog posts with tips, links and the recorded workshop, but Monday’s online workshop will focus specifically on the online exam environment whilst Wednesday’s on-campus session focuses on – you’ve guessed it – the on-campus exam environment. We’d love to see you at one of the sessions.

Today we want to introduce you to some resources that will help you when it comes to revising more effectively. And scroll down to the bottom of the post for the link to the recording of Monday’s online workshop.

You can access most of our revision resources via our dedicated Revision page.

Our Revision Bites resource contains information about all the ideas we’re exploring this week, including pages on ineffective learning techniques and powerful revision strategies. And for an accessible introduction to the science behind our suggestions, check out the Learning Scientists site.

If you prefer your advice in book form, check out Pass Your Exam, a nifty little number written by members of the ASC team which contains tips and advice on effective revision and more  – you can find it in the library.

What resources or tools have you discovered to help you revise more effectively? Why not share your suggestions on this week’s Padlet? All posts are anonymous.

Be sure to check back here for Friday’s post, where we’ll pick up on some of the key themes from the week and respond to some of your questions and suggestions from the Padlet.

Last but not least, here are links to the recording of Monday’s online workshop on Effective Revision and the slide deck:

https://eu-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/5ab52ea85d5f404d82bf174f96633b9d

In week 2 of Exam Essentials, we’re focusing on Effective Revision.

Last week we acknowledged that it is impossible to study everything and identified the importance of prioritising what you revise and planning accordingly. But to make the most of the time you plan for revision, it’s important to be using techniques that are effective and efficient.

So that’s the focus of this week’s workshops, blog posts and resources – how to avoid ineffective and time-consuming techniques and instead supercharge your revision with approaches that are proven to work.

We’ll explore these approaches over the course of the week, but here are a few tips to get you started:

• be prepared to change and experiment – learning and revising effectively at university and in your specific subject may mean you have to ditch or adapt the way you’ve worked in the past
• recognise and avoid common but ineffective techniques – be aware that the way you’ve studied in the past might not work at university. In fact, common and popular revision techniques such as writing out or memorising notes have been proven to be insufficient for the type of learning required at this level
• make your revision active rather than passive – one reason these techniques are ineffective is because they involve taking a passive approach to revision. By taking a more active, focused approach to what you study, you’ll make your learning deeper and more sustained

We’ll unpack these ideas in this week’s workshops and blog posts but if you just can’t wait, you can read about it all in our Revision Bites resource.

Meanwhile, why not share your thoughts and experiences in our Padlet?  All posts are anonymous and we’ll respond to some of the key issues in a later blog post.

Don’t forget we’ll be running an online workshop on Monday and an on-campus workshop on Wednesday, all about Effective Revision. The online workshop will be available as a recording later in the week if you can’t make it along to either session.

Be sure to check back here for Wednesday’s post, where we’ll share the recording of the online workshop as well as highlighting some useful resources about revision techniques, and again on Friday when we’ll pick up on some of the key themes from the week and respond to some of your questions and suggestions from the Padlet.

Padlet link https://uod.padlet.org/gordonspark/hx9ucfgax6konjtc