Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz

Throughout the course The best way to succeed in examinations is to prepare for them throughout the course. The more you know when you enter the revision period as the examination approaches the better you will perform in the examination itself. For this reason, the first part of this paper reviews general principles determining what is remembered, and the best ways to exploit these principles throughout the course. However, if you are reading this as the examination is approaching, do not despair! Remember the tactics that are described here when you are studying in the future, but for now adopt the strategies for making the most of your revision. This paper is written as practical advice and references to research publications have been omitted except for a bibliography at the end. However, all of the advice given in the paper is supported by extensive psychological research. The key issues that need to be incorporated into your study are understanding, elaboration, organisation, explaining, and exploiting suitably spaced intervals for retrieval practice. As you go through a course you need to Understood what was being taught Elaborate your new knowledge by thinking through its implications Ask "how does it relate to what I already know?" If your new knowledge and your existing knowledge have an organised structure, and if you have regularly reviewed your new knowledge by explaining it in detail to others (or to yourself) after intervals which have required you to recall the knowledge afresh each time, then you should have little difficulty in revising for the examination. We learn best new information that we fully understand. The more that we have thought through what we have learned, forming a memory that is elaborate with extra details and which integrates the new knowledge with all of the possible associations with our existing knowledge the more easily the new knowledge will be cued through those associations when it is needed. The new memory is strengthened each time it is retrieved, provided that the act of retrieval is not too easy. In general, the longer the interval between each recall attempt the stronger the memory becomes. Also, remembering in response to different questions or cues helps to make the memory stronger. Therefore, testing yourself on what you can remember of a topic is a particularly effective way of equipping yourself for an eventual examination. Immediate testing can be helpful, though, in that it draws your attention to information that you have not learned, but it does less to increase your ease of recall in the future than a longer interval. Explaining the new knowledge to someone else is a particularly effective way of helping you to not only practice its retrieval but to attend to its place in a wider framework of meaningful associations that will subsequently help you to remember it easily when required. Explaining and testing offer another important benefit they give you practice in putting your knowledge into words. Following an exam students often say "I knew that, I just could not think how to say it." It's important to both know the concepts and know how to put them into words. Avoid the recognition trap. Many students when revising read and re-read their notes, lecture slides, chapters and other material. The second time that you read the material you will recognise it. At that point, it seems almost impossible that you will not be able to recall it when the exam comes. This is the recognition trap. It is normally much easier to recognise that we have seen something before than it is to recall it in all its detail. So, successful recognition gives a false sense of knowledge. But the trap is worse than this. If the material is recognised at each reading it is making little contribution to increasing the likelihood that you will remember it in the future.

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising There may be some benefits from the re-reading if you, for example, see relationships and implications that you had missed earlier, but, in general, that re-reading is doing very little to help you in the coming examination. However, if you test yourself as you go through instead of rereading you will be forced to recall the information and strengthen the memory. Not only that, but you will soon identify what you have not learned so far. Then is the time to read again to correct and complete your knowledge. Planning your revision Draw up a realistic plan for using the time for revision. Plan to review each of your courses early in your schedule Plan to return to each of them several times Your first session on a topic you should read carefully through the relevant materials and make notes for future sessions Most of your later sessions should be mainly actively testing yourself You need to allow long enough in each session to get to grips with the topic You need short enough sessions on one topic to avoid boredom Build in plenty of time, perhaps a third of that available, for unexpected delays in your revision because all sorts of unpredicted problems may arise Be flexible in your schedule if switching topic helps motivate you and is not procrastination Plan for time off so you can unwind and forget exams for a few hours.

