Preparing for the exams

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Preparing for the exams

• Neil McLean
• LSE Teaching and Learning Centre

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Overview

• Professional writing
• University of London Exams
• Why students fail
• A game called exam
• Knowing the exam tasks / timings
• Training for the exam

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Tell us about a time when you worked in a team.
What was you role and what did you achieve?(200
words)

• My last internship position was at an EX Cast
  economic consultancy. This is a small, specialist
  consultancy that worked with a number of high
  profile clients such as Goldman Sachs, CSFB and
  Deutsche Bank. The company has experienced growth
  of over 20 year on year over the past 5 years
  and is considered a market leader in its sector.
  I worked in a dynamic team and was exposed to a
  number of different departments including sales,
  marketing and personnel. The team worked
  extremely effectively together. We worked on a
  wide variety of different projects which allowed
  me to use my interpersonal skills to the fore. In
  sales I liaised frequently with senior executives
  and this improved my communication skills to a
  considerable degree. The internship was
  successful and showed my commitment and loyalty
  to the sector.

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Good writing

• Clarity of purpose why are you writing / what
  does the reader need?
• Organisation logical flow of ideas
• Voice formality / how you sound to the reader
• Balance between the aspects of an argument
  (opinion reasoning / explanation support /
  evidence)
• Structure sentence length, syntax, of nouns
  etc.

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Tell us about a time when you worked in a team.
What was you role and what did you achieve?(200
words)

• I was an intern at Ex -cast economic consultancy
  for six weeks in the summer of 2006. I worked in
  a team of four, headed up by a senior partner.
• I attended meetings with my colleagues where we
  divided tasks according to our experience and
  skills. The major project we worked on was for
  CSFB, where we were asked to analyse and
  extrapolate trends in the ethical healthcare
  sector. Given my background in economics my role
  was to research one FTSE company in particular. I
  set about this by researching who the major
  investors and senior executives were and then
  approaching them to arrange meetings where I
  interviewed them. I fed this information back to
  my team by weekly presentations and then amended
  my analysis according to feedback from other team
  members. In the last week of the project all the
  teams research was polled into a final report. My
  role here was to proof read the final draft,
  correcting any errors and checking back with
  other team members to ensure all the statistics
  were accurate.
• The project was completed 2 days ahead of
  schedule and was considered successful by CSFB
  who have commissioned Ex - cast for further
  projects.

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Using academic writing to develop professional
skills

• Clarity of purpose answer the essay question
• Organisation dividing the answer into a logical
  flow (as a whole / within paragraphs)
• Voice professional (direct and factual)
• Balance learn to argue rather than just state
  an opinion (yours or someone elses)
• Structure sentences of 15 20 words, 25 30
  nouns, 3 4 clauses / phrases

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University of London exams - why students fail

• They dont know anything / enough
• They dont know what examiners want
• They dont revise well
• They dont have a plan for the exam
• They arent good at essay writing

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A game called exam

• Assessment of academic achievement has
  limitations e.g. the attainment has to be
  observable
• Therefore exams are about how closely your
  performance meets preset criteria
• Therefore its a game that you can win or lose
• Preparing for the game of exams can usefully be
  seen as like preparing to play sport / an
  instrument etc.

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Knowing the exam

• The game the essay
• (e.g. for 1 hour essays, most people write 800
  1000 words, therefore an introduction and 4 or 5
  paragraphs and a conclusion. The introduction
  answers the question and outlines the argument in
  support of this answer, each paragraph begins
  with a clear statement that helps answer the
  question and combines reference to the literature
  and other sources to justify and support the main
  idea of the paragraph in a detailed and
  convincing manner.)

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Knowing the level

• To do well in any game, you need to know the
  required level of performance. Then you can
  train yourself to reach this level.
• Essentially, the game you need to win is to
  demonstrate through your completion of the exam
  tasks that you are an informed (read books),
  intelligent (answered the question) and
  independent (critical understanding) thinker.

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Successful answers

• Have clear handwriting (worth 5)
• Answer the question in the time available
• Are well organised / flow logically
• Demonstrate the skills / techniques / knowledge
  of the course

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Successful answers

• Successful exam essays balance opinion with
  knowledge
• Thesis say what you think
• Justification say why (informed by reading)
• Support say how you can prove its true
  (informed by detailed information / sources)

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Exam essays

• Making a good plan
• Introductions
• Paragraphs
• Conclusions

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Making a good plan

• Write down the question, answer it as directly as
  you can
• Think about the reasons for your answer, decide
  if you need to mention arguments you disagree
  with (e.g. if the question says Discuss) each
  of these reasons will be the main idea of one of
  your paragraphs
• Think about the order of these paragraphs

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Answering descriptive questions

• Account for Englands failure to qualify for the
  European Championships
• Answer Not good enough
• Reasons 1. players arent as good as they think
• 2. poor management
• 3. good opposition
• 4. injuries to key players

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Answering analytical questions

• England clearly deserved to qualify for Euro
  2008 ahead of Russia. Discuss.
• Answer No one deserves to qualify
• Reasons 1. Its not true England are special
• 2. Its not true that the Euros are less
  exciting without England
• 3. Competition is only meaningful with
  winners and losers
• 4. The appropriate way to qualify is to score
  the most points in the eight matches

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Making a good plan

• Then add detail to the basic structure of the
  plan
• Show three things that you can think
• that you have read
• that you have expert knowledge of your topic
• Therefore in your essay, balance
• The answer to the question
• Reasons for this (ref to the lit.)
• Evidence to support this (ref to other sources
  detailed and specific, e.g. stats, names and
  numbers)

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Plan - England clearly deserved to qualify for
Euro 2008 ahead of Russia. Discuss.

