Success in examinations – A student roadmap Part 1

YEAR in year out, students fall in the same trap of examination disappointment. Who is at fault when you come up short? Who is affected when you failure? Even if you pretend to be innocent and shoulder blame on a diversity of excuses; which range from lack of qualified instructors, poor teacher motivation, lack of reading materials among other things. True as it may be in certain circumstances but a great deal of you students fail because of lack of examination preparedness. Literature has it on record that students lose in excess of 25% of the total examination mark due to lack of examination preparation skills.

You must therefore be wary about your examination performance. The same goes with parents who sacrifice their hard earned income on their children. More so, the teachers who sacrifice their effort, energy and resources and are not prepared to swallow their pride when students fail to make it in their examinations.

This exposition endeavours to press a panic button on all students intending to write examinations. Every student has the potential to make it in an examination. Even above general passing, with proper skills and thorough examination preparation, students can attain better grades.

In this first roadmap I wish to take you back to the basics of examination preparation and in subsequent roadmaps, I will be alluding to the finer details of examination success.

The purpose of an examination is to test the level of mastery of key concepts in the course syllabus. Thus, it should be very clear to you students that it’s not the objective of examiners to fail you. You should take examinations as an opportunity to prove your knowledge of the subject matter content. Thus, examinations are opportunities in a student’s lifetime never to be wasted. By failing an examination, you lose self-confidence, time and financial resources, and may not proceed to the next level.

There are many types of examinations being written world-over. Some examinations are openbook types while others are closed-book types. The majority of examinations written at junior schools to undergraduate colleges are mainly closed book examinations. However, it is mainly at graduate and postgraduate schools where open-book examinations are written for certain courses and subjects.

It should ring loud and clear in your minds that without an examination, you cannot graduate from one level to another. Why should you panic? To succeed you must have the patience to go through the process.

Examination preparation is a process that requires you to give time to. You should devout time and resources to prepare yourselves for examination. From the first day you start a course, you should know how you will prepare yourself before sitting for that examination. Thus, examination preparation starts with planning for the final examination.

Things needed for effective planning A checklist can help you in coming up with a good exam preparation plan that answers the following questions: Which syllabus/course outline to follow? What type of an exam will you be writing? How much time do you have to prepare for the exam?

Which type of materials do you require to prepare for the exam?

What additional assistance would you require to prepare for the exam?

Which learning strategies will you use? Furthermore, you should explore the specifics of examination preparation process. Thus, you need to add detailed descriptions of the examination requirements by answering yet another set of questions:

How long is the exam? Is there a choice of questions to answer? How much time is allocated to each question? What materials can you take into the exam room?

The syllabus plays a pivotal role in guiding you as you prepare for your examination. It is actually a roadmap that guides you regarding the content you should understand and the needed level of inquiry.

Many times students do not have syllabuses. Normally these guides are issued out at the beginning of a course and students don’t place value on them to an extent that they lose them. Where is your syllabus? Do you still have it? In an event that you were not issued with a syllabus or course outline, you should insist on getting one, otherwise your exam preparation is doomed.

Thus, learning without a syllabus is like hunting for a treasure without a roadmap. Take the right action today, ensure that you have a syllabus for each course you are writing this year. Understand it and its expectations.

This is just a primer of the intricacies of examination preparation. The core of exam success is coming. Watch this space. Good reading!

n Eugine Makaya (PhD) is a university lecturer, researcher and author. Feedback: eugine.makaya@ nust.ac.zw or WhatsApp +263773208002