2 Past papers can often be obtained and it is worth looking at those from recent years. Some courses, for example, PSYC101, do not make past papers available because the papers include multiple choice questions that are time-consuming to devise so that some questions are used in later years. However, even where a paper is not available there should be a guide to the structure of the examination, as has been provided on LUVLE for PSYC101 and PSYC102. Past papers are useful in a number of ways. They show you the sort of examination you will be facing and they give you the chance to test your ability to answer the questions. Past papers help you to see what has been the focus of questions on the course in the past. It is unlikely that the same essay questions will be set from one year to the next, but questions may return after a few years. Most importantly, they give you a guide to the way that the questions are likely to be phrased. Students often panic when they encounter a question on an old exam paper that seems to be on a topic that they do not remember being taught. If you have been attending the lectures and you have checked what was covered in the course it is very likely that the course and probably the lecturer has changed between the present and the past year. Normally, several staff join or leave a course each year, and what they teach changes with them. Even more useful than past papers are the collected teaching materials from the course. These contain what the staff setting the questions will draw upon for the examination but more importantly the organisation and emphasis of the lectures should let you know what the tutors believe to be the important components of the course. These are the ones that are most likely to feature in the examination questions. Examine each lecture and each seminar topic. Identify their main themes. These are likely candidates for essay questions. Examine in more detail the assigned readings and each lecture for the points that were the focus using your notes alongside lecture slides, handouts, and any aids in the reading assignments. It will be from these points

Reviewing your resources There are several things to be brought together to make the most of your revision. There are all the course materials, including your own notes, slideshows from lectures, seminar briefing documents and so on. But before sitting down to try to memorise all of these you should examine carefully the form of the examination that you will be sitting. There are two good guides to this: the contents of the course itself and past papers.

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising that the lecturer will select questions for the multiple choice tests. Remember that examinations test just a sample of your knowledge. There will be many things that you learn that will not appear in the examinations, but that is as it should be there should be much more useful knowledge communicated in a course than can be tested in a single examination. Some revision strategies Question notes Revision notes When you are reading through the course material for the first time you should make notes that you can use later in your revision. Merely making the notes will help your learning, but the key objective is to prepare notes that you can use when testing yourself during later revision sessions. Produce at least two different types of notes: summary notes and question notes. Summary notes For these, try to summarize the main points of each lecture or reading assignment as you go along. Try to answer the following questions for each paragraph or two of a textbook and each slide or two of the lectures What was the topic of this section? What do you already know or understand about this topic? How does the new information alter, challenge or supplement your previous knowledge? What is your view on this topic? What makes this topic interesting? (If not to you at this point, perhaps to someone else) How is this topic related to the main theme(s) of the lecture/chapter? How is this topic related to other topics and themes in the lecture/chapter? When looking at a lecture, how does this topic relate to reading assignments? When looking at reading assignments, how does this topic relate to lecture material? Do you know anything from other lectures or reading from elsewhere in the course that is relevant to evaluating this theme?

When you have summarized a topic, write a single page summary of key terms and overall structure. Do not include a great deal of detail; just provide key terms and structure notes (using outlines, flowcharts, spider diagrams, or whatever works for you). You will be able to use this page to cue and test your recall of the whole topic. It can be useful both for testing yourself and for a final revision session just before the exam.

Develop as full as possible a set of specific questions and cues from the course material that you can use when testing your memory for the details of the course. This is particularly important as revision for the multiple choice tests, which form a large part of the PSYC101 and PSYC102 examinations. 1. One good option is to use index cards that allow you to write a question on one side and the answer on the other. Go through each lecture and reading assignment identifying the more important points that you need to learn and write questions and answers for them. a. It is worth coding each set of cards in some way so that you can sort them by topic or lecture if they have been shuffled. b. Remember that for the multiple choice examinations the questions need to be quite specific, for example: - "The failure of bystanders to intervene in an emergency is often the result of" - "Bransford & Franks (1971) found which of the following sentences to be incorrectly reported with the most confidence as having been presented in their study of semantic integration?" Use the cards to test yourself; when you feel that you know something well, set the card aside. Review those set aside cards sometime much later. If you recall the information then, you can be more confident that you know it; if you cannot recall it, then you know that you need more practice with the card.

