By Cyril KimbiAlmost everything that goes wrong on examination day is logistical, not academic. Candidates who prepared well lose marks to a missing document, a late arrival, a dead calculator or a misread instruction — all of it preventable the night before.
The night before
Assemble everything and put it by the door. Every item hunted for in the morning is a dose of adrenaline you cannot afford.
- Identification and admission documents — exactly what the board requires, in the form it requires.
- Pens, and at least two spares. Pens fail.
- Pencil, eraser, sharpener, ruler — for diagrams and graphs.
- Mathematical instruments where the paper needs them.
- Calculator if permitted, with fresh batteries, and know its mode settings.
- A watch, if permitted. Do not assume there is a visible clock.
- Water, and something to eat beforehand.
Confirm the centre, the start time and how you will travel. Then stop revising. A late night costs more than the extra hour gains, because memory consolidates during sleep.
The morning
Eat. Sitting a three-hour paper on an empty stomach is a self-inflicted handicap, and hunger arrives at exactly the wrong point.
Arrive early, but not very early. Thirty minutes standing among panicking classmates is contagious. Arrive, find your place, and stay slightly apart.
Avoid the corridor conversation about what everyone else revised. It has never once helped anyone, and it reliably manufactures doubt in candidates who were fine.
If you feel the physical signs of panic, start the breathing before you need it: in for four, out for six to eight, for about two minutes. The longer out-breath is the mechanism, and it takes roughly ninety seconds to act — so start it in the queue, not in question three.
The first five minutes in the hall
Do not start writing. This is the highest-return five minutes of the whole paper.
- Read the instructions. How many questions must be answered, from which sections, and whether any are compulsory. Candidates answer the wrong number of questions every session.
- Read the whole paper. You will find questions you can definitely do, and your mind will work on the harder ones while you answer the easy ones.
- Decide the order. Take the securable marks first.
- Allocate time by marks. A 15-mark question deserves roughly three times the time of a 5-mark one. Write the finishing time for each section on the paper.
While you write
- Underline the command word in each question. Explain and describe want different answers, and confusing them is the largest single source of lost marks.
- Let the marks tell you how much to write. Four marks means roughly four distinct points, not one point at length.
- Show every step in calculations. Method marks are awarded for correct working even when the answer is wrong.
- Label every diagram. The marks are in the labels.
- Number your answers clearly and in a findable order. An examiner who cannot locate an answer cannot mark it.
- Do not erase large sections. Cross out with a single line; crossed-out work is not marked, but a rushed rewrite is usually worse.
If you get stuck
The instinct is to stare harder. That is the one response that reliably makes it worse.
Instead: put the pen down for twenty seconds, breathe out long three times, and move to a question you can do. Marks count the same in any order, and succeeding at something restores the working memory that panic was consuming.
Come back to the stuck question later and write anything relevant — a definition, a formula, a labelled diagram, the first step. Starting to write frequently unlocks the rest, and partial credit is real.
The last ten minutes
Stop producing and start protecting.
Check you answered the right number of questions from the right sections — this is the error that costs whole grades. Fill every blank with something relevant, because a blank is the only guaranteed zero. Check units and that final answers are stated, not just implied by working. Confirm your candidate details are on every sheet.
Between papers
Do not conduct a post-mortem with classmates. Comparing answers after a paper cannot change the result and reliably damages performance in the next one.
Eat, rest briefly, and if another paper follows, look only at your one-page summary sheet for that subject. The paper that is finished is finished.
Frequently asked questions
How early should I arrive?
Early enough to be unhurried, not so early that you spend an hour absorbing other people’s panic. Thirty to forty minutes is usually right.
What if I forget a document?
Speak to the invigilator or centre staff immediately rather than trying to resolve it yourself. Tell them before the paper starts.
Should I answer in order?
No. Start with what you can definitely do.
Is it worth staying to the end?
Almost always. The last ten minutes spent filling blanks and checking instructions is usually worth several marks.
What if I panic during the paper?
Pen down, long out-breaths, move to an easier question. The technique is covered in more depth in the guidance on exam anxiety.
