Introduction
Examinations seem to create more anxiety for students than any other form of course assessment. In this chapter, you will learn strategies for preparing and revising for examinations and for optimizing your performance in the examination itself. Examinations are brief snap-shots of what you have learned from a period of study; by planning for them at the start of the course (and during it) you can minimize the stress you feel on the day of the examination. This cannot guarantee good results but it will give you the best chance of success.
Preparing for examinations
You will almost certainly have taken examinations before.
Think back to the last examination you took. How early in the course did you start to prepare for it? Did you feel confident on the day of the examination that you were fully prepared?
Think back to the last examination you took. How early in the course did you start to prepare for it? Did you feel confident on the day of the examination that you were fully prepared?The chances are that you did not give much thought to the examination when you started your course – it probably seemed a long way off. When it came to the day of the examination you were probably wishing that you had been better prepared.
Be active not passive
Anxiety about an impending situation can lead people to be passive and ‘just let it happen’. You should avoid leaving all your preparation to near the examination date. The more actively you plan and prepare for the examination at the beginning of (and throughout) the course, the more likely you are to succeed. Rhetorical comments such as ‘Well, it’s not in our hands’ and ‘What’s in the exam’s just a lottery’ contribute to the feelings of helplessness experienced by students who feel that the lecturer is controlling the situation. Indeed, this principle applies equally to preparation for any type of assessment or placement: the more active and engaged you have been in preparing for the event, the more successful and rewarding it will be. One of the first tasks should be to check on the format of the examination paper(s) and the types of question you will be given.
Types of examination and question
Unseen examinations
Traditional unseen examinations (the student does not ‘see’ the question paper beforehand) are still the most common form of examination used, although the types of question on the papers can vary considerably. Some of the commonly used types of question are described in the box below.
Multiple-choice questions
These consist of a ‘stem’ (this is the question) and four or five branches (the answer choices). The student has to select one answer that, relative to the other choices, is correct.
Example
The normal number of pairs of human chromosomes in cells is:
| a. 48 | b. 47 | c. 46 | d. 23 |
Fill-in-the-gap questions
These questions require the student to enter the most appropriate word or phrase that fits into a gap in a statement. Sometimes students are given a list of responses to choose from.
Example
Fill the gap in the sentence below with the correct name of the procedure described.
A ________ is an artificial opening into the trachea at the level of the second or third cartilaginous ring, which is kept patent by the insertion of a metal or plastic tube.
[tracheonomy, tracheostomy, tracheotomy, bronchiostomy]
Short-answer questions
Students write short answers to a number of questions, the answers being anything up to one page in length. This type of question requires students to make concise, succinct points and they may be asked to draw a diagram to illustrate the answer. You should be clear about how many marks are allocated for these questions and obtain guidance from your lecturer about the length of answer expected, and whether bullet points, flow diagrams or illustrations are acceptable. Preferably, you should be given some ‘model answers’ as a guide.
Examples
1. Describe three criteria that promote wound healing.
2. Outline five factors that might cause an inaccurate measurement of oral body temperature.
Long-answer or essay questions
Essay questions require students to write at length about the questions posed. Marks are likely to be awarded on the structure of the essay – does it have an introduction and conclusion, does it flow logically – as well as on the content and inclusion of major points (see Chapter 9).
Open-book and seen examinations
Open-book (where you can use books during the examination) or seen examinations (where you see the questions before the examination and can therefore prepare your answers prior to the examination itself) are not as easy as they sound. In an openbook examination you will be penalized for copying down information word-for-word from the books; indeed, there are issues of plagiarism to consider too (see Chapter 5). You will need to be very familiar with the texts that you are expected to use so that you can go straight to relevant sections, otherwise you will spend a lot of time in the examination searching for the information.
In both these types of examination, you will be given marks for how you analyse the information and use it to develop a logical argument, and not for merely describing the information.
An open-book examination allows you to rely on the printed word for details; what it is testing is not your memory but how you can use the information to make a rational argument or analyse an issue.
A seen examination gives you time to gather relevant material and evidence and to think about the presentation and structure of your answer. Accordingly, the examination markers will expect you to present a more considered answer than in an unseen examination.
Practical examinations
Many nursing and midwifery courses now incorporate examinations of practical nursing skills into their assessments. The objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) are one type of practical assessment of nursing practice competence (Harden, 1988; Nicol and Bavin, 1999). During an OSCE, students rotate around a number of time-limited stations. These may comprise a patient scenario or situation devised to assess particular skills (e.g. taking blood pressure, assessing respiratory function or carrying out cardiopulmonary resuscitation), or the student might be required to complete a short, written assessment or interpret some clinical results. An examiner is present at each station, observing and scoring the performance according to predetermined objective criteria. The scoring systems used for OSCEs vary; an example scoring sheet indicating the criteria for a urine-testing station is shown in Figure 7.1.
