How to Do Badly in

Examinations

A Guide

for Business,

Management and

Engineering

Students

(and others)

Frank Bannister

School of Computer Science and Statistics

Trinity College, Dublin.

How to Do Badly in Examinations

A Student Guide

Table of Contents

Section Content

1 Introduction

1.1 Why this booklet?

1.2 Example questions

2 Time Wasting Activities

2.1 Writing out the question

2.2 Writing out multiple choice answers

2.3 Pointlessly deconstructing the question

2.4 Second guessing the question
2.5 Unnecessary preambles
2.5 Choosing the wrong question
2.7 Missing parts of the question
2.8 Over Selection
2.9 Irrelevance

2.10 Echoing the lecturer’s irrelevant opinions

2.11 Repetition

2.12 Digression

2.13 Over complication
2.14 Valid, but non contextual, answers (not answering the question asked)
2.15 Unbalanced answers
2.16 Pointless definitions

3 Mark Losing Activities

3.1 Re-interpreting the question
3.2 Not answering multiple choice questions

3.3 Dragging in irrelevant theory

3.4 Poor handwriting

3.5 Poor English

3.6 Padding

3.7 Dragging in irrelevant information

3.8 Motherhood and apple pie.

3.9 Bullet points

3.10 Spoofing

3.11 Brain dumping

3.12 Side slipping.

3.13 Stating the obvious

4 Conclusion

Appendices

A A note on technical/mathematical questions

B Grading

1. Introduction

1.1 Why this booklet?

This guide is the result of many years of reading examination scripts and consequent frustration with students losing marks unnecessarily. It is written for students in the hope that it will help some of you improve your performance by eliminating bad habits. Of course, if you have no idea of the answer to a question, no amount of examination technique can save you. However, I often have the feeling that students could make much more of what they do know and/or are not getting down all that they could. These notes are designed to help you avoid some of the more common pitfalls.

There are two basic types of problem:

·  Actions which forego marks, i.e. actions which waste time and space on material that is not going to earn you any marks. This is the greater problem;

·  Actions which actually lose marks. This is a lesser problem.

Both are covered below.

This short guide is written with essay/discursive type questions in mind. Some aspects of answering numerical and technical questions are discussed briefly in Appendix A. Appendix B contains some general guidance on how questions are graded and what examiners look for in answers. Examinations are different from assignments or essays and marking takes account of this fact. Time is limited, you are under pressure and you may not be able to get down all you know – particularly if you are a slow writer (like me).

Almost all of the problems discussed below are based on real answers received in examinations, mostly on my papers, but also on those of a few colleagues whom I asked to help me in writing this document. In the interests of decency, no real student’s words have been copied or otherwise reproduced. In all instances I have written my own version of stereotypical answers given. In almost all cases, these problems occurred more than once and some problems occurred in one third or more of scripts.

1.2 Example questions

In this text, the following questions will be used to illustrate the points. Each of these is taken from a real examination paper. Don’t worry if you do not know the answers to these questions; it is not important to understanding the problems with poor answers.


Question A (from a paper on Information Systems and Technology)

It is Friday morning and you are the CEO of an electrical white goods manufacturer. The telephone rings. It is the head of Engineering who tells you that they have just discovered that one of the company’s best selling products, the MWR101 Microwave Oven, has a potentially dangerous design fault which might lead to it going on fire under certain circumstances. The product must be withdrawn/recalled immediately and it is your responsibility to make this happen.

·  What information do you need immediately and why?

·  What information will you need over the coming days and why?

·  How much of this information can be obtained from internal systems?

·  Which systems will you need to access (directly or indirectly)?

·  What problems might arise in obtaining the information that you need?

Marks will be awarded for the breath and depth of insight shown in the answer. (25 marks)

Question B (from a Project Management paper)

(a) Briefly discuss the role of the following people/groups in a project:

·  Project sponsor;

·  Steering group;

·  Project management group;

·  Project champion.

(16 marks)

(b) You have been asked to write a job advertisement seeking a project manager for a major engineering project. Obviously what can be fitted into an advertisement is limited. Ignoring these limitations for the moment, draw up a preliminary note on:

·  the key responsibilities and

·  the personal qualities you would like to see in this person.

commenting briefly on each. It is not necessary to draft the advertisement itself. (9 marks)

Question C (from an Information Systems and Technology paper)

(a) What is meant by ‘data mining’? (5 marks)

(b) What is meant by each the following data mining terms? In each case, include a simple example to illustrate your answer.

·  Decision trees;

·  Clustering;

·  Accuracy;

·  Coverage.

