This post is written with students of the Computer Science Tripos at the University of Cambridge as the audience, but almost all of the principles apply to other standard memorisation-based examinations as well.
Despite being an awful tool, you’ll have to deal with exams (see David MacKay’s “Everybody Should Get an A” for a better system). I don’t judge you based on how you think of exams or your performance - this is because I don’t think how you think about exams reflects values that are good or bad: there are legitimate reasons for both. But if you do care about exam performance - like I did at university - then this post is for you. I was top of the exam papers of the Computer Science Tripos at the University of Cambridge all three years not because of specific skills, but because of figuring out the right strategies.
We can’t all be top of the years, but you can significantly improve your result compared to others by leveraging the below principles. The catch? It’s difficult.
Exams are a game. Here is the winning strategy.