Guide to HHD (from a 50er)

[heids]

Howdy guys!  I loved HHD in 2014, finding it a logical step-by-step subject I felt I could get good marks in... but more importantly, it was highly applicable to life in general and highlights so much how unbelievably lucky we are to live in Australia!  Hope this jumble of hints is helpful in tackling this fun and informative subject

Take the subject seriously!
DON’T take HHD as your bludge subject!  In this subject, a little good, solid work goes a long way... I think it’s not that hard to get way better than your other marks if you just work.  People don't tend to work as hard so there's far less competition; on AVERAGE, the IQ of people doing HHD will be lower as ATAR-of-99-maths-science guys tend to steer clear of it; and I believe there's less skill needed (you don’t need mathematical genius, artistic flair, or even really clear explanation skills like say for Bio).  Check out the AN users' signatures - often the HHD SS sticks out a mile (e.g. rebeccab26 as the first random one I thought of). 

Please don't throw away your opportunity to get that study score you'll be proud of by thinking that because it's easy you can get away with bludging it!  Aim high! (i.e. WORK HARD ).

Be in control of your learning.
Your aim is to feel like a total pro of the subject, like you know exactly what it takes to get a good score... till you feel, 'Hell yeah, I could even write and mark the exams!'

Before the year starts, get someone's free AN summary notes (maybe ellaa81's?).  Go through the notes - write/type them out differently, draw them, read them out loud - whatever works for you, till you understand what's going on.  Work with the study design beside you, just try to get a feel for what it's about and its flow, on a basic level.  Read over a couple of VCAA exams to get a feel for what you're heading for, what sort of things you're going to have to learn and how questions are asked.

Then, throughout the year, research.  You can easily find stuff on the internet if you look for it!  Also, go through model answers to prac SACs and exams, to learn the most effective ways to answer for full marks.

Don’t do more work than you need to.
Unless you’re a crazy weirdo like me who LIKES to learn to develop themselves (or just for the sake of it), rather than just to pass exams ... minimise what you have to learn. Don't complicate it.  You'll find there's less than you imagined at first.  Sure, it's totally the wrong attitude; but will help get better marks.

Print about 10 double-sided study design key knowledge sheets (as attached with this post), stick them everywhere (textbook, wall, locker etc.), and make them your first reference the whole time.  Group all your notes under study design dot-points, so you don't get way off track like the textbook does; this way you can eliminate anything unimportant.  Don't stress about irrelevancies, e.g. age-standardised rates, the UN's structure and councils, 50 food sources per nutrient, or learning data.

That being said, to get a 50 you do have to be more widely read to be prepared for anything they can throw at you.  If you’re happy with anything up to a 47, as most people are, do the MINIMUM.

Answering exam questions in HHD is a two-step process.
A.  Know your stuff.  Learn the definitions and facts.
B.  Waffle and invent!  Building on your basic knowledge, make up all the rest.

A. Content
Nothing in HHD is creative or difficult; a lot of it is just plain honest learning, either memorising definitions or lists or learning facts.  To make this easier, write a set of notes (as well as more comprehensive notes with explanations) that just have facts and definitions.  Don't put in explanations (e.g. how something promotes SHD or health status).  Make sure, though, you cover everything - like ALL the definitions in the glossary in the teacher's advice document.  Stripping it down to the bare skeleton, the core essential content, makes it far less daunting.  HHD is very clearly defined and laid-out, making this quite simple. 

Then sit down through the year and LEARN.

B. Padding!
The rest is the skill of making things up.  It does take skill; but once you figure out how to do it, as long as you've got the core content down pat, you should be able to invent good answers NO MATTER what question they throw at you.  It's just about drawing links in your mind and then having a bit of ingenuity in making stuff up.  (OK, sometimes questions have obscure content, and if you haven't learnt it, nothing you do can get you the marks.)

