Exam / revision techniques

I sat 4 exams in May (Year 1 PDS) and luckily passed them all. Here are the main revisions techniques I adopted...

TIP 1.
My tutor was great and her adive was to have 5 or 6 articles that you can reference in your answers. These were mainly People Management articles.
Remember the title, the author(s) and have a general understanding of the content.
It's amazing what you can shoe-horn into an answer once it's committed to memory. Ted Johns (MLP examiner) particularly likes this.

TIP 2.
Play to your strengths. If you really don't 'get' something, move on. I'd recommend spending that time really getting to grips with something you are more familiar with. For example, I never 'got' Chi Squared testing (Managing Info) and I probably never will!

TIP 3.
Get a revision buddy. This was invaulabe for me and my friend. What one of us didn't understand the other one did. You can talk through scenarios together and this is a real incentive to keep going. Really helpful.

TIP 4.
Practice. Do as many past papers as possible. As others have said, the questions don't change much year on year and doing this really helps with your timing. I also did Section B first, as a slight overrun here is easier to pull back accross 2 Section A questions. The other way round and you could be in a position where you miss a whole section B.
Pay attention to the conext of the questions; eg... "You are asked to prepare a talk for managers" "A member of staff askes you about..." A talk to managers and staff would be pitched at different levels, so aim your answer at the audience.
We were lucky and attended talks by 3 of the 4 examiners - They are not trying to catch you out. (They were actually very nice!) If you can, go to these.

TIP5.
Learn some theorists. There are a number of theorists that overlap MLP and MR; if you learn some of these then they can be used in two exams.
Mind mapping didn't work for me so I came up with some funny ways/mental pictures to remember names. This was really helpful in the exams as it lightened my mood. I also wrote out all of my notes from the year into brief points and pictures, then revised from this. My rule of thumb was 2 sides of A4 for each topic.

TIP 6.
Watch TV... no, not Corrie! If you are like me, you find it hard to remember stuff from books. There are loads of great programmes out there that can broaden your knowledge, particularly for MSBC. I rate Working Lunch & Panorama... I learnt loads from these and even referenced them in my exam.

I hope this has helped. Good luck in November.

I sat 4 exams in May (Year 1 PDS) and luckily passed them all. Here are the main revisions techniques I adopted...

TIP 1.
My tutor was great and her adive was to have 5 or 6 articles that you can reference in your answers. These were mainly People Management articles.
Remember the title, the author(s) and have a general understanding of the content.
It's amazing what you can shoe-horn into an answer once it's committed to memory. Ted Johns (MLP examiner) particularly likes this.

TIP 2.
Play to your strengths. If you really don't 'get' something, move on. I'd recommend spending that time really getting to grips with something you are more familiar with. For example, I never 'got' Chi Squared testing (Managing Info) and I probably never will!

TIP 3.
Get a revision buddy. This was invaulabe for me and my friend. What one of us didn't understand the other one did. You can talk through scenarios together and this is a real incentive to keep going. Really helpful.

TIP 4.
Practice. Do as many past papers as possible. As others have said, the questions don't change much year on year and doing this really helps with your timing. I also did Section B first, as a slight overrun here is easier to pull back accross 2 Section A questions. The other way round and you could be in a position where you miss a whole section B.
Pay attention to the conext of the questions; eg... "You are asked to prepare a talk for managers" "A member of staff askes you about..." A talk to managers and staff would be pitched at different levels, so aim your answer at the audience.
We were lucky and attended talks by 3 of the 4 examiners - They are not trying to catch you out. (They were actually very nice!) If you can, go to these.

TIP5.
Learn some theorists. There are a number of theorists that overlap MLP and MR; if you learn some of these then they can be used in two exams.
Mind mapping didn't work for me so I came up with some funny ways/mental pictures to remember names. This was really helpful in the exams as it lightened my mood. I also wrote out all of my notes from the year into brief points and pictures, then revised from this. My rule of thumb was 2 sides of A4 for each topic.

TIP 6.
Watch TV... no, not Corrie! If you are like me, you find it hard to remember stuff from books. There are loads of great programmes out there that can broaden your knowledge, particularly for MSBC. I rate Working Lunch & Panorama... I learnt loads from these and even referenced them in my exam.

I hope this has helped. Good luck in November.