Online examinations
Web-based course tools such as WebCT and Blackboard (http://www.blackboard.com) and software such as Questionmark (http://www.questionmark.com) enable examinations to be put online. The advantage of computerized examinations is that marking is done automatically within the computer application and a list of marks can be generated very quickly. Questions tend to be multiple-choice or fill-in-the-gap formats.
Viva voce examinations
Viva voce examinations are normally used to supplement other forms of assessment, such as dissertations. They normally take the form of interviews, in which students are questioned about selected sections of a piece of written work. Usually, a viva is used to convince examiners that a student is the ‘owner’ of a piece of work on the basis that the student can talk about it with familiarity and a certain amount of conviction. Vivas have often been used to help make decisions about borderline cases in degree award classifications and, less frequently, as a form of course assessment.
Examination preparation
At the start of the course
All students are supplied with course information, including learning outcomes or objectives, at the start of the course. You should also obtain information about the course assessments. Make sure you get as much information about the format of the examination (such as the number of papers, the length of the examinations and the types of question in the examination paper) as you can. This will help you to plan your revision and practise appropriate types of question when the time comes. It is also worth checking on the internet for web pages relating to the subject you are studying. More and more online nursing databases and sources of evidence for practice are being developed. Intute is a computer gateway to high-quality internet resources with a specific section related to health disciplines (http://www.intute.ac.uk/healthandlifesciences/nursing/). Intute provides only high-quality resources that have been through an academic review process. A number of open-access repositories contain free online resources and learning activities (sometimes called reusable learning objects or RLOs) to support your learning and revi-sion (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nmp/sonet/rlos; http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/). Adding useful, high-quality web addresses to your list of favourites on your computer at this stage can save you time later when you are supplementing your notes, revising or looking for practice examination questions (see Chapter 5).
During the course
You will save time during your revision period if you follow the points listed below. Many students fall into the trap of thinking that they understood a teaching session until it comes to revising the material and then the concepts seem less clear. They then use their valuable revision time trying to make sense of the material, and they may have to seek assistance, perhaps from a lecturer – again, this can be very time consuming. By reviewing the lecture notes soon after the session you will ensure that you know whether you need to spend a little more time understanding the material and adding to your notes. A good test of your comprehension of the material is to try to write down a few key points to summarize the material covered in the session. You can then spend 5–10 minutes reading through these key points during the rest of the course. If you have had other coursework marked, use the lecturer’s feedback to identify gaps in your knowledge or ways you need to improve your writing style.
• Make good notes and make sure they are complete (see Chapter 5)
• Review and summarize lecture notes as soon after the lecture as you can (see Chapter 5))
• Spend time understanding the material
• Read through summaries and key points regularly
• Learn from feedback from other assignments
• Underline and make marginal notes in your textbook or on handouts
• Link theory and practice components (see Chapter 10 and Chapter 11)
You will save yourself time during your revision period if you have underlined and made marginal notes in your textbooks or on handouts when you review and summarize your notes. This way, if there are points you need to check through again you will be able to go straight to the relevant sections of the textbook or handout. Even at this point you could give some thought to when you will begin your revision period. Some courses build a revision period into the timetable but you need to consider whether this is an appropriate length of time for you. At least provisionally planning your revision time at this stage means you are less likely to put off the revision planning as the course comes to an end, and you become more anxious about the impending examinations.
The final point in this section is about relating the theory and practice components of the course. Information is often much easier to remember when its use and relevance is seen in a ‘real situation’. If you have a period of nursing or midwifery practice, look at your course notes to see where there are links with what you have practised and what you have seen in practice. Add marginal notes to remind you of these links (see Chapter 11).
At whatever stage you are at in your course, use the checklist below to find out how prepared you are for an impending examination. Have you:
At whatever stage you are at in your course, use the checklist below to find out how prepared you are for an impending examination. Have you:• Read through the module objectives/learning outcomes?
• Checked the length and format of the examination?
• Got your notes up to date and complete?
• Supplemented notes using texts and websites?
• Made marginal notes about links with practice?
• Obtained practice examination papers?
Revision techniques
Your revision time is precious. It is a time for consolidating and organizing in your mind the material you have studied. You should not allow yourself to start looking at new information. Retaining a positive attitude at this stage is very important. Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your head; this will affect your concentration and reduce your efficiency.
There is no universal revision technique that suits everyone. The method you choose will depend on your personal preferences in the way you work and the type of course you are revising. You should also consider the format of the examination paper before you plan your revision strategy. A multiple-choice paper will cover a greater breadth of material than will a paper offering a choice of essay questions. This may influence whether you revise the whole course or focus on a number of key topics. If you have dyslexia the general rules for revising are no different to everybody else – you need to find the revision strategy that suits you best. The revision techniques will depend on whether dyslexia affects how you decode new words (dysphonetic dyslexia) or process visual information (dyseidetic dyslexia) and whether you have problems sequencing information. These will be addressed specifically in the following sections.
Planning your revision timetable
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