Some notes to assist you before and during your exams
Have a revision timetable.
Plan what you need to do, then work through that plan. Give yourself enough time to revise, but also factor in some time off - the odd evening or afternoon away will help you refocus.
Spend most time on the subjects you are weakest on -do not spend all your effort on the most fun subjects, or the ones you are best at - they need consideration, but the weakest ones are the ones in which you are most likely to pick up more marks though revision.
Know how you work: if you are a mornings person, then use them wisely by getting up and getting on. If you work by listening to loud music, then do that. But if you have music on so that it distracts you, then try to cut that out. Distractions are good for passing the time, but not for effective revision - so turn off your mobile, shut down your email stop messenger, and focus. Go to these for odd times off - every hour, if you like, but try to minimise their disruptive effects.
Remember that you cannot concentrate for more than 40 mins, possibly as little as 20 mins, at a time - have a short break - walk around, make a cup of tea - but then go back to the work.
Read stuff through - lecture notes, associated web pages, the reading you were supposed to do, similar pages you've found on the web. Make notes - and make notes on your notes. Try to link information together so that it makes a coherent, interleaved framework, rather than memorising random facts. And for remembering, it's repetition and reworking that transfers stuff into long-term memory, so going over things time and again does help. But most of all, try to understand, not just to remember.
Exams are not trying to catch you out - they are there to give you an opportunity to demonstrate what you know and understand. Depending on the subject, you will be asked to apply what you know to similar, or maybe even new, situations - but the course will have prepared you for these, so you should have the tools with which to address the questions.
Read the instructions on the paper carefully - if it says answer a subset of the questions, then you'll be wasting time by answering them all - but many people do this.
When you first get the paper, read all the questions: this does two things - it allows you to choose which of the questions you'll do, and also allows your brain to start digesting and working on later questions whilst you focus on the earlier ones - this way the later ones will have already had some preparation on them.
Do not panic when you first read the paper if it all seems too hard - you will be able to score marks all over the place if you look, and most questions reveal themselves as easier than they look at first glance after a bit of study anyway.
Plan your time carefully: divide up the total time by the number of questions, and round it dowm to leave yourself time at the end (e.g. in a 90 minute paper, if there are 4 questions to be answered, that's 22.5 mins per question, so call it 20 mins and leave yourself with 10 mins at the end). Then, spend just that alloted time on the question. People always score marks much more quickly at the start of a question than at the end, so you must ensure you start all of them, rather than finishing fewer.
If the question has marks associated with the different parts, allocate time per mark. In a 90 minute paper, out of 100, that's 0.9 minutes (54 secs, rounded down to 50 secs to leave time at the end) per mark. A question part with 2 marks should take half as long to answer as one with 4. If a part has 10 marks, you can bet that it needs more than a few words in it - the examiner expects it to take you about 8-10 mins to answer properly.....
If it has 3 marks, and it says give 3 reasons why... then you can bet that it's one mark per reason. So give three, not two in detail.....
Answer the question that is asked - so often, people write great answers about something that is only marginally relevant to what has been asked, and marks can't be given for answering a different question.
If it says 'discuss' or 'describe' then you need to do just that - if it says 'list' or 'enumerate', then just provide the bare bones. (Usually, it says the former, and people only provide the keywords and not the accompanying description or detail).
If you're running out of time, jot down the answers in note form, or bullet points - demonstrate what you know.
At the end, return to those questions you didn't have time to finish - look at the parts you left out because you were stuck - and if you've done all that, then go through carefully and check that you've said everything you wanted to say, that you've not made any mistakes, and so on.
If the exam looks like being a disaster for you, take two or three minutes to breathe deeply, and focus on picking up marks wherever you can. Even if you only answer one bit of one part of one question, that is better than giving up and leaving early. Hunt for every opportunity to score marks - even if you cannot finish one part, show your working, or sketch out the process of getting the solution even if you can't exactly remember how the details.
Remember that people have to be able to read your answers for you to be able to get credit - so try to write neatly.