On The Exam Day  

Plan Your Time Very Carefully

Scan through the paper before you start writing, and take a good few minutes before you write while you work out which questions you are going to answer and which order you are going to answer them in.

Plan how much time you are going to spend answering each question. In doing this you should have a plan of campaign. Hopefully as you will have also done lots of practice papers before you will have done this before a number of times.

It’s Probably Better to Do the Easiest Questions First. In general it isn’t clever to attempt questions on topics that you know most about, if the question is very hard and it is not compulsory it is best avoided even if you know lots about the subject, and you should instead do an easier question.

Work out from the marking scheme which bits of each question it would be most important to answer to get most marks. 

Make sure you read the whole question  as sometimes at the end of the question there are clues as to what the examiner wants  

Time yourself carefully, and try and adjust the time spent on a part of the question against the marks you are likely to achieve. If it's a 60minute exam, and it's marked out of 60, then on average you've got 1 minute per mark etc. Remember that exam questions are about writing down what that examiner wants, not what you think the examiner might like to know :-) !!!

If you get stuck, move on and come back to the difficult question later. Gazing at a question you can’t work out how to answer is a waste of time and it might just be easier to do when you come back to it later

Always explain your workings so that the examiner understands your logic and use your common sense. The examiners cannot ask you unreasonable questions and in general, if the question seems unreasonable, it’s probably because you have misread it or misunderstood what the examiner is getting at, so try and use your common sense. If you don’t explain how you arrived at an answer and the answer is wrong you will likely get zero marks. If you explain your working and it is partially correct you may get some credit for this

If you are nearly out of time do the easiest bits of the remaining questions, maximizing your likely marks. Keep writing until you are told to stop, as your watch or the room clock may be running slightly fast 

Never leave early, just keep checking your answers. You’ll always find something that you’ve missed however small, it’s inevitable. Check all you calculations, workings and that you’ve read and answered all the questions and explained things properly in all your answers.