External examination
1.7
KEY IDEAS
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reading time should be used carefully in an examination there are different strategies for writing time in an examination revision strategies can help you to prepare for assessments.
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In this topic, you will learn that: ✚
There is no external examination for this course, but your teacher may set their own formative examination to assess how much you know about the content you learn in this course. Should you progress to the Units 3 and 4 Biology course, you will be assessed by an end-of-year external examination, which contributes to 50% of the study score. Therefore, it is important to practise answering exam questions throughout this course.
an external test that assesses your knowledge of a subject
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external examination
Exam techniques
It is important to use every minute of your time in the examination room.
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First, scan the examination paper to check that all the pages are there and determine the kinds of questions so that you can start to plan your writing time. Multiple-choice questions are normally designed to take approximately 1 minute each. So if there are 40 questions in this section, aim to spend approximately 40 minutes on the multiple-choice questions. When reading through the short-answer questions, check the mark allocation to get an idea of the time you should spend, which is approximately 1 minute per mark. Read each question carefully and assess the question to consider the key knowledge and/or key science skills that are being assessed. Make a mental note of questions that may be more difficult, may take more time to complete or may need further reflection. It is recommended that you complete those questions last to give you more time to consider the responses and possibly more time to write the responses if you have been able to finish the other questions more quickly.
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Using reading time
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Strategies for writing time Read each short-answer question three times. On the first read, try to understand the overall view of the question, and on the second read, try to find the key information. Do the third read after you have written your answer to make sure that you have included everything that is needed. Highlight or underline the key words within the question and reflect on those while writing your response or selecting the correct answer. For the short-answer questions, consider the concept being addressed and the key scientific terminology you may need to include in your answer. Make sure you format your responses as dot points, where each dot point represents a piece of information. It can also be helpful to underline the scientific terminology in your response, to demonstrate clear understanding. Do not repeat the stem of the question in your response.
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BIOLOGY FOR VCE UNITS 1 & 2
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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