• No one deserves to qualify
• England arent special (vs the Sun, 2007)
• 1. havent beaten a top team since 2002
  (Argentina),
• 2. technically poor (Hansen (2007) - 4-4-2 only
  option ,
• 3. poor defence (Hill, 2006) couldnt defend
  for last 20 minutes v Croatia
• Euros arent worse off for no England (vs
  Gerrard, 2007)
• 1. (Except in 1996 England do badly (Poll,
  2005),
• 2. failed to qualify before (1976 and 1980),
• 3. in last world cup played poorly (Shearer,
  2006) - 5 games and scored 4 goals)

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Introductions

• Establish the context why is the question
  important?
• Answer the question directly
• Give the reasons for your answer these reasons
  will be the paragraphs, so follow the same order.
  Also, outline your argument, dont just list the
  order in which youll do things
• As necessary / useful give a definition of key
  concepts / limit the scope of your answer

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Example introduction

• In the aftermath of the England national teams
  failure to qualify for Euro 2008, the issue of
  how and why nations should qualify has been
  raised. Arguments for the importance of factors
  such as quality of football and standing in the
  game have been made. However, it remains clearly
  the case that qualification should only rest with
  the league table. No one, with the exception of
  the host nation, deserves to qualify. (1)The
  case for England qualifying because of the
  quality of their football fails to take into
  account that England arent really very good.
  (2) Englands poor record in the European
  Championships further undermines the idea that
  the nations standing in the game is a valid
  reason to justify their qualification. (3) A
  more essential point however is that competition
  is only meaningful if someone either side can
  lose. (4) The central concern therefore is not
  about beauty, but it is that at the end of 8
  matches, the Russian team had one more point the
  England. This is and should be all that matters.
  

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Paragraphs

• Start with the main idea of the paragraph this
  should answer the essay question / clearly
  address the essay question show you can think
  (1)
• Give the reasons that show the main idea of the
  paragraph is valid show youve read (2)
• Support your reasons with detailed, specific
  information/data demonstrating that your reasons
  are valid show expert knowledge (3)

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Example paragraph

• The argument to justify automatic inclusion in
  any championship for the English team (Linekar,
  2007) ignores the fact that the team is not very
  good. They are consistently unable to beat top
  class opposition (Rooney, 2007), not beating
  major opposition in a competitive fixture since
  Argentina in 2002. This lack of success is
  probably due to the team being technically
  limited (Hansen, 2005). Attempts to play any
  other system than 4 4 2, such as in their
  defeats to Croatia, leave the players uncertain
  and confused. This, choice between
  predictability and confusion accounts for the
  sides poor defensive record and inability to
  defend a lead (Wright, 2007), as was shown in the
  failure to defend for the last 20 minutes against
  Croatia.

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Conclusions

• Summarise your argument show youve read (2)
• Answer the question - show you can think (1)
• So what? / wider perspective - show expert
  knowledge (3)

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Training

• Train to play by doing what is expected of you in
  the game (e.g. for 1 hour essays, most people
  write 800 1000 words, therefore an introduction
  and 4 or 5 paragraphs and a conclusion. The
  introduction answers the question and outlines
  the argument in support of this answer, each
  paragraph begins with a clear statement that
  helps answer the question and combines reference
  to the literature and other sources to justify
  and support the main idea of the paragraph in a
  detailed and convincing manner.)
• Therefore, revise by answering questions, not
  spotting them / reading books etc. Train
  yourself to be good at answering questions

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Create a training regime (1)

• Replicate the game
• Know what the exam tasks are
• Know how you win
• Know what the examiners want
• Practice (essays)
• 1. Plan really good answers
• 2. Practice making plans in real time
• 3. Write out the answers in long hand

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Create a Training regime (2)

• Choose the topics you will answer for each exam
  try to see where there are areas you can double
  up on
• Collect a database of past exam paper questions
  on these topics train yourself to be able to
  answer any question on any of your topics
• Divide the days youll be revising into sections
  and prepare plans of good answers to all of these
  questions use repetition to learn the core
  content, e.g. references / cases

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Study groups

• Great idea learn from each other, increase
  motivation etc.
• But
• Agree on revising the same material and arrive
  with work to compare
• Dont concentrate on the lecture notes,
  concentrate on answers
• Dont meet for long 2 hours max.
• Dont do this with great friends / if you all
  speak the same language (other than English)
• No beer

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How not to revise

• Read the text books again
• Spot likely questions and learn the answers
• Tidy your room and watch Neighbours
• Form study groups with close friends
• Cover a lot of the course topics
• Leave it till the summer term

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Conclusion

• View University of London exams as a game
• Understand the game
• Understand how to win
• Prepare answers that do win
• Practise until you can win in real time