4.1 Arriving and getting ready When you arrive at the exam centre, you may prefer to stay quietly on your own, rather than chat to other students. Do what suits you best and helps you to feel calm and positive. Once you are in your seat, try not to look around. Your senses can be heightened by tension and can fasten on irrelevant details, such as what other students are doing or wearing. Try visualising a relaxing scene, or relax using breathing exercises. Visualisation and relaxation exercises are described in Author(s):
3.11.3 Maths, sciences and technology The additional points we would want you to be aware of as you plan your revision in these subjects relate to the different ways in which you are called upon to present your answers. These might be: short reports multiple-choice answers dif 3.10 Thinking about the exam It is worth noting the difference between exam answers and assignments. Inevitably, a much lengthier and more polished answer can be produced in an untimed assignment. In the short time available in the exam, you need to move quickly through your main points, without paying too much attention to your style. Examiners are fully aware of the constraints exams place on the writer. Focus on the question you have chosen, and underline or highlight the process words or instructions in the question. 3.8.2 Analysing and answering essay-based exam questions For the following activity, you can use questions from a specimen paper, past papers or even questions you have devised for yourself. Exam questions for essay-based courses often contain 'process words'. These require you t 3.7 Memory and Understanding Exams are rarely tests of memory, but much more to do with the selection, presentation and interpretation of materials. When you have understood what you have read, you can think about it and use it. Nonetheless, you may still be concerned about your ability to remember the info 3.6.3 Making audio tapes Why not try recording material from your summary sheets, or cards, onto audio tape? Students who have a strong auditory memory find information sticks if they hear it rather than read it. You could play the tape back to yourself when travelling by train or car. 3.3 Stage 2: Gathering the course material together You will need to gather all your course material and lecture notes together, and organise them properly. Your course material or texts should contain an overview of your course. Keep this to hand, as it will prove invaluable in you come to identify the topics you will need to revise. There are also other sources of information that you can draw on when gathering information for your revision. 3.2 Stage 1: Finding out about the exam paper As a first step, it is a good idea to find out as much as you can about the exam paper for your course. Find out how your exam paper is set out, the way the questions are organised, and what weight each question carries in terms of marks. Different papers adopt different formats. Some require multiple-choice answers. Others ask for essay or short paragraph answers. Some require technical or numerical answers. Reading the instructions on the exam paper is particularly important, as the followi 2.1 Finding out your key concerns Each one of us has a different set of concerns about preparing for and taking exams. It is worth spending a little time reflecting on these concerns and identifying what your individual needs are, in order to set up good support strategies for yourself. Learning outcomes This unit will: help you to manage your time more effectively when you're revising and in the exam itself help you to learn, or brush up on, revision and exam skills offer reassurance to those of you who experience anxiety and stress at exam time. Introduction Do you feel that sometimes you don't do yourself justice in exams? Perhaps you've never taken an exam and are wondering how to prepare yourself. It may have been a long time since you took an exam, and you feel a need to refresh your technique. You may be looking for reassurance and advice because you've had a bad exam experience in the past. This unit aims to help you to improve your own revision and exam techniques and reassure others who experience anxiety and stress over exams. 9.1 Reflection and the four main phases of learning how to learn If your course encourages this approach to learning, or if you have read other material on learning how to learn, you may have come across the term 'reflection'. Maybe you have been encouraged to reflect on your learning or on your assignments. In this unit, we have deliberately not used the term until now. This is not because we think the term - or the process - is unimportant, but because it can seem vague and not particularly helpful to you as a learner. In fact, all the activities in this 7.2 Learning from feedback This is actually quite a difficult thing for any student to do. It is most effective when your assignment is returned, but by then you may have moved on to the next part of the course. Even so, you do need to make time to re-visit your assignment when it is returned and take note of your tutor's comments. It is the one time when your tutor is able to give feedback and advice to you as an individual student so it is well worth taking time to really absorb their comments. Try to separate 4.2 Analysing the task This involves you in analysing both the learning task, (e.g. working through the text, other readings, calculations, experiments) as well as the assessed task (e.g. the assignment). It is important to work out from the start just what this part of the course requires you to do as well as to know. 4.1 Preparing In the preparation phase you should pause before starting a new section of work and think about it as a whole. What needs to be covered? What are the various components of this block of work? What are the learning objectives or outcomes? What will you need to know and be able to do at the end of it? What is required in the assignment? There are two main activities during this phase, both directly related to your course work and assignment: 3.1 Introduction to applying your learning In this part of the unit we invite you to apply some of the ideas we have introduced in a more structured way. One of the easiest ways to really understand learning how to learn as a process, rather than as a series of individual activities, is to apply it to a section of the course you are currently studying. Choose a section that is complete in itself - for example, a block of the course - and that leads to an assignment. We suggest that you read through the whole of this section and 2.4 Organising your study - keeping a learning diary If you have found this approach to learning interests you, you might like to take the analysis a stage further. To do Activity 4, you need to be studying a course so that you are engaged in learning on a regular basis. To examine your learning patterns, try keeping a 'learning diary' over a short period of time - at least a week - or maybe during the period that you are studying a particular section of your course. 2.1 Introduction In encouraging you to think explicitly about how you learn, as well as about what you learn, we are drawing on research about learning which has shown that this approach can actually improve your performance. Certainly it can and will make you a more efficient and effective learner. Before we start to explore the process, let us consider two general points about learning. There is no single method of learning that guarantees success. How 1.2 What do we mean by learning how to learn? This activity will help you to explore what we mean by learning how to learn. Think back to an example of study you have done in the past, or any fairly structured learning opportunity you remember. Focus on a particular ac Learning outcomes The broad aim of this unit is to provide a framework for learning-based activities and reflective exercises. More specifically, it is designed to offer you the opportunity to: think about and understand how you learn; apply the ideas and activities in this unit to your own learning experiences; learn how to become a reflective learner.
Activity 9
Memory and understanding
Activity 1
Activ
Activity 1
