With your method, if you sit down with the first problem and can not solve it you will not even see the secong problem (which you may be able to solve). I did not recommend skimming through the exam, but did not explicity say to read each question, which I meant to.
For completeness: Read each question and "only answer the questions you know for sure and which will take little time." and then go back and "answer as much of each question until you start to hesitate".
This means that you are attacking the exam in a systematic way and after you write down what you know you already have part of the exam finished - helps to control the panic when you have at least something done. If you are unable to put anything down then you're pretty much screwed. Take the course again or take a few years off and gain some life experience (I took off 8 years because I knew I would just party if I went straight into university and would not do well - now I have some great experiences and in less than 10 months I will be a bachelor degree in engineering). While my classmates freak out I remind myself that I could be back in the Bahamas teaching scuba diving in less than 2 months if I wanted to - but the thing is I want to be where I am.
I disagree with only looking at one question at a time. If you get bogged down on a question you may not have time to answer questions later in the test which you would have received marks for.
I recommend taking many passes through the exam:
first pass: only answer the questions you know for sure and which will take little time
second pass: answer as much of each question until you start to hesitate
third pass: fill in what you thought of while working on other questions in the second pass
fourth pass: state assumptions which allow you to add to your answer / theory you know applies (but which you may not know how to apply)
Teachers tend to give partial marks - this procedure saved my ass in a digital signal processing course (class avarage before scaling 45%)
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With your method, if you sit down with the first problem and can not solve it you will not even see the secong problem (which you may be able to solve). I did not recommend skimming through the exam, but did not explicity say to read each question, which I meant to.
For completeness: Read each question and "only answer the questions you know for sure and which will take little time." and then go back and "answer as much of each question until you start to hesitate".
This means that you are attacking the exam in a systematic way and after you write down what you know you already have part of the exam finished - helps to control the panic when you have at least something done. If you are unable to put anything down then you're pretty much screwed. Take the course again or take a few years off and gain some life experience (I took off 8 years because I knew I would just party if I went straight into university and would not do well - now I have some great experiences and in less than 10 months I will be a bachelor degree in engineering). While my classmates freak out I remind myself that I could be back in the Bahamas teaching scuba diving in less than 2 months if I wanted to - but the thing is I want to be where I am.
Hope this clarifies my advice.
- first pass: only answer the questions you know for sure and which will take little time
- second pass: answer as much of each question until you start to hesitate
- third pass: fill in what you thought of while working on other questions in the second pass
- fourth pass: state assumptions which allow you to add to your answer / theory you know applies (but which you may not know how to apply)
Teachers tend to give partial marks - this procedure saved my ass in a digital signal processing course (class avarage before scaling 45%)