Actual Exam Written Responses
Can anyone offer advice on the acceptable level of brevity for exam responses? I'm less concerned about the actual content (the examiner's reports give a good idea of that), but more so, things one might be tempted to do in order to save time, things like:
-do we need complete sentences?
-can we use obvious/common-place abbreviations? (i.e. bc, w/in, SAO, AAA, etc.)
-can our answers be bulleted?
Thanks!
Comments
That is an excellent question. These kinds of time management and exam strategy considerations can shift your score by up to 4 or 5 points, which obviously is very significant.
First, to answer your specific questions:
Second, let me address your more general point on saving time while maximizing your score:
I cannot emphasize enough how much time you have to spend on memorization and repetition. Whatever you think you have to do, you should at least triple it.
The answers in the examiner's are often too detailed. You can usually get full points with something much shorter. The examiner's reports try to give you every acceptable answer but you don't need to do that yourself. You only have to provide as many reasons (or whatever) as they ask for, and you can usually express them in fewer words than they do.