Strong exam performance isn’t always just about subject knowledge; it can also be about exam literacy. Many students struggle in assessments not because they lack understanding, but because they haven’t been taught how to navigate the demands, structures, and expectations of exam questions.
By breaking down exam technique, teaching students how to prioritise information, and embedding effective revision strategies, we can reduce anxiety and improve outcomes. Below are three key areas to focus on when building exam confidence and competence.
1. Teach exam literacy and the basics of exam technique
Students often assume that exam success is about having the necessary subject knowledge, but a large part of success comes from understanding how to interpret questions and how to structure responses under timed conditions. Exam literacy should be taught explicitly and revisited often, not saved for revision season, since this can be a catalyst in how well students do in exams.
Practical ways to teach exam literacy include:
- Breaking down command words
- Teach the meaning of common command words: analyse, evaluate, compare, outline, justify, etc.
- Use mini-drills where students identify command words in past questions and rewrite what the question is really asking.
- Teaching students to unpick questions
- Model how to underline key information (topic, command word, scope, restrictions).
- Practise rewriting complex questions into student-friendly language.
- Use “question dissection” templates to guide students step by step.
- Allocating time effectively
- Show students how to divide exam time by marks, for example, 1 mark = 1 minute.
- Practise short timed tasks to build pace and reduce panic when students have only a short amount of time left.
- Use countdowns during lessons to simulate exam pressure safely.
- Structuring clear, coherent answers
- Provide response frameworks (e.g., PEEL, STAR, or point–evidence–explain) depending on the subject.
- Model strong vs. weak sample answers and annotate why one earns more marks.
- Highlight the importance of clarity: concise sentences, logical sequencing, and avoiding “waffle.”
- Revisiting the basics regularly
- Begin lessons with quick command-word warm-ups.
- Use exit tickets where students practise one exam skill in isolation.
- Space out exam-technique practice so it becomes familiar part of the students’ toolkit.
2. Teach students how to select and prioritise information
Students need to understand that not everything they know belongs in an answer. Many students struggle because they try to include too much to prove that they know everything. But very often exams reward precision, not the ability to cram everything in. Teaching them how to choose relevant content is a crucial part of exam success.
Ways to develop prioritisation and precision:
- Sorting relevant vs. irrelevant information
- Give students mixed content lists (facts, quotes, examples) and ask them to choose only the items that directly answer a question.
- Practise sorting cards into categories such as essential, helpful, and unnecessary.
- Use paired or group discussions to justify why certain points matter more than others.
- Prioritising the strongest evidence
- Model how to identify precise, high-impact examples rather than vague or general ones.
- Teach students to lead with their best point or evidence first.
- Use sentence starters like “The most compelling evidence for this is…” to enable prioritisation.
- Building concise but well-developed answers
- Practise condensing long explanations into 2-3 high-quality sentences.
- Use “45-word challenges” where students must answer a question in a highly selective way.
- Model how to go from a list of ideas to a focused, well-developed paragraph.
- Helping students avoid “content dumps”
- Highlight examples of overlong, unfocused responses and annotate what should be trimmed.
- Always bring it back to this: Answer the question you’re asked, not the one you want to answer.
- Use peer marking focused solely on relevance and precision.
3. Embed effective revision techniques that actually work
Many students spend hours re-reading notes, highlighting excessively, or making ‘pretty’ revision materials. However, we now know that effective revision is active, spaced, and focused on retrieval. Since not all hours spent on revision are equal, we need to ensure students spend their time revising effectively.
Ways to embed proven revision strategies include:
- Retrieval practice
- Begin lessons with short quizzes, brain dumps, or “retrieve everything you can remember” starters.
- Encourage no-notes recall before checking answers.
- Spaced repetition
- Return to key concepts week after week, not just at the end of a unit.
- Use revision calendars or spaced schedules to map out when topics will be revisited.
- Flashcards and self-quizzing
- Teach students how to make effective flashcards (question on one side, answer on the other
- Model how to use the Leitner system or digital flashcard apps.
- Encourage students to sort cards by “I know this well”/ “I still need practice.”
- Using past papers
- Start with small sections to build confidence before attempting full papers.
- Analyse mark schemes together and decode what examiners want.
- Have students correct and “upgrade” their own answers using model responses.
- Avoiding ineffective strategies
- Teach explicitly why re-reading and mindless highlighting don’t lead to durable learning.
- Show pairs of revision methods and compare their impact to reinforce better choices.
