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Mind racing, heart pounding, clock ticking. You’re in reading time, rummaging through the paper with absolutely no clue where to start. Once writing time starts, you’ll have three hours to do twenty multiple choice, coupled with a handful of short answers and essays… what do you do?

If you’re anything like me, your trial exams were daunting as heck. Honestly though, who here was actually prepared for trials? I know for sure that I wasn’t. So here we are, fresh out of one of the most traumatic experiences of our lives. What did you learn from it? Is there anything that you would do differently?

One of, if not the most important aspects of a humanities exam is reading time. I mean sure, anyone can read the paper, but how can you approach this as efficiently as possible? By having a smart plan of attack, you basically give yourself a head start before you even touch your pen! I’m not sure about you, but having extra time to work on the essays is bloody accent. So, without further ado, here are a few tips that you should try, so that you can maximise your own reading time for any humanities exam.

Don’t Do Any Mental Plans

What I mean by this is when people stare at their essay question for a good two minutes, trying to devise a plan along the lines of:

“To what extent is law reform effective in achieving just outcomes…

I’ll make my first paragraph on bail, where i’ll mention the Bail Amendments and Man Monis. My second paragraph will be on mandatory sentencing, where i’ll talk about one-punch laws and life sentences for killing a police officer. Then my third will be about the Provocation Amendment ….

Okay sweet, now time to read the rest of my paper!”

I don’t recommend this, at all. Now, if you do this and find it to be a successful means of using your five minutes, then by all means continue. But for those of you who are like me and will forget your mental plan, especially with the anxious nature of exams, then it’s best that you don’t make any. It’s just that you can’t physically write down your ideas, so forgetting a plan that you spent two minutes creating, is two minutes that could have been spent blitzing through multiple choice. Time is of the essence here, and it’s important to work efficiently.

Read The Paper Backwards

I find the most efficient way to use reading time is by reading the paper backwards. In every humanities subject that I know of, the extended response will be at the end, or towards the end of the paper. If you’re following my previous tip and choose to make no mental plans, then this will work wonders for you. Just knowing what the essay questions are and which question you will be answering is all you need for now – Like I said, you’ll probably just forget your plan anyway, so there isn’t much point in lingering here for too long. The same rules apply for the short answers – have quick, brief overviews of the question so that you can have a general feel for the paper. Just keep working your way through the paper and get a start on the multiple choice

Know Your Strengths And Weaknesses

Now that you’ve read the entire paper, weigh up which sections you feel most confident in. Although you should already have an idea of your strengths and weaknesses before the exam, there will always be that one question that makes you go “… wtf?” – CSSA Legal Studies Human Rights, I’m looking at you.  By identifying your weaknesses early, you can allocate more time to those sections, to ensure that your response is still strong enough to get into the higher bands.

Order Your Paper

Using the strengths and weaknesses that you identified, come up with a mental order in which you will answer the sections. Keep in mind that you don’t need to complete the paper in chronological order. For a history subject, I’d definitely work through the exam this way, since it takes you through a timeline of events. However, other humanities courses such as Business Studies or Studies of Religion could easily benefit by mixing up the sections.

To put things into perspective, you have 3 hours of writing time where your hand will be working non-stop – it only makes sense that you should have a break somewhere in the middle. That’s where multiple choice comes in. Aim to do your weakest section first, so that the heaviest burden can be taken off straight away. Then, give your hand a few minutes break while answering the multiple choice. This is going to save you time and energy; That few minutes of rest to recharge is so much better than slow, illegible handwriting.

What About The Rest of the Reading Time?

Here are a few ideas:

Start Multiple Choice

So, this is a minor contradiction to what I just recommended, but hear me out. You’ve read the entire paper and probably have 2 minutes to go. Since you were so efficient throughout reading time, you can reward yourself by snagging an extra 10 minutes of writing time.

Here’s the evidence: NESA generally gives 30 minutes for the multiple choice section. Now with 20 questions, they expect that on average we spend 1.5 minutes each to answer them. I’m not sure about you guys, but I do not spend that much time here. Just blitzing through at least 7 questions means that you scored an extra 10 and a half minutes of writing time.

Once pens are up, just fill in the answer sheet, up to wherever you got up to, and then turn to your weakest section. This is definitely a good choice for those who want to allocate extra time for the essay questions.

Make A Mental Plan For Your Weakest Section

Let me start by saying that mental plans are a good way to use your reading time. The only reason that I recommended against it earlier was because you would easily have forgotten it if you did that first. Since we’ve saved this till last and you’ve identified your weakest section, it is now completely fine to work on a plan. This is especially true since this needs the most amount of attention and thought. With your remaining time, devise a strong thesis and try to synthesise all of the relevant concepts and evidence that you’ll need to answer this to the best of your ability.

And Now, With Your Head Start…

Be confident, you’re on the path to success! You aren’t the same nervous, shaky kid that you were five minutes ago – you’re smart and know exactly how you will attack the exam. By working as efficiently as possible, you’ve been able to snag extra time, or you now have a solid plan to answer your weakest question.

Study hard guys, and good luck for the HSC!