Advice and Study Tips

Guidance and examination techniques to maximise your chances of success.

Preparing for exams

There is more to revising for an examination than memorising your lecture notes. The best approach is to revise as you go along, as there is little time for formal revision at the end of teaching. You will be expected to apply the principles learned in your course to new situations.  

Looking at past papers can help to prepare you for the types of question you will be asked and the time you will have to answer each question. 

Sometimes the style of questions included in an exam changes, so be sure to check the information provided for the year that you take the course. Information will be provided on Learn or during classes - if you are unsure what format the exam will take, ask. 

There will often be revision sessions or advice provided on a course-by-course basis.

Past papers


You should go into the exam with enough knowledge to answer questions on any of the major topics in a course. 

If you try to predict which topics will come up in the exam, even if you are lucky and guess correctly, there is no guarantee that you will be able to answer the specific questions that were set on these topics.  


During the exam

If you have a three-hour exam in which you must answer four essay-style questions, then that means 45 minutes per question.  

However, you should allow yourself: 

  • Five minutes at the start, to carefully read through the instructions and the questions. If you need to make a choice, decide on the ones you will attempt.
  • Fifteen minutes at the end, so you can come back to any questions that you need to finish off and check over your work. 

That would leave you 40 minutes per question in the example above. 

Following this approach will maximise your chances of success. You should have time for all the questions because you have kept some time in reserve.   

You will also have scored the highest overall mark that you can get, because you get most of the marks for a question early on (in the first 20-30 minutes), and after that you have to work harder for the remaining marks.   


Some students fail an exam because they miss out questions. If the exam asks you to answer four questions, but you focus all effort on just three, then you cannot get more than 75% of the marks for the whole exam. 

Even if you think you know little about a topic, you may get a few marks by making some sensible comments, and that could make the difference of a grade. 

The same advice applies to questions that require you to answer several parts - each part of a question has marks allocated to it. 

It is not sensible to answer more questions than required. You will not be awarded extra marks for extra answers - but you will have used up valuable time that could have been spent improving your answers.


  • Read the question carefully, underline all the relevant words, and stick to the question that has been set. 
  • Examiners think very carefully about the wording of every question and expect your answer to address that topic.  
  • For example, if you are asked to write about the wall structure of bacteria then you will not achieve a good mark by writing about the membrane or the genome.   
  • For every question, stop writing after the first few minutes and re-read the question. Checking periodically if you have drifted off the subject will prevent you writing someething irrelevant 
  • Make rough notes at the start of a question, to organise your thoughts. Then start your proper answer. 

  • If you are taking an exam that requires handwritten answers, understand that the examiner will get frustrated if they cannot read your writing.  If a badly written answer cannot be read, it cannot be awarded marks. 
  • Don't try to hide a lack of knowledge (e.g. a scientific name or a technical term) by illegible writing.  
  • Underline key words or phrases to make a longer answer easier to read.
  • Never repeat things, even in a concluding paragraph. You can only get the marks once, no matter how many times you repeat the same point. 
  • Learn the Latin names of organisms and other technical terms. Demonstrate your competence.   

How to tackle different types of question

Long Essays 

In some examinations you might be asked to write 'long essays'.  This does not mean that you have to write for the full time. You should use some of the time to assemble your thoughts and structure your answer. 

Essay-style questions 

In other examinations the essay-style questions are shorter. These questions require you to write relevant factual information and demonstrate your understanding of the subject.  

You would not be expected to produce a highly polished essay of the sort you might be able to write without the time pressure of an exam. The important thing is to write down as much relevant information as possible, while sticking rigidly to the question that was set. 


SAQs typically have 8-10 minutes time allocation, but check this carefully, because the time allocation does vary.  You should work out how much time to devote to each question at the start of the exam, after reading the instructions.

Often the SAQ will take the form of a short question, then you will be given space to answer. The best approach to these questions is to produce short notes, with as much relevant information as possible in the time allowed. If you really know the material and you address the question being asked, you could get good marks for these questions. 

Some SAQs have a different format, such as asking you to match answers from a list to a set of prompts. Take care to read the questions carefully.


Further resources

The Institute for Academic Development promotes strategies to get your best exam results. 

Institute for Academic Development

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