Three things to consider before leaving an exam early

It’s pretty safe to say that no one loves exams and we’re all pretty keen to get them over and done with as soon as possible 👍 . That makes a tricky situation when you feel like you’ve done everything you can on your paper but there’s still time left on the clock. And while some of us couldn’t even dream of leaving an exam early, plenty of us have done it before or are pretty much expecting to do it at some point. So for you guys in the second group, here are three big things to consider before you do the quick escape:

1. No one really recommends it

To be 100% honest, leaving an exam early isn’t the best idea and no one really recommends it. See, there are two reasons that we might leave an exam early:

1. You have answered all the questions on the exam.
2. You have answered everything you can, and you have no clue how to approach the other questions.

In both those situations, you’re not really sitting in a place where you will cause yourself to lose any more marks. It’s definitely important that you don’t use your extra time to ramble on and hope that more words/working “looks” more impressive to your markers so as long as you can restrain yourself from that, you aren’t going to do any damage to your exam. That means there’s basically no reason for you get to bail and even if you really want to just get out of there, it isn’t going to hurt your exam to stay for the full time length. In fact, keep reading down to third point and you’ll see that time can actually be super valuable.

2. There are really specific rules about leaving exams early

First things first, make sure you know the exact rules about leaving exams early if it’s something that you think you might consider. In an HSC exam, the official rules are:

• You can’t leave in the first hour of an exam
• You can’t leave in the last 15 minutes of an exam

That’s pretty straightforward but you also need to remember that some schools will not let you leave at all during an exam. And NESA is cool with that.

If you are expecting that you might leave an exam early, be mentally prepared for the restrictions but also remember that it’s really not the end of the world if you have to sit in one room for an extra 15 minutes. You’ll survive, we promise.

3.There’s plenty to do in an exam once you think you've finished

So let’s backtrack to those two reasons that you might want to leave an exam early. Both of them are basically relying on the idea that you feel like you have nothing left to do, so you may as well end the nightmare get out of there.

BUT.

Of course, there is plenty to do in an exam even once you feel like you’ve exhausted all your knowledge. You can:

• Check small details like your working, spelling or multiple choice answers.
• If you don’t know an answer, look through the rest of the exam to see if they give you any stimulus or even questions that give you the information you need.
• Sit and think over your class time and study to see if you can jog your memory for a tough question.
• Instead of just rereading your answers, reread the questions to make sure you are giving the marker exactly what they’re asking for.

These small details and changes can make the world of difference when it comes to your marks and every second of the exam time is your opportunity to do a year’s worth of work justice.

Remember

If you can (even if you don’t want to), tough out any extra time you have after you think you’ve finished your exam. To cut to the chase, you aren’t doing any damage, you’re just giving yourself the chance to get a decent amount of extra marks. #worthit