Time Management Exam Preparation

Common wisdom dictates that one shall never walk into an exam unprepared or under prepared. There is no chance that you can simply guess a solution right. Solutions must come from what you have learned. Preparing for exams is much easier and less time consuming if you keep up with the progress of a course and review and do homework assignments promptly. StiU a plan for preparation for an exam is always beneficial. Shown below is a simple worksheet for exam preparation. 

The studying time needed is to be matched by the available time total. If you keep up with the course progress on weekly basis, then the time 

Devoted Study Time—Exam Date minus 1 Devoted Study Time—Exam Date minus 2 Devoted Study Time—Exam Date minus 3 Devoted Study Time—Exam Date minus 4 Devoted Study Time—Exam Date minus 5 Devoted Study Time—Exam Date minus 6 Devoted Study Time—Exam Date minus 7 

Your Need for Study Time. The knowledge embedded in mathematics and basic sciences courses and all the engineering sciences and civil engineering courses are cumulative in nature. Within each course the knowledge learned in this week may be needed to learn what is going to be covered in the next week and the weeks to follow. Another important feature of these courses is the new concepts and new tools introduced weekly. The new knowledge is to be understood thoroughly and remembered, and new tools need to be practiced and mastered. That means  

When you apply this rule, you can adjust both assumptions based on your own situation. We learned in the past that some students committed 70 hours or more a week instead of 60 hours. You may need more than three hours for some courses and fewer for some other courses. 

---

Prepare a revision timetable - an action plan that gives details of specific topics to be covered. Find out at an early stage when (and where) your exams are to be held, and plan your revision around this. Try to keep to your timetable. Time management during this period is as important as keeping to time during the exam itself... 

At the outset, determine or decide on the order in which you will tackle the questions. A question in the latter half of the paper may need to be started early on in the exam period (e.g. a preparation requiring a Ih reflux in a 3h exam). Such questions are included to test your forward-planning and time-management skills, e.g. you may need to take samples for measurement of reaction rates at 5 minute intervals, which can be done while the preparative part of the examination is occuring. 

---