The purpose of a practice exam is not only to see a net. It is to rehearse the time pressure, tiredness and nerves you will feel on exam day. A well-taken practice exam brings out your gaps before the real exam.
1. Set up exam conditions
Take the practice exam in a quiet place, in one sitting and with the time limit. Keep your phone away, and do not look at notes or sources during the exam.
2. Take it at exam time if possible
Let your body get used to being awake and focused at the hour the exam will be held. For someone with a morning exam, a practice exam taken in the evening is an incomplete rehearsal.
3. Mark the answers on an optical form
In the real exam, transferring answers to the optical form also takes time. In practice exams, marking should take part of the time too; that way you see in advance the risk of not managing to fill in the form in the last minute.
4. Check yourself first when you finish
Before looking at the answer key, mark the questions you are unsure about. Then when you compare with the correct answers, you can tell apart the questions where you were sure and wrong; these are often real knowledge errors.
5. Review wrongs and blanks separately
- Wrong: was it a knowledge gap, did your attention drift, did time run out?
- Blank: did you not know at all, or did you not want to take the risk?
- Write a separate measure for each type of mistake.
6. Do not decide from a single exam
A practice exam can be hard or easy. Look at the average net of the last three or five exams; follow the overall trend rather than the ups and downs.
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