Emily graduated in 2016 with a study score of 44 in Global Politics. She is now studying a Bachelor of Arts at The University of Melbourne, majoring in Politics and Criminology.
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Preparing for the VCE Global Politics exam can be a daunting and stressful task.

Between memorising the theoretical course content and finding time to gather contemporary case studies, you may be feeling as though you don’t know which way is up, regardless of your past achievement.

Don’t worry – if you’re feeling this way, you’re certainly not alone. The final weeks in the lead-up to your exam are prime time to focus on ensuring you have mastered examination techniques. Below are a couple of key things that I felt truly allowed me to step into the 40+ category.

ORGANISING YOUR NOTES

Global Politics is a subject where organisation is truly of the essence.

The best advice I was ever given for organising notes in this subject was to use tables. Tables are your friend. They allow you to clearly organise different areas of the course, and to consider the strengths and weaknesses of various concepts, which is pivotal.

This is great practice in the lead-up to the exam, as it engages your critical thinking. Mind maps are also a very useful tool as, again, they provide a visual representation of the way in which different areas of the course connect.

Even if you don’t favour these note taking methods, ensure you do develop a nice note taking system that suites you.

Secondly, ensure you are highly familiar with the study design.

A good place to start with this is to model your notes on it. Use the dot-points as sub-headings, and go through the key terms/key skills to devise your own questions. Practise answering them as part of your note taking, and try to find obscure links across the area of study. This avoids rote learning, which is really not at all useful in this subject for anything other than the key terms.

This is also useful for organising your case studies. Ensure you have at least two case studies/examples you can confidently discuss for each dot-point. Keeping up with current events will help with this. You can also refer to sources such as Al Jazeera and The Economist.

Always try to validate the material you find but finding a back-up source. The examiners WILL check whether the statistics you refer to are accurate.

PRACTICE EXAMS

The best thing I ever did in my preparation for the Global Politics exam was practice papers. I always give this advice to students I tutor, and I have seen that it really is the BEST way to improve your results.

There are a number of reasons why.

The first is that practice papers expose you to numerous question types. In the Global Politics exam, you will need to be able to think on your feet in a way that many other subjects simply don’t expect. You need to be able to look at a question, know what case studies are relevant, and be able to structure a response then and there.

Only practice papers will improve this skill – you can memorise all the content you like, but if you haven’t practised applying the material, your results will suffer.

Secondly, practice papers help you get your timing right. This is one of those exams where time is NOT something you have a surplus of. Practice papers help you to have a greater awareness of time, and you will be able to see the sorts of questions that you tend to waste time on. Every year, the examiners’ report tells us that countless students are unable to finish their exam, and this is due to poor preparation.

Finally, practice papers (particularly if you get them marked) help you to develop good habits in terms of structuring your answers. Think of each question like a mini essay – organise the key points into paragraphs, and use signposting to separate your ideas.

IMPORTANT! Don’t get intimidated if you’re not happy with your initial marks on your practice papers! Getting the feel of exam style questions takes practice and effort. The more you do this, the better you will get at it.

I did a couple of exam questions mid-year, and received pitiful marks for them – mainly because I was misinterpreting the question due to my lack of familiarity with the tricks that can come up in how they are phrased. Again, with practice, this is something you won’t even think about.

YOUR TEACHER

This one may seem a little self-explanatory, but it’s one of the most important in preparing for the Global Politics exam.

With some subjects, you can decipher how well you performed on a question by looking at the examiners’ reports, but this isn’t necessarily the case with Global Politics.

Ensure you have your teacher mark your practice papers, and have them go through where you can improve your answers. Sometimes, the most successful students can fall short in assuming that they don’t need to add a particular detail to a question. Your teacher is a professional who will pick up on these deficiencies.

The Global Politics cohort is a pretty clever bunch – what you don’t include in your answer, you can be certain that somebody else will. The more questions you have marked by your teacher, the clearer an understanding you will develop regarding required detail. This can push you over the line when it comes to the higher marked questions.

THE ESSAY

Many students I speak to are very intimidated by Section B of the exam, which is a 20 mark essay. You should have already decided which topic you are going to do before you walk into the exam. But ensure you have prepared for at least two – sometimes the topic you had your heart set on will have a funny question that’s hard to answer, and you may rather do a different one.

This did indeed happen to me, and I was thankful that I had prepared for a couple of topics.

Before you begin writing, PLAN, PLAN and PLAN a bit more. Spend a few minutes constructing an essay skeleton with the key arguments you intend to make, with some of the evidence you will use.

This way, you will start the essay with a clear picture in your head of where it is going, which will make it flow much better.

The second thing to make sure you’re doing is ANALYSING. Do not just narrate case studies and content you think may be relevant. Instead, explain their relevance in terms of the question, and make sure you are always weighing up both sides of an argument.

 

THE NIGHT BEFORE/THE MORNING OF…

For many of you, Global Politics will be your last exam.

Some of you will be feeling pumped, others will be tempted to just get it over with and get to the holidays. Staying motivated can be a struggle; no student alive has never had moments of complete depletion.

The best thing to do in those moments is to take a step back, maybe a little break, but try your best to push on. Once you stop, starting again is harder. Keep going, and keep in mind that it will be over very soon.

The night before my exam, I did some final revision of my notes. I brushed over some of the case studies, drew some mind maps, but made myself stop by 7:00PM.

In retrospect, this probably was not helpful for anything other than my own peace of mind. I then chilled out for a few hours, and got a good night’s sleep.

The morning of the exam, I got to the venue an hour early, ensured I knew where my seat was, and wandered into the library. If you’re like me, you won’t be satisfied that you have done enough until the second you are told to begin writing. Don’t be like me. Have FAITH in yourself. You’ve done the hard work already – now you just need to show the examiners what you are capable of!

Have Global Politics questions? Ask them here!