Here are some examples of what I mean

Explain the impact of [literally anything from the course] on health/health status/human development/sustainable human development.
You could waste your time learning how everything - Medicare, healthcare values, Dietary Guidelines, AGHE, Nutrition Australia, NHPAs, each MDG... ok I could go on for years... impacts on all these elements.  Or, you can invent it on the spot.  Say, it's the impact of Medicare on HS.  If you know what Medicare is, you know that it's about providing access to healthcare.  And if people have access to healthcare, how will that reduce their risk of dying from or getting diseases?  That's all there is to it - you've just got to explain it.
Or, if it's the impact of the WHO agenda area 'fostering health security' on SHD.  Be inventive.  Health security ==> fewer outbreaks of nasty diseases like ebola or flu ==> people are healthy ==> can go to work and get an income ==> can live productive/creative lives, access to knowledge, health and a decent standard of living (HD) ==> pass on their knowledge to their kids.

Health: link to physical, social and/or mental health
Health status: link to a couple of specific diseases and whether their mortality/BOD would be raised or lowered.
HD: link to phrases from the HD definition
SHD: link to phrases from the HD definition AND sustainability definition
Global health: link to health status, then insert 'for all populations worldwide' or 'equity in health status'

List one advantage and one disadvantage of [something]
Like in last year's exam, we had to list one advantage and one disadvantage of the biomedical and social models of health.  I hadn't ever thought of disadvantages of the social model!  So I sat and thought, until I invented - 'the results aren't easily measurable'.  Not great; but worth a mark!  I didn't know - I just relied on my invention skills. 

Describe a program that could be implemented...
Again - just making stuff up.  Throw in as many specific details as you can, e.g. training midwives, or installing dams and wells, or giving fertiliser and seed and training on irrigation techniques, or whatever; but it's just a test of your invention.

Using [a factor or case study], discuss the interrelationships between health, HD and sustainability.
This just ends up a question of linking a factor/program to health, then health status, then HD, then sustainability!  It looks scary, but if you think about it, it ain't much harder than 2-mark health status or human development questions, it's just longer.

Other hints
Before the year starts
Either take a good, solid holiday, or (if you're just sitting round in front of the TV) set 2 hours in the morning for schoolwork.  It's not hard, won't burn you out, and will make the year easier.  But DON'T do 8-hour days – by exams you'll be sicker of VCE than you can believe.
I would advise (in order):
  1. Learn health status indicators, OFF BY HEART
  2. Get to know the study design and the basic flow of the course – know where you're heading.
  3. Learn Unit 3 lists: social model/Ottawa Charter action areas, VicHealth priorities etc.
  4. If you still have time, head to Unit 4 and start learning definitions of human development, sustainability, HDI, the MDG names, etc. This'll take off the pressure later in the year, which is really helpful.

SACs
To get a high mark, you really do need high SAC marks (for both units, I had a 97% average) for your cohort.  Most schools do SACs in exam-style format; if you prepare thoroughly for a SAC and treat it really seriously, you are getting maybe the best exam preparation you can have. 
To prepare I'd take the dot points from the study design that the SAC is based around, and write/speak and record everything that you can think of under that dot point; then check over it to figure out what you need to study.  Another way is coming up with all the possible questions you can think of for the area the SAC covers, and making sure that you could answer these.

But seriously, don't worry if you muck one or two up.  I remember looking at my results in the mid 80s for one SAC (a perfectly good mark, but at the time I felt it would be a killer to the 50).  When a SAC is worth only 7-8%, it's simply impossible to totally destroy your SS from one failed SAC!  It's far better to make the mistakes, and learn from them, in the SACs than in the exam.  From my disappointing SAC mark, for instance, I learnt to READ questions carefully rather than jump to conclusions... because if you head on the wrong track you get a 0 for a question.

