The Students' Association and everyone at the University want all students to succeed in their assessments, here are a few tips to help along the way.
Acing Exams for Students with Disabilities offer great advice and support during the exam period, click the link here its free to join!
Mindfulness
We appreciate that exams can be stressful, and with that in mind, our LLB team ran an online Mindfulness session to help all students prepare for their assessments.
You can access the session here. The recording will be helpful to all students regardless of what programme you are studying with us at BPP University and provides revision and relaxation tips.
Taking a little time each day to working on techniques such as breathing exercises will help to calm your body’s stress response and refocus on the present problem. This works effectively during both revision and your actual exams!
Do’s and Don’ts
- Don’t set yourself unreachable goals. Nobody can revise 10 topics in a day! Instead, try to space it out and take frequent breaks to ensure that you can concentrate properly when revising.
- Don’t overuse caffeine and sugary foods and drinks, as this will only impede your energy and concentration in the long term and will make it difficult to get to sleep. Instead, drink water to stay hydrated, eat slow-release foods like bread, rice, fruit and vegetables to keep a good blood sugar level and for avoiding dips in energy.
- Don’t stay up all night revising - ensure to get about 8 hours’ sleep a night as this will help you to retain the information and, if you are like us, will stop you feeling cranky.
- Don’t leave things until the last minute. Make sure you have read and understand that examination guidelines and procedures, completing any pre-checks required and ensure that you understand the ‘Fit to Sit’ policy, which you can find more information about here.
Preparing for the Exam Period:
Make sure you have read and understood the examination guidelines; particularly in reference to ‘Fit to Sit’. Our website also has information on the procedure, click here for more information. You can also find out information on the policies on the VLE. For example, look for the link to 'What To Do If Things Go Wrong'.
If you are unsure of procedures or availability of exams, urgently contact the examinations team on examinations@bpp.com with as much detail as possible regarding your issue.
Check, check, and check again the location and time of your exam! This information can often change, so make sure you are fully aware of where you expected and when! If you miss an exam because of this, it is usually not considered a Mitigating Circumstance.
Similarly, if you are permitted to bring materials (such as statute books) into your exam, ensure that your material is not breaking any annotation rules. If you are unsure, speak to your Programme Team and ask for advice, the rules will also be located in the specific module area on the VLE. It is much quicker and easier to fix issues before the exam. Check your book again before you enter the exam and make sure extra bits of paper that you may have been using for revision have now been removed. Any assessment rules breaks may be investigated under the University Academic Misconduct Policy.
The Students’ Association Independent Advice team can provide information on exams and procedures. We can also help if things don’t go according to plan. If you have any queries, get in touch via our contact form.
You can find more study tips on our wellbeing resources page.
Goodbye assessments, hello holidays!
If you have now finished your assessments, the Students’ Association and the University would like to take this opportunity say a massive congratulations for making it through! How do you feel? You may be feeling elated, relieved, or perhaps still a bit unsettled. In any event, here are a few tips to help put things in perspective:
- Think about how far you have come already. You have done incredibly well to have gotten into your chosen course and have made it this way through.
- Exams aren’t everything! Whatever happens with your exams, you can still be successful in life afterwards.
- Employers will not just look at your exam scores, as they will also be interested in your attitude, transferable skills and how well you get on with others.
- Exam success doesn't define you as a person. Everyone copes differently in different situations and there's so much more to your personality than how well you can respond to an exam.
- If you feel like something went wrong during your exam or assessment, please feel welcome to get in touch with us so that we can give you some advice as to your next steps via our contact form.
Finally, if you are all finished for the year, try to forget about your assessments for now and keep busy doing things that you love. If, however, you are feeling very overwhelmed and feel like you need some extra support, reach out to BPP’s wonderful Learning support or safeguarding team at learningsupport@bpp.com and/or safeguarding@bpp.com.