Final exam tips

The preparation you put in over these next few months is vital if you are aiming for a good result in your Physics exam. Although a good understanding of the material is necessary for a reasonable grade it is also very important that you know certain material such as definitions and derivations word perfect from your textbook or notes. In order to retain this volume of material it is important to do a little often. If you regularly revise the items you need to memorise, it is much more likely they will enter your long-term memory and make it much easier for you to study them in the lead-up to your exam in June.

When revising each topic ask yourself do you understand where the theory comes from and why particular phenomena occur? Imagine if you were to explain a particular concept to someone else, could you clearly and confidently get the ideas across or are there gaps in your understanding that need to be addressed?

Familiarise yourself with your formulae and tables booklet; make sure you know where to find all the necessary formulae, etc. This will save valuable time in the exam, and help you work through the calculation questions.

When you get your paper in the exam, firstly have a read through to get a feel for the questions. Before deciding to do a particular question read it through fully to ensure you can answer all parts. When giving explanations make sure you give your explanations in proper sentences. Don’t be tempted to just write a relevant phrase. Think logically about the question; ensure your workings make sense and that the answer looks right. Make sure you write down all formulae you use as well as your workings as you go through the calculation. This helps an examiner to see what you were doing. Also, if you make a mistake they can see where the error occurred so that you may still gain many of the marks. Finally don’t forget the units - if all your calculations are correct you don’t want to lose marks for the sake of the unit at the end. Best of luck!