Resources
Just to encourage those who, like me, went to an academically poor school and couldn't afford revision lectures or expensive resources: the only thing I bought in the year was my required Cambridge textbook (the teacher also provided some company practice exams) - I never went to a revision lecture, but found that free notes on AN and searching the Internet get you a long way.  A huge pile of resources and lectures don't make the 50, especially not in HHD!
The cheapest available resources I know are sold on AN, yearningforsimplicity's and mine, which both have heapppppps of resources for the price.

Practice exams
Actually the only trial exam I ever fully did was the compulsory school trial!  Instead, I mentally thought through how I'd answer questions; if I got stuck on a question, I'd try it out on paper.  I then checked the answers and noted down in red pen anything I'd missed or should improve on.

Ideally, though, I suggest doing a mixture: some exam-conditions-properly-completed exams, and others with just brief dot-pointed summaries for answers (saves time).  Always check against the answers provided and highlight at the end what you need to fix up next time.  Now you should to more exams than I did , but I don't think you need to do more than 10 (plus VCAA) for HHD.  It's important, but you've got to remember that no matter how many you do, if you don't know the content (definitions etc.) really inside out, you still won't get the best marks.

Which companies are good?  From my experience of 2014 papers, QATS, Insight and then Health Teachers Network were the best, followed (a fair way behind) by Kilbaha.  I think the ones I wrote for my pack are great, not that I'm biased or anything *shameless self promotion*...  I wouldn’t waste my time with TSSM or Engage <-- rewrite: except the one you get when you go to their end-of-year lecture I wrote that (jks jks, I hope I'm not that arrogant ).

Past VCAA exams
Lots of people like keeping VCAA exams to the end; I preferred to use them right from the start, for both SAC and exam revision and to really get a feel early in the year of what you're headed for, to help keep you on track.  Essentially, it's making your own improved Checkpoints.

Before the year starts, print out 2010-2013 exams, full size like a real exam.  Before each SAC, go through each exam with a coloured highlighter (different for each SAC, e.g. yellow for first, green for second, so that you can easily study the questions relevant to the SAC), and highlight all the questions related to that SAC.  On a separate piece of paper, try to answer them.  Then get the exam report answers, and with their help formulate the BEST answers you can and copy them into the original exam.  It's excellent SAC prep, and you can use it to make notes from and study off the whole year through.  By the end, you'll have a perfect question-answer booklet and know exactly what sorts of questions VCAA exams ask!

Save one exam (2014) to do in the week leading up under exam conditions.

How do study in the leadup to the exam
Obviously, anything that works for you: cue cards, flow charts etc.  I tended to find that rewriting notes (adding, simplifying or rearranging information as I went, NOT just copying) was actually best for me.  But my favourite was getting a study-design dot point per night, and writing or speaking aloud and recording all I could think of beneath it.  Then I'd check my notes/textbook, write notes on what I needed to learn, and the next day dedicate 5-20 minutes to learning it.

Finally... ask a heap of questions on this board

[more_vanilla]

This was really helpful. Thanks bangla_lok!

[heids]

Another overdose installment of my hints, hoping no one's sick of me yet ... This time on how to cope with the memory load of HHD.

Content overload!! how do I cope?
This seems to be (almost) everyone's complaint about HHD; there's nothing ridiculously difficult to comprehend – just too much to remember!

Firstly, minimise and clearly define what you have to learn.
Sometimes it can feel like it's overwhelming; you'll never be able to learn it all... you don't even know what you have to learn!
Breathe.  It's not that bad.
Take out the study design, your textbook/notes, and check out this: Definitions You Should Know.  Start compiling a set of notes that clearly defines what you have to learn (since a lot of HHD is answering questions like 'explain the impact of X on health status', which you don't have to learn specifically, but you draw from your knowledge to invent an answer).  Take out any explanations or padding – strip it down to the bare minimum.

This way, you know clearly what you have to learn, it doesn't look as overwhelming, and you can figure out ways to attack it.