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising 2. Another useful alternative is to build your own slideshows with questions and answers on alternate slides. You can then run through the show or exchange it with friends. You can use these slideshows like the cards described above. When you are confident you have learned something, use the slide sorter to move it to the end of the slideshow, past a slide that says you have finished. Then run through those well learned slides again sometime much later, and move those you miss back to the main part of the slideshow. 3. Remember that testing of each topic is best if it is carried out several times during your revision with spacing between each test. a. You might test later the same day the first time but a day or so later the next time and then after several days. b. Each test helps strengthen your memory. A successful final test near the examination will both remind you of the answers and give you confidence for the exam. Preparing for the multiple choice examinations At first sight it can seem very challenging to prepare for a multiple choice examination that can be testing details from any part of the course. However, there are some ways you can prepare for such a test. It is most likely that the question stems will be based on important facts taught during the course. You can make a good guess at the likely candidates for questions by going through your notes, lecture slides and handouts and reading assignments, noting down the more important facts that were introduced. Ideally, some multiple choice questions test more than just factual knowledge, by extending that knowledge to test its application. However, many staff find it quicker to construct factual questions. When using slideshows and lecture notes, eliminate material that was introduced either for entertainment or as examples rather than ones describing main factual points.

4 The facts that you are learning are usually associated with particular publications. Unlike some other subjects, you are expected in psychology to learn who carried out which experiment and the year in which it was published. Questions testing names and dates are often attractive to examiners because they are easy to construct o the distracter alternatives are easy to construct too they will be the names and dates of other researchers you may have encountered.

Create your own multiple choice tests One recommended strategy is to construct multiple choice questions yourself. Then you can exchange these with friends or test yourself at a later date. Tests you construct from the lecture materials and reading assignments are likely to include some questions that will be on the examination. Even those that are not will give you practice at tackling multiple choice questions. It is easy to put together your own slideshow of test items. You can cut and paste from electronic materials (slideshows, handouts). Creating your own test items not only helps you to learn the material and to test yourself or a friend later, it makes you aware of the problems faced by the staff member when creating the exam questions. That can help you eliminate some possible areas because they are very difficult for constructing test questions. Make up as many questions as you can and put them away for a few days, or swop with a friend. Using mnemonic systems to help learning and revision Much that you will be trying to learn for the examinations is fundamentally meaningful and has a logical structure even though at first this may not seem obvious! Learning strategies that encourage you to seek for that meaning and structure are the best, and retrieval practice will help your ability to recall what you have learned when necessary. However, there are always some aspects of what you have to learn that do not have an inherent meaning and structure but

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising nevertheless have to be memorized. For this sort of material the traditional mnemonic methods can be very helpful. The most powerful mnemonic techniques use mental imagery to link together items to be remembered, usually also exploiting a known cue to initially retrieve the image. For more than two thousand years these imagery mnemonics have been the basis of most of the exceptional memory performances by professional memory experts. The sections below describe the bases of these techniques. People who seriously adopt and apply them are almost always impressed by their effectiveness. The images provide the associations, and the cues provide the access, that meaningful material normally possesses but which is missing from, for example the links between names, dates and experimenters when learning psychological citations. That is why repeated research by psychologists has found that the amount that can be learned in a given time is routinely doubled by adopting these imagery mnemonics. As part of describing the use of an imagery technique to learn names and dates we also describe a method of making the learning of numbers more meaningful and therefore, more successful. Then, there is a brief discussion of other mnemonic techniques. These include the use of rhymes and first letter mnemonics. In general, these have been found to be helpful when studied experimentally, but they are less flexible and less powerful than the use of imagery. Learning the names, dates and details of experiments One of the more daunting challenges of revising for psychology examinations is memorizing the details of experiments. Being able to include lots of appropriate citations is a very important step towards getting high marks in psychology examinations and multiple choice examination questions often involve details of experiments. The spaced self-testing revision strategies that are recommended above will go a long way towards learning details of experiments, but you might want to adopt one or more of the following strategies as well, especially to help you

