If your professor provides practice exams, great! They can be a fantastic tool to help you self-test. Think carefully about how and when you use them. You don't want to take a practice exam the day before the real exam as it doesn't give you enough time to study the material you still don't know. Doing this and finding lots of gaps in your knowledge may just increase your anxiety as you approach exam day. Instead, take practice exams in advance of the test to give yourself time to study missed material. Think of practice exams as a diagnostic tool to focus your study time.
When you take a practice exam, it is important to keep this in mind:
- Keep the time limit of your exam in mind. if you will be expected to finish within 50 minutes, try to complete the practice exam within 50 minutes.
- Use only the resources (ex. calculator, notes, equation sheets) you will be allowed to use on the exam.
- Remember that this is a diagnostic tool. It is not meant to predict your performance on the real exam.