Learning definitions
Take courage – learning definitions/content can take time, be boring and frustrating, but YOU CAN DO IT!  It just takes work; everyone can do it, whereas not everyone can answer a hard maths question or write a 10/10 essay. To make it less daunting, try learning just one definition per night; recite (or relearn) the definition the next day before you eat breakfast.

Before learning a definition, get an understanding of what it actually means – put it in your own words, read about it in your textbook, look it up on the internet if you're still struggling.  Then split up definitions into short sections/dot-points.

Some ways of learning definitions:
For each phrase/short section, read and repeat it aloud a few times; then write it out, pace round repeating it a few times, write it out again.  Repeat this for each section, then do so for the entire definition until you can repeat it fairly fluently.  This was my way... it just gets straight to the point.  For some people, though, some others can work really well:

  - create actions to go along with the definitions (just don't do them too graphically in the exam...)

  - teach them aloud to the dog, mirror, or a (patient) friend or family member

  - associate it with symbols (like for the Ottawa Charter, my friend drew a house for 'build healthy public policy', etc.)

  - record definitions and listen to them as you go for a run/lie in bed procrastinating (try weird accents and voices )

  - use fancy writing, colours and layouts to make posters of the definitions; stick them on your wall

  - sing them to tunes you know

  - try dramatically declaiming them or copying other people's/celebrities' voices

Remember, no matter how corny, no one but the mirror ever has to know

Must definitions be learned word-for-word?
Nooo; one word wrong won't automatically lose the mark.  But remember that every word you go further from the official definition, jeopardises the mark.  Obviously what's most important is key words (so highlight/bold key words in flashcards/notes and focus on getting them in your head), and if you struggle just focus on these; but it's ideal to learn pretty well word-for-word so there's no risk of losing a mark.

Flashcards
They're easy to take round and use when you only have a little bit of time, and making them helps you summarise the content. Ensure the word to define is on one side, and you DON'T check the other side until you've come up with your best effort!

Anki is an excellent flashcard app I recommend; daily, you go through flashcards you've made, each individual card being shown you at intervals based on how well you know it.

Here's how it works if you're interested

1.  You create a 'deck' of cards through the app.  You can add any card to the deck at any time.
2.  Daily, you go through the flashcards the app chooses to present to you.
3.  For each flashcard in turn, you are shown the word you need to define/describe.
do your best to answer it – you can record your voice answering it, and the recording will be deleted as soon as you move to the next flashcard.
4.  It then shows the answer (you can compare with your recorded voice)
5.  You rate how well you answered it; based on how well you answered it, it will decide in how many days you'll next be shown that card.

It's a really great app, but may take you some time to learn how to navigate it.  You must also be willing to go through it daily, or else the cards begin to pile up overwhelmingly – any you haven't addressed on one day are added to the next day's bunch. 

Acronyms/mnemonics
Remember that most of these lists must be learned word-perfect!

NHPAs - A DAD COMIC

- asthma
 - diabetes mellitus
 - arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions
 - dementia
 - cancer control
 - obesity
 - mental health
 - injury prevention and control
 - cardiovascular health

Social model of health guiding principles - CHIDE

- involves intersectorial collaboration
 - enables access to healthcare
 - acts to reduce social inequities
 - addresses the broader determinants of health
 - empowers individuals and communities

Ottawa Charter of Health Promotion action areas - Bad Cats Smell Dead Rats / PEASH

- build healthy public policy
 - create supportive environments
 - strengthen community action
 - develop personal skills
 - reorient health services

VicHealth mission - PRISS

- promote fairness and opportunity for better health
 - reconise that the social and economic conditions for all people influence their health
 - in partnership with others, promote good health
 - support initiatives that assist individuals, communities, workplaces and broader society to improve wellbeing
 - seek to prevent chronic conditions for all Victorians

VicHealth priorities - PEPPI/EATAM

- promote healthy eating
 - encourage regular physical activity
 - prevent tobacco use
 - prevent harm from alcohol
 - improve mental wellbeing

