How to Take an Exam

            The most important requirement for doing well on an exam is to come to the examination well prepared. Being well prepared reduces the tension, the feelings of anxiety, the “math anxiety.” Even if you are confident about your effort to prepare for an exam, you will experience the nervousness and “butterflies.” Such feelings are no cause for alarm. They are just a natural response to wishing to do one’s best. When you have prepared well, there still may be questions or problems you cannot answer immediately. However, there will be many you can handle routinely.

Start the exam with a pre-planned strategy to locate the questions and problems on the exam for which you can answer easily and efficiently. Some students start this search with the first question, others start with the last. As you work through those problems which you can solve, work quickly, but more importantly, work carefully. The goal is to capitalize on the material you know well by scoring points and gaining time. Time is not saved if your work on these problems is done sloppily with errors and erasures throughout.

Then next group of problems to work are those that you have thoughts on how to begin. Try these ideas and see where they lead. Don’t try to force an idea into a mistake. If what seemed to be a good idea suddenly turns sour, drop it and either try another approach or move on to another problem. Most of all don’t let this bother your continuing work on the exam.

 

Budget the amount of time you spend working on a problem. Generally speaking, if the exam is 50 minutes long, then let the point value of each problem be you guide as to how much time to spend on each problem. For example, on a 50 minute 100-point exam, you should spend roughly about 5 minutes on a 10 point problem, about 12.5 minutes on a 25-point problem, and so on. This is the reason why starting with problems