A successful NEBOSH exam - some hints and tips to make your exam go smoothly and improve your grade!

You may think that you are not good at exams, but you are wrong. Exam success is a skill to be learnt just like driving a car or riding a bike! With this in mind let’s look at some general and course NEBOSH specific tips to make your exams run that bit smoother.

Firstly, however much you want to get in and start writing straight away.... DON’T! Take some time to slowly read through the questions, checking carefully what they are asking you. You can write some very quick initial notes on the exam paper to help jog your memory when you come back to that question. Underline the task that question is asking you to do. Remember in course NEBOSH exams you can save valuable time by only doing what they question is asking. Explaining things takes longer that just identifying things – make sure you get the right one!
In course NEBOSH  exams use the structure to your advantage. You can get marks for using the correct structure and it helps you to include all the necessary parts of the questions you need for the best mark possible. Identify what topic your question is about and then try to include all aspects of that topic e.g. human factor question should include individual factors, job factors and organisation.

Planning your longer answers keeps you focused and stops you missing points out. It also gives your answer a nice flow. Remember a clearer answer is always easier to read and mark! How you plan is up to you. Some delegates choose small mind maps or lists of key points. Remember to make it brief, you want to leave enough time to write your answer.
 
Don’t lose marks by doing a ‘stimulus vomit!’ This is when candidate sees a word or phrase they know, panics and then ‘vomits’ up everything they know about that topic! While it’s great that you have gained knowledge and understanding from completing your course NEBOSH , if you do not apply what you have learnt to the question you are being asked it, will gain you no marks. If you are being asked about a specific situation make sure your answer relates to that situation. Also be sure to develop your point to an adequate length.

Keeping good time in your course NEBOSH  exam is vital. You can plan your time before you go in, so you know how long to spend on each question. You can do this by looking at past papers and dividing the total number of marks available by the time you have. This will give you a rough idea of how many minutes you will need to spend on getting 1 mark. The next step is to look at how many marks each question is worth. Times this by the number of minutes for one mark and this will give you a guide of how long to spend on this question. Timing is also important as you should try to leave some time at the end of the exam to go back and check your work.