Values that underpin health system - SEECARS

- safe
 - efficient
 - effective
 - continuous
 - accessible
 - responsive
 - sustainable

SDGs - NZGQGCDP

- no poverty
 - zero hunger
 - good health and wellbeing
 - quality education
 - gender equality
 - clean water and sanitation
 - decent work and economic growth
 - peace, justice and strong institutions
Possible mnemonic: New Zealand's Good Quality Guys Cook Decent Pizzas

WHO Priorities - UNSHIT

- universal health coverage
 - non-communicable diseases
 - social, economic and environmental determinants
 - health-related MDGs
 - increasing access to medical products
 - the international health regulations

Australian Aid - IGA BEE

- infrastructure, trade facilitation and international competitiveness
 - gender equality and empowering women and girls
 - aggriculture, fisheries and water
 - building resilience: humanitarian assistance, disaster risk reduction and social protection
 - effective governance: policies, institutions and functioning economies
 - education and health

[heids]

In response to the large volume of PMs...

What to do between now and the exam

These are just my suggestions of how to study; they may not be relevant to your situation or learning style!
tl;dr: for each dot-point on the study design:
- write all you can, closed book, and later compare with open book so you know what you need to study
- write and answer your own questions and get feedback on your answers
and can't emphasise enough, actually studying/revising/cramming the content is huge.

1.  Find your weaknesses.
Search for anything that's stopping you full-marking a paper.  Lack of content knowledge?  Learn what you don't know!  Can't answer a certain type of question properly?  Ask someone for help!  Run out of time?  Practise timed conditions, and practise crossing out every single unnecessary word in your answers!  Be as specific as possible, try to solve your problems immediately rather than putting them off, and if you can't do it, ask us for help!

2.  Make sure you know all (or as much as possible) of the content.
I cannot believe how much this is underestimated.  Why bother losing an easy two marks on a definition, an entirely predictable question that takes no skill, when you could have just learnt it?  (I realise that learning is time-consuming, difficult and often painful, but do you want to score highly or not? )

Get the study design. Each night (or however often), take one dot-point and write all you can about it, closed book. Go over it afterwards open book, and write notes on what you missed. BAM! You know exactly what you need to study!  Then, study it, and repeat this process.

Like, if you're revising for the NHPAs, go through each NHPA one at a time:
- describe it
- 2-3 reasons why it's chosen as an NHPA
- costs - direct, indirect and intangible for both individual and community
- 4-5 risk determinants, and how they increase risk
- program (dot-point this)

Then, if you found you don't know a program for asthma or can't describe cancer, study that until you can fill out these questions closed-book without a gap.  It's relatively simple to learn an NHPA program; but somehow, every time they ask for programs, like 1/4 of the state get zero marks out of 3-4!  It's easy full marks if you've done this study, however.

So it's time to pull out your definitions, your NHPAs programs, your Ottawa Charter action areas, your WHO agenda, your Australian Dietary Guidelines - and learn.  If by exam time you can know all your stuff, you're ahead of 99% of the state and well on your way to a 45+.  Be really thorough - don't miss minor definitions and make sure you've covered all the obvious stuff under the dot points.  See above post for help with learning content.

3.  Practise answering questions correctly.
Many questions follow the same lines; so compile a list of as many 'common' question styles as you can, e.g.
- Explain the impact of ___ on health / health status / HD / global health / SHD.
- Explain how two determinants of health...
- Outline one program that...

For each, write one specific example,
e.g. Use one biological and one behavioural determinant of health to explain the difference in health status between males and females.
Answer it, and get someone (teacher or HHD Qs thread) to go over it and suggest how you could perfect it.  Make up, answer and check different examples of this question type until you're confident you've got it; you'll fall into a formula.  Then move on to the next question type!  This self-written practise is more targeted than doing prac exams

4.  Don't waste time doing unnecessary stuff.
1.  Constantly test yourself to identify which areas need study.  Don't spend ages studying the information you already know; just brush over and check you've still got it all.

