Hej everyone!
As I have another exam coming up on the 11th of February, I figured it would be nice to give you some insight in what kind of exams there are at LiU, what they look like for my program and how I usually prepare for them.
In my program, Applied Ethology and Animal Biology, we only have home exams. Generally, after every two courses we have an exam week with two home exams. What I like most about home exams is that you can make them everywhere, so you do not have to be in Sweden! You can even make them while being on holiday ;). Though I don’t know if I would recommend that.. I also followed the Swedish course level A1, and this exam was a classical one in a big hall where you could only have a pencil.
Home exams in my program exists of a few questions about lectures/literature you had to read and most of the time you have two days to make the exam. You can Google everything, read every lecture again, and during some exams you’re even allowed to talk with your classmates about it. These types of exams are really different from what I was used to in my Bachelor’s, which were the classical exams for which you had to study and then make the exam in a limited amount of time in a classroom. For the Swedish course, the exam had to be written in an exam hall and it was very strict. However, the surveillants were really nice so there’s no need to worry. Usually the classical exams give me some anxiety since there’s a lot of pressure on you, whilst with home exams it is all very relaxed, and you often have way too much time – so you can easily take a few fika breaks and refresh your mind.
It really depends on the course how I prepare for the home exam. Usually, I read through all my lecture notes again and go through some of the previous exams of that course, these are made available by the teachers. This really helps creating an expectation and you can see on what parts you still need to focus. Furthermore, it is not necessary to learn things by heart or really put things in your head because that is not the focus of these exams. It is more about understanding and being able to process the information you got from the course.
Sometimes I really get lost during the exam and that can be a bit stressful, so then it is a good idea to take a step back and do something completely different. During my last exam, I went for a walk to clear my thoughts, but you can also watch some Netflix or something that helps to give your head a break. I also would recommend to hand in the exam at least one hour before the deadline just in case something goes wrong. Some teachers are quite strict when it comes to the deadline so then it is better to be on the safe side – and as I mentioned before, you have lots of time.
For the classical Swedish exam, I had to study for a while before since you actually have to know things by heart. However, there were lots of example exams so I exactly knew what to expect and that makes it much better. I still prefer the home exams, but sometimes it is nice to be done with an exam after 2-3 hours instead of sitting behind your screen for 2 days ;).
Let me know what kind of exams you have in your program and if you like them!
Till next time! // Milou
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