5 remember the names and dates. These strategies may seem a little odd, but research has shown them to be very effective. Most people doubt the benefits of the imagery mnemonic strategies until they try them for themselves. Then, most people are very surprised how effective they are in helping to recall difficult to learn material. Linkword Images Every experiment that you will need to remember has three components. There are the names of the experimenters, the year of publication and the topic of the experiment. At most, you have to remember two experimenters' names, because if there are more than two you just need the first name with 'et al.' The problem with learning these names, dates and topics at an early stage in your psychology education is that there is no natural connection between the three and names and dates are rather abstract and easily forgotten or confused. (Later, as you come to know about leading psychologists' research and collaborations, the names and dates become more meaningful, but at first you must rely on memorizing.) The imagery linkword mnemonic involves forming images that link together the name, the topic and the date. The simplest element of this is the topic. You need to find some concrete, easy to image aspect of the topic to remind you of the topic later. The name, similarly, requires you to think of some similar sounding concrete, easily imaged representation for the name. So, for example, to remember Bartlett's War of the Ghosts story you could form an image of Bart Simpson fighting ghosts. Note that it is not necessary for the full name of Bartlett to be incorporated into the image if Bart is sufficient to cue it. However, if necessary you could add a 'To Let' sign as the weapon that Bart was using to fight off the ghosts1.
To Let

The Bart Simpson image is copyright protected. This image was copied from a website (dctobc.com/2009/04/bout-bart-simpson/). Permission for the use of this image has not yet been obtained.

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising All this can sound fanciful and time consuming. However, the images provide a way of associating what is inherently unconnected in a linking, meaningful and amusing way. By so doing they overcome the deficiencies of the difficult to associate facts. The Phonetic mnemonic for learning numbers This technique involves converting each digit to a consonant sound and then other, usually vowel, sounds are inserted to make common words that are easy to image. So, for example, in the phonetic alphabet the digit 2 is replaced by a "n" sound and 3 by a "m" sound. Then the number 32 might represented by moon or man by inserting an "oo" or "a" sound respectively. Bartlett published his work reporting recall of the War of the Ghosts in 1932. So you could form an image of Bart Simpson, holding his To Let sign sitting on the moon to remember that date.

6 Note that it is the sounds, not the letters, that are substituted, and that any sound can be inserted that is not one of the conversion consonants. In the appendix there is a list of three possible words that you could use to remember each of the numbers between 0 and 100. Because most psychological research that you have been taught was published between 1911 and 2011 it is not normally necessary to remember the first two digits of the year in which a paper was published. Therefore, creating an image to represent the last two digits in a date is normally all that is required. The list of words in the appendix are just some of those possible for each two digit number, and you should select ones for yourself that you like normally ones that are easy to image and amusing. The peg word system The phonetic conversion system not only allows you to convert numbers into imagable concrete objects, it also forms the basis of one of the most powerful mnemonic techniques, the Peg mnemonic. Exponents of the Peg mnemonic learn 'pegs' for the numbers from 1 to 100 or more. The pegs are formed using the phonetic conversion system and so are easy to learn or to reconstruct if forgotten. We have already seen that 32 can be represented by moon, which could be used as the peg for 32. When using the mnemonic the memoriser recalls the first peg that they have chosen to use (perhaps toy) and forms an image linking the first thing to be remembered with a toy. The second peg might be inn, and the second thing to be remembered would be imagined in an inn. The thirty second thing would be imaged with a moon, and so on. You can use the peg word system without first memorising all of the peg words. It is rare to need to remember more than twenty or so things, so just learning 20 peg words gives you the opportunity for learning up to 20 key pieces of information to be recalled in order. Research has shown that you can use the same pegs repeatedly for many lists without problems.

The full set of digit/consonant sound conversions are shown in Table 1, along with memory aids to learning the conversions. Table 1. Phonetic alphabet: Digits, corresponding consonant sounds, and a memory aid for each Digit Consonant Memory Aid Sound 0 z, s, soft c Z for Zero 1 t, th, d T has one downstroke 2 n Two downstrokes 3 m Three downstrokes 4 r Last sound in "four" 5 l "L" is Roman numeral for 50 6 j, sh, ch, soft g J reversed resembles 6 7 k, q, hard c, K incorporates a hard g backward 7 8 f, v Script f (f) resembles 8 9 p, b P is mirror image of 9