2.  Don't learn unnecessary, irrelevant content, like data or things off the study design.

3.  Don't fully fill out heaps of practise exams.  Only occasionally do a full timed one. (I did one total, the school-enforced one).  Instead, dot-point answers or answer them out loud.  Or, how I did it: flick quickly through the questions; if you get to one you're not 100% sure about, try it out and check the answers.  Otherwise, just ignore those you're confident with.

4.  Dot-point/short-hand your answers, except when you're practising timing or how to fully answer a particular question type; it saves time while checking that you can draw the links well enough.  e.g. hunger > malnutrition > poor physical health > sick > can't participate in community > poor social health

5.  Milk VCAA exams for all their worth.
You'd be udderly stupid not to.  Don't be a cow-ard, they're not that scary.

Try this:
1.  Print two copies of each exam.
2.  Fill out one closed-book (either timed, or just dot-pointing/short-handing answers).
3.  Get the exam reports, and mark in red where you went wrong or how the report suggested you could write better.  Be harsh.
4.  Write in the other copy the 'best' possible answers you can come up with using the exam reports + your own knowledge.  Refer to this at all times.

NB - how I organised VCAA papers: print double-sided + 2 pages per page to save ink/paper; put each stapled exam in a slip in a display folder organised by year, with the year's exam report backing to the exam.

6, 7, 8 and whatever else I can think of.
Ask questions.
Enjoy the subject.
Sleep.
Most importantly, read some Stephen Leacock for relaxation.  yes this is irrelevant but it's awesome and Nonsense Novels are the best and you should just really try it out guys! #inb4banned4advertisinglinks

[Joseph41]

Great guide - should be stickied. This is a fantastic resource for any prospective HHD 3/4 students next year and beyond.

[heids]

Hey guys!  With the exam this afternoon, I just want to let you know that I'm believing in your abilities to smash the rest of the HHD cohort hollow.... so here are some exam tips to help out!  Believe in yourself, your memory, and your invention skills, and you'll kill this exam.

Answer the question.  Yeah, I mean it.
The most self-evident and most forgotten exam tip possible.  Read the question, figure out exactly what it is trying to say, and answer it.  If it asks you to describe Medicare, well, describe Medicare.  Don't go off contrasting it with private health insurance or explaining its impact on health status, because if the question doesn't ask that, they're not going to give you any marks for saying it.  Don't throw in irrelevant detail just to pad out the answer and make you look knowledgeable.  Waffling only annoys those all-powerful examiners and hides your real, mark-scoring points.

Look at exactly what the question is asking you to do, and map out an answer with all the necessary information to fulfil the question's requirements.

That's my top tip for getting 50.

So I want you to walk into the exam with this in mind: Answer the question, the whole question, and nothing but the question.

Read questions VERY carefully; don’t jump to conclusions.
Just because it’s LIKE another question you’ve done doesn’t mean it is the same.  Check if it says, ‘other than’ or similar trick things.  Make sure you're actually answering what the question's asking!  Underline key words and read questions thoroughly twice.

When answering, don't cut corners.
Better to overdo than underdo.  No matter how tedious, follow through your formula to the very end.  Write 3 marks' worth for a 2-mark question.  Why?  Because, why on earth would you risk a mark with inadequate explanation!?!  Isn't it better to make the examiner 10000% sure that they can't take off a mark?  Always give enough, no, more than enough details. (As long as you actually have something extra and fully relevant to say, and don't struggle too much with timing, of course.)

Easiest first!
As you reach each question, make a snap decision on whether you can easily complete it or not.  If easy: fill it in and use a highlighter to mark the 'a.' or 'b. i.' that you just finished.  If hard: move on.  When you get to the end, repeat, only looking at unhighlighted questions.  This works because you get on a roll with easy questions and on't panic, and if you run out of time, you've got down all the stuff you know best.  If you still have time at the end, skim your answers and add/change bits here and there.

