How to Get an A*

Mark Gillard asks just how brilliant do you have to be to get an A* in the exams?

Well, the short answer is that brilliance helps but it’s not mandatory. The way to get a high grade is by being well organised and having a good exam technique. And this isn’t rocket science! Its a game ,really, but you have to be good at the game! Read on…...

Here are a few pointers…..

So you’re in the exam room , the invigilators have spoken and its time to turn over that paper. So what do you do first? Well at the risk of sounding banal , read the paper carefully , then when you’ve calmed down read it again even more carefully! At this point Sod’s law will come into play.Sod’s law states that you will glance around and will note that the person next to you has already written a side and a half and you’re still chewing your pen….........IGNORE HER .......she has gone temporarily crazy and is writing about what she did on her holidays!
So , back to the paper…

First adopt ruthless time management. What do I mean by this? Well let’s suppose that there are five questions weighted 2 marks , 4 marks, 6 marks , 8 marks , and then two 20 mark essays. And you’ve got 60 minutes to complete the paper. Simple , if this does not appear simple you didn’t do well in GCSE maths did you? Its a mark a minute. You should spend 2 minutes on the first question , 4 minutes on the second question , and so on. You will spend most , two thirds of your time writing the essays , because this is where the marks are.

Remember to write a plan for your essays. Every year a few students , usually the ones who do badly , tell me that they don’t do plans! Actually that’s not what they mean. What they mean is they don’t do written plans. Written plans are a good idea because , given you are pretty stressed , they keep you on task. A plan can consist of ten words and take 45 seconds to scribble down. You need an intro , 4 or 5 points and a conclusion. There’s no time for much more. And if you do a plan you can spend more time writing and less time looking out of the window ‘deep in thought’!

Always , always , ALWAYS complete the paper. There are no excuses for not doing the last question , particularly if its a 20 mark question. Why is this , I hear you say? Well , contrary to what some of you might think , examiners are reasonable human beings and when they mark your paper they will want to give credit where credit is due. And if you write two or three paragraphs that have something to do with the question you will get a few marks. And given the often tight grade bands that could be the difference between a B and a D. Good luck!