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising Stories, elaboration and associations Some people do not like mnemonics that use mental imagery, perhaps because people differ in how well they can form mental images, making this approach less helpful for a few people. The imagery mnemonics are effective not specifically because of their use of imagery but because the images provide a way of making memorable connections among otherwise disconnected elements that need to be remembered. Much the same results can be achieved without images but by concentrating on creating elaborate stories and associations to the material to be remembered. Elaborating and creating associations by embedding in a meaningful story have both been shown to be powerful ways of improving memory. One strategy that you might use to link together key words to be remembered is by inventing a story that incorporates them. This may seem like asking your memory to remember unnecessary information. However, in practice, the stories provide a framework for the recall of information that is otherwise disconnected, and therefore difficult to remember. The results can be a daft scenario or story, but still helpful for your memory. For example:
She was just 19 and he was 32 but they enjoyed spending evenings together at the BAR that was TO LET exchanging GHOST stories.

7 Rhymes, Acronyms and first letter mnemonics Most of us use rhymes for remembering some facts. For example, the rhyme beginning "Thirty days hath September, April, June and November..." is used by many to remember the number of days in each month. These rhymes have been shown to be effective insofar as the rhythm and the rhymes reduce the possibilities for words to fit into the sequence. If you like or are good at making up such rhymes you could use them as part of your revision. Acronyms use the first letter of each word to remind you of the words you are trying to remember. First letter mnemonics are similar but they use the first letter of each word to be remembered to create a new word. So, for example, an acronym for remembering the order of the colours of the rainbow is "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain" for the colours Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. The same order of colours can be cued by the first letter mnemonic "Roy G Biv". Research on acronyms and first letter mnemonics has shown that they can be very helpful when trying to remember the order of the things being learned, but that they are not very effective where you are just trying to remember new words and are not interested in the order. As with rhymes, if you enjoy making up acronyms or first letter mnemonics and there are facts to be learned that are suitable then you could create your own to help your learning. You can also use first letter mnenomics to help you remember the key points that need to be made in an argument. For example, if you anticipate an exam question about the evidence and arguments pertinent to evaluating Bowlby's theory of attachment, you can outline your key arguments and evidence as you would want to present them in a clear essay, assign a key word to each element in that essay, and use a first letter acronym to help you remember all of the elements. When applying these sorts of mnemonics in an exam, use a work sheet to jot down your letters and then your keywords before you begin writing

Names are usually hard for people to remember, partly because we do not think about the meaning that could be found in all or part of the name. Elaborating on the name and drawing out its similarity to other meaningful information that we already know has been shown to be an effective method for learning the name. For example, we have already seen how the name Bartlett can be thought of as Bart (maybe Bart Simpson or some other Bart you might know) and let, with all that could be thought about letting houses, rooms etc. Considering names to be remembered in this way - looking for possible meaning in the name or in part of the name - is very helpful in learning the name. This approach can be combined with other techniques, such as spaced retrieval, to improve the ease with which the name is memorised.

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising out the argument. You can refer back to them without fear of forgetting important points that you want to make. Revising with others Although much of the study for an examination has to be done on your own, it can be very successful to arrange to spend some time with one or two friends to revise together. It gives each of you a chance to explain parts of the course to each other, taking it in turns. Remember, explaining in detail to someone else is a very effective way for you to learn the material that you are explaining. It can feel embarrassing at first, but if the group are friends it soon becomes easier. If you think that you are putting in more work than the others, do not let this put you off. Although the listeners benefit from hearing what the person explaining says, it is the one who is explaining who remembers most from the experience. There are many ways that the group can work together, for example, by brainstorming answers to questions. Unlike essays, there is no issue of plagiarism even if you all answer an essay question in a similar way. In practice, a marker would be unlikely to notice, given the large number of answers to be marked, but in any case, each of you would get the credit for a good answer. Even if you are not able to work with others it is still a good idea to try teaching an imaginary person or audience - or a spot on your bedroom wall! The thinking that you do when you are explaining a topic not only strengthens your memory of it but it identifies gaps in your knowledge and brings home where there are parts of the course that you did not fully understand or could not quite put into words. Preparing for the examination Don't try to be too clever in question spotting or by revising only a small part of the course. The examiners are not out to trick you but they do expect you to have properly studied the entire course. Multiple choice questions will be based on all parts of the course. Essay questions typically

