Planning your way to an A grade

8 steps to an A grade:

1. Read everything: It's worth reading the whole exam paper very quickly from start to finish. That way you can get a feel for the questions and know exactly how much you've got to get done in an allocated time.
2. Choose carefully: Once you've read through the exam paper you'll know how many questions you need to answer. It's worth taking a few more minutes to decide which questions you think you can answer the best. A wrong hasty decision could cost you marks.
3. Plan your answer: Examiners say that time given to planning is an important factor in successful writing. Your plan is your route to organised writing and higher marks. It might be worth highlighting the key words in the question you have chosen and noting how many marks you get for each question. That should give you a rough guide to how long to spend on it.
4. Facts and figures: If you're writing an answer that requires you to quote facts, figures and quotations then make sure you include them! It sounds obvious but often people get so caught up in getting their answer down they forget to include all the important stuff!
5. Write clearly: Make sure you use a blue or black pen to write your answers and try to make sure your handwriting is legible. Remember examiners will mark hundreds of papers - you don't want to give them any excuse to mark you down.
6. Clock watch: Make sure you keep an eye on the time as you're going through the exam paper. You should have a rough idea how long to spend on each section and try not to go over that or you may not finish it in time.
7. Answer all questions: Again it sounds simple but you'd be surprised how many students don't read the instructions or don't check the last page of the exam paper and end up missing valuable marks.

8. Remember what you've learned: You will do many practise questions and paper in the lead up to the exams. And, whilst you won't get the exact same questions in your real exams you will be able to apply some of the things you've learnt and try not to make the same mistakes again.

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