'A marathon not a sprint': Finals Forum offers help to master the exam challenge
Every Hilary Term, Merton hosts a Finals Forum for all undergraduates preparing for final exams in Trinity Term, to provide information about the exams and offer revision strategies. Christian Ruckteschler, a third-year PPE student, was among the participants this year:
The forum was broadly structured into four parts. In the first part, the college’s welfare team presented their perspective on the coming revision period. The Senior Tutor, Dr Trudy Watt, passed on advice from the College GP regarding stress management, as well as how to obtain documentation about special circumstances and arrangements for exams. One analogy I found particularly helpful was to see the coming months as a marathon rather than a sprint. This tied in well with the remarks and advice from the other members of the welfare team present at the forum: Catherine Haines, the college nurse, and Elizabeth Perry as one of the two Junior Deans for Welfare. A message that was emphasised unanimously was the importance of retaining a sense of perspective about finals and to continue having time off for relaxation and fun. With a good portion of fun, a good sleeping pattern, and regular exercising besides all the hard work, there is no need for the next months to be ones of stress.
During the second part of the forum, the Academic Registrar, Lynn Featherstone, presented a wealth of very useful information on the procedural side of exams. From alternative arrangements, over consequences of illegible writing to appealing procedures for unreasonable marks, all eventualities and arising questions were covered. While we hope that most of us will not need to make use of these procedures, it is certainly reassuring to know that they exist, and to have learned how to make use of them.
In the following third part we received advice from the Senior Tutor on revision skills. Continuing the sports analogy, she suggested that we approach exams just as a sportsman would approach an important competition:
- Identify the challenge: familiarise ourselves with every detail of the challenge using all resources available to us;
- Make a training (revision) plan based on this knowledge of the challenge
- Train: keep to this plan as best as possible
- Master the challenge on the day
On the subject of revision, Dr Watt also pointed out that it was important to think about revision in a positive way. Rather than as cramming, we should see revision as the ascent of a mountain, culminating in reaching the peak. From there, we would be able to see all the fields and valleys we passed through before, but this time with a clear perspective of the landscape as a whole, and all the relations between its individual components. Talking to fellow students, many have already experienced the benefits of this elevated view as they started revision this Hilary Term. I am confident the view will become even better as we approach exams, and I hope all of us will enter our exams with blue sky a clear view from horizon to horizon.
In the last part of the forum, five former Merton undergraduates who sat their final exams during in recent years gave us their take on the undertaking. All of them agreed that it was important to have a daily finishing time after which work would be over, and to continue to have fun. At least as reassuring as their agreement on these points, however, was their diversity in all other respects. Each spoke about what strategies worked for them, and while everyone approached revision slightly differently, they certainly all made it to the other side alive and well – and there is no reason why our year should be any different!
With this in mind, and all the good advice we received during the forum, I realise that finals really do not need to be daunting at all. Instead, they can be the peak of our achievements over the last years, and the beginning of many great things to come. One more point all graduates agreed on was that the day of finishing their final exams has remained in their memories as one of the best of their lives. What could be better to look forward to? The greatest pleasure, after all, lies in anticipation.
