How can I improve my exam technique?

A common problem amongst Biology students is the difficulty in knowing the content well, but not being able to translate this knowledge into marks when it comes to the exam. Your exam technique is vitally important, because no matter how well you have revised, if you have poor exam technique, this revision will not be reflected in your mark. Firstly, always read the exam question carefully. Are there multiple sections to the question? Are they asking more than one question? Ensure that your answer has covered all sections of the question. It can be helpful to underline the key elements of a question before you start writing it. Secondly, check how many marks the question is worth. When you read back your answer, you should have made the same number of points as the number of marks the question is worth. For example, a 3 mark question will need 3 different points to be made. Each point you make will correspond to a different point in the mark scheme. Thirdly, a handy trick for maths questions, is to always write our the equations that are needed for that question. For example, if the question is asking you to calculate the allele frequency in a population, and you need to use the Hardy Weinberg Equation, write out the equation (p+q=1). Even if you do not get the final answer correct, some mark schemes will award marks simply for writing out the correct equation. These odd marks you pick up here and there can be the difference between an A and a B.