Most students who are studying English have to take an exam at the end of their course. Others are planning to take a public examination. They want to get a certificate which demonstrates their level of English.
Whenever there is an exam, the teacher should consider doing the next things to prepare students for the exam.
1. Specify the Content and Skills to Test.
The biggest problem most teachers find with exams is a lack of awareness. They do not know the content and skills that must be tested.
They think that everything in the syllabus is relevant and can be included in the exam. This is not the case as you don’t need to include every language in the exam. Only specific language skills, active vocabulary, and structures must be tested by the exam. Once you have identified that, you should start to prepare your students for the exam on them.
2. Give Key Information About the Exam
Make sure your students know exactly how the structure of the exam is organized. They should understand the number of questions. They should also know the nature of each question and the marks dedicated to it.
You can conduct past or model exams with the students in the classroom. Be sure to tell them the key information about it.
3. Set a Time Limit
Introduce time limits for the model exams in the classroom.
If students are trying to answer a question from a past exam, give them a time limit. Then, take their answers to check. This will help them become used to working under pressure.
Early on in the course, you can give them more time to answer questions, exercises, and exams. Closer to the final exam, set the same time limit as they will actually have on the exam day.
4. Review and Give More Practice
Ask students to tell you which parts of the exam they feel are hardest for them.
You already be aware of this from having seen their work. But it’s useful if the students themselves recognize the areas they need to work on. Focus on these points of weakness giving students more revisions and practice on these parts.
5. Pre-teach the Instructions in the Exam
Examinations often include vocabulary in the instructions that aren’t normally used in day-to-day English.
Especially with lower levels, don’t assume the students are familiar with exam terminologies such as gap-fill or transformation.
Pre-teach any words that are repeatedly used in instructions and check the students’ understanding.
6. Provide Copies of Past Exam Papers
Most examination boards or publishers provide copies of past exam papers written in the style of the exam. Students will benefit from practising with these, either in class or at home.
If you or the school produce the exam, try to let your students take old versions. Alternatively, write one yourself that reflects the exam format. Give it to students so that they will recognize what the exam will be like.
7. Give Sample and Model Answers
Give the students past exam papers to complete. It’s also helpful if you can show them examples of other students’ answers. This will help them see how the answers were graded.
Looking at an answer to the writing question, for example, can be very helpful. Seeing how it was marked can help the students understand the expectations for the exam.
If you don’t have any sample answers, write your answer to the question. This will show students what is expected to be the model answer.
8. Train Them to Answer
Many students make mistakes in the exam. This often happens not because they don’t know the answer, but because they don’t know how to answer it.
For example, in the texts with gaps that students have to fill in.
Many students make the mistake of not reading the whole text at first. They try to fill in each gap apart from the others or the whole meaning of the text. Train your students to read the whole text through first. Only then should they start to complete the gaps.
9. Ask Students to Write Their Own Exam Questions
Have students design exam-type questions for each other. Doing so makes students really understand how an exam is constructed and how questions are written. Students enjoy playing at being exam-writers and the task makes them really think about various questions and their answers.
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