8 sample from the course, which means that some parts of the course may be represented in the exam essay questions and other parts may be left out. Practice answering examination questions, writing the answers in the time that you will have available in the examination. This will help you to know how long it takes you to write your answers and to therefore prepare your answers appropriately. It will also be practice at writing for the length of time required for the examination. Look at your handwriting after answering the practice questions. Will the markers be able to read it? They are entitled to ignore illegible answers, even though they usually make very serious efforts to read what has been written. On the other hand, do not be obsessed with writing very clearly and slowing yourself down unnecessarily by doing so. Ask friends to read some of your normal fast writing aloud to see if it is readable. In addition to practicing writing full answers you should practice constructing the answers to other questions without spending the time having to write out the full answer. Remember that markers like answers that are well constructed, telling a well organised story with a clear introduction and conclusion. Practice preparing such frameworks for answers. Last minute revision Sometimes students are told that last minute revision is detrimental. There is no evidence for this. In fact, last minute revision can be very effective for very short term learning. If you find yourself unprepared near the last minute, apply the advice in this paper and cram as effectively as you can. It will make a big difference in your exam score, but unless you continue to revise the material over the summer, you will have forgotten almost all of it before the next academic year begins. For longer term learning and to make your studies next year more productive and easier it is best to have done all of the revision that you will need before the time of the exam. Even so, a

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising last minute review of your summaries, perhaps some of your index cards, and perhaps your first letter mnemonics can both help to refresh your memory and to reduce your anxiety. By showing yourself that you can recall the important parts of the course, you can go into the exam with confidence. During the examination Reading the questions The easiest way to lose marks in an examination is to fail to answer the question that has been set. Read each question through very carefully. Try to work out the examiner's aim in setting the questions. Make brief notes on the test paper. Don't get misled by a key word that you wanted to see into writing an answer that is not really about the actual question that is set. Questions with two or more parts Many questions have two or more parts and the marker will be assigning marks on the basis of your answering all of the parts. Often, the second part of a question asks for more thought than the first part, which is normally a request for a review of some topic. Think about both parts and make brief notes to yourself before beginning your answer. Make sure that you do attempt the second part and show clearly that you have answered it by incorporating some of the wording of that part of the question in your answer. You can offer subheadings in your answer, to make the distinction very clear. Allow plenty of time to answer the second part of the question, even if you have to cut short your answer to the first part. Organising your answer Organise your essay carefully Make sure that you convey that organisation to the marker. o You can use highlighters to help show the structure of your answer o underline key points o provide subheadings

9 o use bullet points to introduce a series of points that you will elaborate (but remember to elaborate them) Just as with coursework essays, plan an introduction that crisply and clearly explains your orientation to the question and a conclusion that brings together at the end the key points of your argument without introducing new issues. Between the introduction and the conclusion, plan out a logical presentation of the facts and arguments. Leave a few blank lines at the bottom of each page, to allow you to easily go back and insert any forgotten points later. Take control of the answer Many students see a question that they can answer and just reproduce what they have studied in the same order. That makes many answers the same and gives the marker the sense that the students have just been taken over by the information. On the other hand, some answers show that the student has spent time thinking about what the question is really after, what they know to answer it and, in general, the student takes control with a well structured and well reasoned answer. Such answers earn higher marks. Feel able to give your own thoughts But do so in a way that is justified as much as possible by supporting evidence or arguments. It is fine to disagree with the person who taught the course, but you need to do so in a well argued, well supported way, taking into account both the arguments for an alternative view and those for the tutor's view. Show an active engagement with the question. One way to do that is to bring into the answer relevant material from elsewhere for example, from other parts of the course or from your own study. When this is done well it impresses examiners. You just need to make sure that what you report is relevant and well documented. On seeing the questions When students first see the examination questions there are two opposite reactions that can cause problems. One experience is to see

