Two Minute Exam Tip!

What I want to do in this video is give you an exam writing strategy in two minutes or less. Have you ever ran out of time on your exam? Or with 10 minutes left, you heard the exam invigilators say something like, “You’ve got 10 minutes left” and you look down and you’re nowhere near being done? It is really important that you map out your exam.

Let’s suppose that your exam starts at 6:00 PM and you need to do 100 questions in two hours. That means you need to do 25 questions every half hour. You want to map out your exam! Go to question 25. If it is a paper based exam, in the column write down the time 6:30. If it’s an online exam, hopefully you can flag it some way. Then go to question 50 and write 7:00, and then question 75 and write 7:30. I’d even break up the first 15 minutes as this is where students usually fall behind because they’re being way too careful. So go to question 13 and write 6:15.

Now you can start your exam. When you get to that first time marker at 6:15, and it says you should be at question 13, you can look down at your watch and see how you’re doing. It’s as though I’m there as your trainer tapping you on the shoulder saying, “Hey, you’re supposed to be here by 6:15”. How are you doing when you get to question 50? You’re going to see 7:00 and, again, you can gauge your time.

It’s a nice little reminder throughout the exam to keep track of time. If you do that, you’ll be on track. Good luck on your exams.