By Ridi Catwar
Entrance exams are approaching, and many of you might be panicking (I know I was!) Everyone told me it was all about what you did on the day, with the unseen material, and that you couldn’t prepare for them, but this would stress me out so much as I was so used to preparing for everything. Now that I have taken mine, I have learnt that you can prepare but not in the standard way you might for a GCSE or an A Level exam. It’s important to remember that these entrance exams are not a memory tests, instead they are set up to assess how you think.
My biggest tips:
Get used to looking at unseen material, give yourself ten minutes to read something and then try and explain or discuss it to a family member or friend.
Pick up random newspaper articles, pieces of literature, equations, scientific theories and give yourself ten minutes to read, think about them and take some notes.
Have a go at coming up with ideas and opinions in the moment.
Put yourself under time pressure.
Print out past papers of your subject and sit the exam in timed conditions (these can be found for free online!)
Look over your answers and assess what you may do differently, where your weak points are and how you can improve.
Best of luck!