First Exam

Tomorrow is the first A-level chemistry exam. What advice can I give if you are sitting down tomorrow morning?

We can start with revision. If you don't know it now, you're not going to learn it overnight. If you start reading notes or trying to do past papers, you will almost certainly find something you think you don't know. This will send you into a panic and you will start forgetting other things. At this stage, you have to accept that you have adequately revised up to this point and you are going to answer the questions to the best of your ability. Tonight is the night to relax and unwind. Pack your bag, making sure you have everything you need. Lots of schools provide equipment such as calculators if you need them but it is far better to have your own which you know how to use. Do something you enjoy. Read a book, take a warm bath or go for a light walk. Then, get an early night.

The exam is in the morning which means less time to stress about it. Get up in plenty of time, have breakfast and make your way to the exam hall early. If you can avoid taking your mobile phone to the exam, do so. Mobile phones and other communication devices (including smart watches) are the single biggest category of exam malpractice. Avoid standing round discussing what you have revised and what you think might come up. Nobody knows what is on the paper and all you can do is get yourself worked up thinking there is something you will be unable to tackle. When you get into the exam room, get all your equipment out and place it on the desk. Then place your bag in the designated area.

Write the required details on the front of the exam paper. When the exam starts, read through the entire paper. Find a question which you are very confident in being able to answer well and answer that first. It doesn't matter whether it is question 1 or question 15. The psychological boost of answering a question confidently will make the rest of the paper seem easier. Then work through the paper answering the questions you can, leaving any which you find really difficult. The idea is to do the questions in order of increasing difficulty and this is something personal to you. This will mean you do the paper in three or more passes. Pass one: easy stuff, pass two: most of the paper, pass three: the challenging bits.

Despite being oft-repeated, it is no less true that blank spaces gain no marks so if you can put something, ideally reasonably sensible, then that is better than writing nothing. But if you have put something, don't risk waffling on. If you write something correct, and then contradict it, you lose the marks you would have got. When you've done all of that, read through the paper and check for silly mistakes.

Many people finish the exam and then rush out of the exam room to discuss what they did. This serves no purpose whatsoever. Let's examine the possibilities.

1. You and a friend have put the same thing which was correct. Hooray, but that would have been the case had you not discussed it.

2. You and a friend have put the same thing and it was incorrect. There is nothing you can do about it so you will start worrying about whether you have got enough marks on the rest of the paper.

3. You and a friend have put something different. Whoever is correct, see 1. Whoever is incorrect, see 2.

The long and the short of it is, you cannot do anything about the answers you have put. Even if you remember every question and exactly what you have written, and meticulously check that against your notes when you come out, there is still nothing you can do about it. And if your memory is that good, it is unlikely you will have a problem.

Now, it's time to prepare for paper 2.