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising questions that you were expecting and have prepared for in detail. The other is to not see any questions that you expected. In the former case, the danger is that you will plunge into an answer that is your attempt to put down everything that you know on the topic. The danger here is that the question is often more specific than just asking for all you know on the topic. Whatever you write that is outside the scope of the question will get very little credit in the marking and will waste your valuable time. This is another case where you have to accept that you will not be showing the examiner that you know everything about a wide area. The examiner is only interested in a specific sample of your knowledge. It is very disheartening to look at an examination paper and not immediately see questions that you can answer. Rather than panicking, remind yourself that you are well prepared for the course as it has been taught. The exam questions will be appropriate to some part of the course. It just may take a little time to work out which part. Plus, if the exam seems difficult to you it will probably seem that way to everyone else. Markers adjust their marks to some extent in the light of how difficult the question has turned out to be and how well everyone has done in attempting their answers. So, a difficult set of questions does not mean that you will do badly provided you answer them as well as you can. Divide your time appropriately If there are several questions to be answered divide your time equally between them. If you are running out of time on an answer do write notes, but notes that are clear. Put in as many relevant citations as you can names and dates. If you cannot remember the date then give the name anyway. Make a special point of learning these names and dates. They are the building blocks of psychological thinking and they make a big difference to the impression that you convey to the marker. If you can only remember part of the name and/or date provide whatever you do remember; markers will recognize that you know where the evidence came from and that you could find the source outside the exam room.

10 Points you have missed Sometimes you will remember points that you wished that you had described earlier in the essay. Do not leave these out of our answer, but write out the section you missed and make very clear in some way where it should be read in the essay. The marker will follow your instructions and not think the worse of you we have all sat exams! Answering multiple choice questions when you are unsure of the answer The multiple choice tests in the PSYC101 and PSYC102 exams have four alternatives. Each correctly selected alternative scores one mark but a correction for guessing is applied that deducts a third of a mark for each incorrect answer. Why a third? If you knew nothing about the topic and randomly guessed every question then you would get, on average, 25 in every 100 questions correct. Those 25 marks are compensated by the mark that is subtracted for each of the 75 questions that you would get wrong. Because 75 x 1/3 = 25, a third of a mark is subtracted for each incorrect answer chosen. No marks are deducted for questions that are not attempted. Because of the correction for guessing, some students choose not to attempt questions where they do not know the answer. This is a poor strategy, because the worst that can happen is that you gain no benefit from your guessing. In practice it is usually possible to identify at least one of the alternatives that is unlikely to be the answer. In that situation, guessing between the remainder is statistically in your interest. One strategy when tackling the multiple choice questions that puzzle you is to initially mark on the question paper the alternatives that you are confident are not correct and then move on so that you can come back to the question later. When eliminating alternatives It is usually safe to delete ones that you do not recognise or seem out of place. The correct answer will have been part of the course. Foolish alternatives are usually incorrect. The person setting the questions was probably

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising bored or having a hard time constructing the alternatives! Watch out for negatives in the question stem (not, except etc). Options that contain '100%' words (never, none, best, worst etc.) are often distracters. The option "All of the above" is often (but not always) the correct answer. Where the alternatives are a list of numbers (2, 3, 4, 5, 6), test writers often (but not always) include one number lower and one higher than the correct answer. Items that look like other items except for one or two words tend to indicate the sort of answer in which the examiner was interested. Alternatives that are longer or include more elements tend to be the correct answers.

11 A short review of research on memory improvement techniques is Morris, P. E., & Fritz, C. O. (2006). How to ...Improve your memory The Psychologist, 19, 608-611. The chapters on Understanding and on Memory provide good advice and good examples in Bransford, J. D., & Stein, B. S. (1993). The IDEAL problem solver. New York: Freeman. Examples of using retrieval practice, meaningful associations and a linkword mnemonic see Fritz, C. O., Morris, P. E., Acton, M., Voelkel, A. R. & Etkind, R. (2007). Comparing and combining expanding retrieval practice and the keyword mnemonic for foreign vocabulary learning. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 499-526. Morris, P. E., Fritz, C. O., Jackson, L., Nichol, E., & Roberts, E. (2005). Strategies for learning proper names: Expanding retrieval practice, meaning and imagery Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 779-798. For general reviews of research on retrieval practice, see Roediger, H. L., III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of testing memory: Basic research and implications for education. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 181-210. Fritz, C. O. (2011) Testing, generation and spacing applied to education. In A. Benjamin (ed.) Essays in honor of Robert A. Bjork (pp.199216). New York: Psychology Press. For the effectiveness of the phonetic conversion alphabet, see Morris, P. E., & Greer, P. J. (1984). The effectiveness of the phonetic mnemonic system. Human Learning, 3, 137-142. For an evaluation of the contribution of first letter mnemonics, see Morris, P. E. & Cook, N. (1978). When do first letter mnemonics aid recall? British Journal of Educational Psychology, 48, 22-28.