Be inventive.Don’t stress if you can’t think of the answer.
Don't stress if you can't think of the answer; often it's in there somewhere... it just takes a bit of time to dig out, so leave it till last.  If you still can't answer, make it up.  Don't panic - dredge up any information vaguely related from your head, note it down in the margin, and chew on it until you can come up with a semi-reasonable answer.  Inventiveness is THE hugest skill of HHD.

e.g. imagine you got this question, and you'd never learnt anything like this: Describe the role of VicHealth.  Think, 'VicHealth.  what do I know about that?'  Hopefully you should be getting ideas about their mission and strategic priorities.  Then you should be like 'well I guess their mission and priorities are kinda like what they're going to DO, so if I summarise those and how they're part of VicHealth's role, that should be pretty good.'  So note down key details from these, and you should be able to make up a role!

e.g. from my exam: the differences between saturated and trans fats.  I didn't know.  But I was like 'saturated fats - what in the world do I know about them?'  I finally listed down, among other things, 'lowers levels of LDL cholesterol.'  Then 'trans fats -  what do I know about them?'  I finally listed, 'lowers levels of LDL cholesterol and raises levels of HDL.'  Voila.  I had an answer - sat fats only lower LDL, while trans lower LDL and raise HDL.  Bingo.

Draw out EVERYTHING vaguely related, and try wild invention skills.  You'll score impossible marks that way.

Answer everything and put down all you've got
Even if you (think you) have no clue... There's no point getting 0/3 when you could get 1/3.

Case in point: VCAA 2014, Q15c.
i. 'Describe an immunisation program that could be implemented that takes into account two elements of sustainability.' (4 marks)
ii. 'Explain how this program could improve human development.' (3 marks)

1 in 4 people, yes 1 in 4, got 0 marks for this.

Even if you feel clueless, check what relevant knowledge you have and list it; e.g. list 2 elements of sustainability even if you can’t link them in; even just say ‘an immunisation program could be implemented in schools to increase rates of immunisation of children in developing countries’! You never know when they'll give you a mark!

For cii., even if you haven’t created a program, you simply have to explain how increasing immunisation rates could promote HD. Part ci. isn’t essential for full marks on cii.  Even just saying 'increasing immunisation could help people lead productive and creative lives blah blah blah', while it won't ever get you full marks as you haven't explained the link, may get you 1-2.  Believe that NO QUESTION will ever be able to throw you enough that you can't get 1 marks' worth down, just something.

Use reading time.
Get a feel for the paper, identify 'hard' questions to leave till last, read through case studies and charts, start phrasing some of your answers in your head.

Be specific.
Avoid anything vague or generalised: 'X would reduce mortality in the population', 'this program increases access to safe water'. Always give specific examples (like, 'X would reduce mortality from cholera and diarrhoea', or 'this program builds pumps and tippy taps near schools using local materials to...').

Picture yourself as the examiner.
When you write an answer, think - if you were an examiner, would you give full marks?  If not, why not?  What parts have you missed or could you include?  Have you highlighted key points so they stand out?  Is a lot of it irrelevant waffle that doesn't deserve any marks at all? etc.

Always, I repeat always, refer to stimulus material provided in your answer.
Quote data and case studies at every possible chance.

Highlight key points.
Structure your answers, often under headings, with underlined key points, or by separating main points using colons and dashes.  It saves time and shows the examiner clearly that you know your stuff.
e.g. Behavioural – tobacco smoking: rural and remote groups tend to have higher rates of smoking than... and thus...
e.g. Multilateral aid: where aid is... [definition]

Write super-humanly fast.  But try to be neat!

Get excited
Cheesy but true.  Think, 'Ooh, yay!  Isn't that a bea-yoo-ti-ful sentence I wrote... I just killed that question and there's another mark the examiner just has to give me!'  I promise it really truly works.