Hi, I've done a couple of past papers under timed conditions now and I'm struggling to gauge: 1) How much time should be spent planning answers before writing up 2) To what extent should answers be planned out, i.e. do you write down all the acronyms and headers and leave it there, or do you put down everything you can think of? 3) Do you go through the paper twice or do you plan as you go along? I'm finding that by going through the paper and planning, I'm not having enough time to then go back through the paper and write it all up. Any tips/advice would be very much appreciated! Thanks, Fran
Take a step back. Let's start with the reading time. For me, on the rough paper or exam paper quickly dump down some key acronyms so you have them to refer to. Next look at the questions with lots of marks and work out the key words and scenarios then note the relevant bits of the acronym against each. Note relevant. Sometimes some are not applicable in the scenario you have. You may also like to mind map so you trigger other ideas. When in the exam, quickly rattle off some short questions to boost confidence then hit the long ones. It's here your planning work most comes into play. You want to have a logical flow to your argument rather than jump around ideas. If you approach it haphazardly, you may miss something or repeat yourself. Don't worry overly about grammar - they are testing knowledge and application not your command of English. So I agree you haven't time to rewrite answers 'neatly'. If it's a process try writing in steps. Consider bullets. If it's a question say what factors to consider, go for the important ones first. You've still a bit of time to practise technique and I definitely recommend you do that.
Thank you bystander, this is really useful. I think you're right with the approach. I think I am just a slow writer, I'm going to practice a few more papers and hopefully I can speed up a bit! Thanks
Adrenalin helps speed on the day too so don't get too anxious now if it takes 3 hrs 15 mins to do a practise run. One other last thought, if you are overrunning on time proportionally by number of marks, remember the last few marks on any question are the hardest to get. So get the easy and important ones down first, and move on if time is against you. You can always come back if you do have spare time hence leave white space.
