The move to terminal examination means that students can often feel the entire sum of their education is at stake on exam day.
So how can teachers give students the confidence and tools they need to apply their knowledge effectively, avoid mistakes, and achieve the best marks possible?
The most important thing to remember is that exam success is not about cramming or teaching to the test (this just adds to the pressure they will feel). Instead, it is about demystifying the exam process – supporting the students to understand the exam structure and requirements.
I work as part of a team of former examiners, so let me give you our top seven examples of mistakes or pitfalls to avoid, and some recommendations.
Mistake 1: Not being prepared
This may seem obvious but for us it is less about not being prepared with the facts and understanding of the curriculum, but more about appreciating what examiners look for. What is important to remember is that it is not about writing more, it is about students having the confidence to demonstrate their knowledge in a way that achieves the highest marks – earning more marks while writing less, in fact.
It starts with critical thinking and ends with the students being excited by their learning, sometimes even looking forward to taking their exams.
Mistake 2: Not matching time to marks
Students need to understand the marks assigned to each part of the exam, and therefore how much time to spend on each section.
The AQA GCSE English language exam paper one, entitled Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing, from November 2021 (AQA, 2022) is a good illustration. Within this paper, question five carried the potential of 40 marks, which was half the marks for the entire paper.
The question requires the students to write “a story or part of a story/narrative or descriptive”, either based on a given photograph or if they would prefer, from their own idea.
Similarly, in GCSE maths, there is always a focus on 15 key topics. Therefore, showing the students some really quick wins in terms of their approach can lead to a significant increase in their marks.
Mistake 3: Lack of discipline
The English language question discussed above was divided into 24 marks for content and organisation, with 16 marks for technical accuracy. Students need to learn to divide up their time effectively based on the marks attributed to each question and be very disciplined in moving on once the allotted time has expired.
The recommended time to spend on this specific task is around 45 minutes but with the accuracy of the spelling, punctuation and grammar of the content being allotted 16 marks, we recommend that the students spend 35 to 40 minutes on the question, leaving five to 10 minutes for checking and proofing. Which brings me on to…
Mistake 4: Not checking and proofing
As illustrated in the previous question, with 16 marks assigned to spelling, punctuation and grammar alone, putting aside time to check each question is vital. As former examiners we all remember humorous responses to questions, such as ancient Egypt being populated by people who “all wrote in hydraulics” or Sir Francis Drake “circumcising the world”, and the reason for the success of fascism in 1930s Spain being because “General Franco was supported by right-wing panties”.
Students need to understand the importance of checking their answers to avoid losing unnecessary marks.
Mistake 5: Using formulaic copy
Rather than using rigid, mechanical responses, English language examiners love stories that stand out from the crowd and include varied and inventive uses of structured features.
The DFZCR framework reminds students to apply the skills and techniques that they have been taught in school.
- D is for Dialogue: Students will score highly for punctuation that provokes the readers’ curiosity and emotion. We teach students that rather than describing a character it is more powerful to show how this person feels through what they say. A story can gain four additional marks on the basis of being compelling and utilising punctuation and ambitious vocabulary effectively. Have they used pathetic fallacy, metaphors and similes and demonstrated their understanding of punctuation by including exclamation and question marks, colons and semi-colons? Have they varied the sentence length?
- F is for Flashbacks: Moving backwards in time and switching in and out of dialogue attracts good marks.
- Z is for Zooming in and out: This is a creative writing technique of using your “imaginative microscope” to zoom into a small detail and then zoom out to show how that element fits into the bigger story.
- C is for Crisis (as in include one!): The writer should reveal the main character’s innermost thoughts to explain why a crisis has happened, leaving the reader to consider how they would react in such a situation.
- R is for resolution: Every good story needs to be drawn to a close with all the threads tied together, possibly with an unexpected twist!
Mistake 6: Not reading the question
This mistake applies to all exams, but the maths GCSE paper provides us with a good example. We remind students that one of the most important tools is to “read, read and read again”. Sadly, all-too-often, teachers hear the comment: “I was rushing and misread the question.”
By helping students to develop their active reading skills we can ensure they gain a deeper understanding of the question and check that their answer makes sense. For example, take the question: “If 16 + 4 x __ is 10 more than 14, what is the value of 8 x __? The options are: 6, 80, 2, 16.
It is easy to scan the question and decide that the answer is 2. However, the question actually asked for the value of 8 x __.
Another example is a non-calculator question which asks for a percentage of an amount. One question asked: “Work out 20% of 28,000.” A number of students misread “of”, so instead worked out a percentage “off” 28,000: and unnecessarily wasted a mark.
Most teachers stress the importance of writing the formulae for each answer to “show the examiner what you know”, but there are optimum ways of laying out these workings to show proficiency and in turn, obtain more marks.
Mistake 7: Feeling overly stressed
This is not a “mistake”, but nevertheless it is important to have mental health at the forefront of our minds as teachers. The past few years have brought our attention to the impact of high-stakes exams on students’ mental health, not helped of course by the pandemic.
But by helping students to demystify GCSEs, making unfamiliar question types feel familiar, and ensuring they go into their exams with the skills to optimise the marks they can get from each answer, we will be able to make them feel more prepared, confident and reduce their stress.
These skills are not about cramming or teaching to the test. They simply give students the tools and confidence that they need to impress.
- Tamara Budhan Caldwell is a former IB examiner and founder of Impress Education. Visit https://impress.education/
Further information & resources
- AQA: Question paper: English Language: Paper 1: Explorations in creative reading and writing (November 2021), July 2022: https://bit.ly/3ExHudm