Test anxiety Test anxiety is not entirely a bad thing. We become anxious when we need to perform because it heightens our physiological responses, enabling us to perform better. Of course, excessive anxiety makes people perform more poorly. So the trick is to get the level of anxiety right so that it helps rather than hinders your exam performance. If you know that you tend to be very anxious when you take an exam, build in some time to wind down just before hand. Study, if that helps you to avoid panic, until an hour or two before the exam and then stop studying and settle yourself down. You can tell yourself, truthfully, that there is nothing more that you can do to change your exam results, so you might as well take it easy. You could listen to soothing music or have a nice meal or something to relax you. Bibliography One book that offers a great deal of advice is Cottrell, S. (2007). The exam skills handbook: Achieving peak performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. A very good book on memory improvement written by a psychologist is Higbee, K. L. (2001). Your memory: How it works & how to improve it. New York: Marlowe.

Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011

Preparing for examinations: Studying and revising Appendix Peg word options for numbers 0 to 100
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 zoo, ice, saw tie, hat, toy hen, inn, wine ma, home, mow row, hair, arrow owl, hill, wheel shoe, witch, hedge cow, key, hook ivy, wave, wife bee, pie, boy toes, dice, daisy toad, teeth, tattoo tin, dawn, dune tomb, dam, thumb door, deer, tower towel, doll, hotel dish, dash, tissue dog, deck, duck dove, TV, thief tub, tape, tube nose, news, noose net, nut, nude nun, noon, onion gnome, name, enemy Nero, winner, Henry Nail, Nile, kneel Notch, winch, hinge Ink, Inca, neck Knife, Navy, knave Knob, nap Mice, moose, maze Mat, meat, mouth Moon, man, money Mom, mummy, mime Mayor, hammer, moor Mole, mill, mall Match, mesh, image Mug, mike, hammock Muff, movie Mop, map, mob Rose, horse, rice Heart, wart, wreath Rain, horn, heron, Worm, arm, Rome Warrior, rower, harrier Roll, rail, reel Rouge, rash, arch Rock, rake, rag Roof, reef, wharf Harp, rope, rib Lace, lasso, lice Lead, Light, wallet Lion, lawn, line 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 Loom, lamb, llama Lawyer, lair, lyre Lily, lolly, Lulu Ledge, leech, latch Log, lake, leg Loaf, elf, wolf Lip, lap, elbow Cheese, chess, juice Sheet, jet, shadow Chin, chain, gin Gem, gym, jam Jar, chair, shower Jewel, jail, jelly Judge, choo-choo, hashish Jug, chalk, chick Chef, chief, shave Ship, shop, sheep Case, goose, kiss Cat, coat, goat Cane, can, gun Comb, gum, game Car, crow, choir Eagle, glue, goal Cage, couch, coach Cake, cook, cock Calf, cave, coffee Cup, cap, cab Face, office, fuse Feet, vote, photo Fan, van, phone Foam, fame, fume Fairy, fire, fur Fly, flea, veil Fish, fudge, voyage Fig, fog, fake Five, fife VIP, fib, fob Pizza, bus, bees, Boat, bat, bed Pin, bone, pen Bomb, bum, puma Pear, beer, bar Apple, ball, bull Peach, beach, bush Bag, book, pig Beef, beehive, pave Baby, pipe, puppy Daises, disease, thesis

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Peter Morris and Catherine Fritz, 2011