The things that you do after an exam are just as important for dealing with stress as the things you do before and during. You’ve worked hard and done your best and now it’s time to put the exam out of your mind entirely.
Regular sleep is important to control exam stress. Students who follow a regular sleeping pattern have been shown to perform much better than students who stay up late.
Staying up all night before an exam won’t make you perform better; you reach a point where your productivity eventually declines, so sleeping is a must to have a refreshed mind the next morning.
In multiple-choice exams, it’s useful to read each question carefully, predict the right answer, read all the options before you pick one, eliminate obviously wrong options, and skip questions you can’t answer and come back to them later.
In multiple-choice exams, you have to recall lots of information quickly, because you can only spend a short period of time on each question. When revising, focus on factual information, like definitions and multi-step processes.
Time is likely to be scarce in an open-book exam. Make sure you know the basic answers and, if necessary, look up an exact formula, a numerical value, or supporting evidence for your answers.
In an open-book exam, the books are just memory aids so you don’t have to remember pages of information. Trust what you know from your revision; only look up key information such as quotes and formulas; if you’re allowed, place flags in key sections to save time.
In open-book exams, students are allowed to bring notes, texts, and/or other resources into the exam room. They test whether you understand the bigger picture of the topic, and how the concepts work together.
Open-book and multiple-choice exams often seem easier than essay-writing exams, but you still need to revise or you could find yourself throwing away easy marks.
What exam markers look for: question answered, clear essay structure, clear argument, evidence and examples for each point, and legible writing.