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 Don't miss our second instalment of test-taking tips to help your child gear up for the exam season 
Check out Part 1 of test-taking tips here
1. Get a good night's sleep. However, great the temptation to study late into the night to cram in as much as possible, make sure you get at least 6-8 hours of sleep. If you've been revising regularly, a good night's sleep will help you to be sharp and alert during the test, so you can better recall what you need, when you need it.
2. Make a toilet pre-stop. Visit the toilet before sitting for the paper, so that you won't be distracted by your bathroom needs or waste time on loo visits once the clock starts ticking. Splashing cold water on your face before the exam starts (just be sure to wipe up) is also a quick pick-me-up to help you stay alert during the test.
3. ASK the invigilator for clarification if necessary. In a well-known episode of the 'Mr Bean' TV series, Mr Bean loses precious time and marks during an exam when he attempts an unfamiliar section, not knowing that the sections he had studied for are in another envelope! Students (especially younger ones) are sometime afraid to ask the invigilator (who may be someone unfamiliar to them) if there are not sure about certain instructions in the paper - DON'T be. Encourage your child to speak out and speak out early if there are doubts, so as not to waste time.
4. Make sure your handwriting can be read. Why lose precious marks because the marker cannot make out your handwriting? Though this increasingly 'computerised' age means that students are doing a lot more work using the keyboard, having legible writing is a must since examinations still reply very heavily on written work.
5. Choose the questions with the greatest number of marks first. After your quick overview of the paper (see tip in Part 1), you may have a sense of how 'doable' the questions are to you. Aside from choosing those questions that seem to be the easiest, also give priority to those that will help you gain more marks as well.
6. Plan your essays or long answers. Students may get so exhilarated when they see a seemingly straighforward or easy essay question that they start scribbling without proper planning. This can lead to forgotten details or result in 'backtracking' with inserted points here and there, which makes the submission messy AND hard to read. Always do a mindmap or jot down short pointers before you start. If you are really rushed for time, then at least try to write clearly with proper spacing in between so if you have to squeeze in additional points you still CAN.
7. Jot down the main principles and formulas on your 'rough paper'. This is especially useful for Maths and Science papers, if you may need to apply them frequently in the course of arriving at your answer. THis also prevents you from recalling wrong formulae or making transfer errors (often due to jitters) at some point during the test.
8. Focus on YOURSELF. Your child may have spent much time with his or her classmates chatting before the paper OR revising as a group in the days before the test. However, encourage your child to focus wholely on him or herself and the challenge ahead once seated in the test venue. Looking around at classmates is not just a distraction but can lead to more jitters. Worse still, you would not want to appear to be cheating or cause suspicion in any way.
9. Write your Full name CLEARLY. Do you want to have to prove that YOU wrote your own paper, or run the risk of getting your exam paper get mixed up with another classmate with a similar name? Don't take short cuts - write your full name e.g. Sandra Lee Mei Ling instead of Sandra Lee or Lee Mei Ling. As far as possible, write your name on each and every sheet of your submission too.
10. Your test, your pace. Granted that you have to work within the time allocated for the paper, don't get jittery or feel rushed if you see others finishing before you. It is better to be the last person to submit that one of the first few, only to wonder if you had made a mistake in trying to rush out the last few answers so that you could join your friends waiting outside the hall.
We hope you find the above tips useful! Don't forget to check these articles as well:
Get Exam-Smart – 10 essential test-taking tips
Countdown to PSLE - Get the Results you Want
100% for Maths? Yes you can!
Score in Science - 10 tips for better grades
Telling Tales the A+ Way - Composition-writing Hints
Stop losing marks to careless mistakes
Do you have more test-taking tips to share? Let us know.
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