(8 Marks)

(c) Discuss the rationale, potential benefits, limitations and risks of data mining. Give two examples of how companies might use it for commercial benefit. (12 Marks)

Question D (Also from an IS&T paper)

(a) Define the terms:

·  critical success factor and

·  key performance indicator.

(6 marks)

(b) Discuss the critical success factors for one of the following:

·  Manager in a branch of a retail bank;

·  Sales Manager in a fast moving consumer goods company;

·  University lecturer;

·  Finance Director of a large multinational.

(10 marks)

(c) What is meant by the term ‘management by exception’? What are the implications of this type of management for information systems design? (9 marks)

Question E (from a Project Management paper)

(a) What is meant by a work breakdown structure? Illustrate your answer with an example. (6 marks)

(b) What is meant by a work package? Describe the contents of a typical work package and illustrate your answer with a simple example (real or made up) of a work package. (8 marks)

(c) Write a short note on activity coding. Your note should cover the purpose of activity coding, what the code should contain and key principles in code design. Illustrate your answer with examples either of your own construction or of well known standard coding systems. (11 marks)

Question F (from an Introduction to Management and Organisation term paper)

Briefly explain the function that the ‘merchant’ fulfilled in the pre industrial economy.

A few other questions are used to illustrate points and are introduced as they are needed.

2. Time Wasting Category

All of the problems in this section relate to behaviours which waste the student’s (not to mention the examiner’s) time and consequently earn no marks. Sometimes, students do these things to get themselves started or to build their confidence. If you are doing this and you know it, fine; if not, you are wasting precious time writing stuff that is not going to do you any good.

2.1 Writing out the question

This is the oldest time waster of all. Some students do this for every question. If the question is short and in sections, this is OK and may even be helpful, but sometimes students will faithfully copy out ten or more lines of question from the paper into the script. Sometimes students don’t literally re-write the question, but paraphrase it in some way.


This is not required. You can take it that the examiner knows what the question is without relying on your script. Writing out the question does not gain any marks and wastes valuable time.

2.2 Writing out multiple choice answers

A comparable, and particularly pointless practice, is writing out the answers in multiple choice questions where you are simply asked for ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ or ‘d’. Either your answer is right or it is not. Writing out the wrong answer is not going to earn more marks.

Incidentally, it is important when doing multiple choice questions to know whether there is negative marking or not. Negative marking deducts marks (usually half a mark) for a wrong answer. In such circumstances a blind guess is a bad idea if there are four or more options.

2.3 Pointlessly deconstructing the question

There are times when it is reasonable to challenge the question. An example of this is given below. However such circumstances are rare. Most questions have been carefully vetted and do not justify this.

Pointless deconstruction occurs where a student starts questioning the question itself rather than answering it. For example, in answer to question A, a poor answer might start with something like:

“A first question is whether, in fact, the CEO would take personal responsibility for something like this. Most likely he would delegate it to the chief of operations and ask to be kept informed of progress. Most CEO’s would not get involved in operational details; their focus would be on the strategic.”

Now we could happily debate this proposition for many hours, but the point is that you are told in this question that it is your job as CEO to make this happen. Wittering on about whether this is your job or not earns no marks and wastes time. This question was not asked on a paper on organisation theory. Some examiners might actually deduct a mark here for sheer stupidity.

There is one exception to this rule. Consider this question (from a real Freshman paper). Students were asked to write a short essay on the following topic:


”Management today is more difficult than it was in the past.”

A student here might reasonably challenge this by asking what is meant by the ‘past’? Does this mean the recent past, the time since the first industrial revolution or the whole of history? The point here is that the student will need to give his or her interpretation of the question before answering it so discussing the question itself, or indeed defining what you mean by ‘past’, is not unreasonable.

2.4 Second guessing the question

A variant on the above problem occurs when a student writes (in answer to question A) something like:


”An important question is how serious the problem with the microwave is? Is it a single batch or does this problem apply to all MWR101s? Does it affect other models? These are the first things the CEO needs to know.”

No (s)he does not. You are told this is a design fault; not a production fault. Therefore it will be present in all machines, not just in one batch. Here again, a pedantic examiner might even deduct marks for not being smart enough to understand what you are told. Furthermore, whether or not it affects other machines is irrelevant. You have been asked to take action on the MWR101 and musing on possible faults with other products is beside the point.


Always bear in mind the context of an examination. In this case, it is an information systems examination (see also below under valid, but non contextual answers). The examiners are not looking for insights into human resource theory or production management. They are looking at how you would use the information systems to help deal with a crisis.

2.5 Unnecessary preambles

A quite common problem is taking a long time to get to the point. A simple rule for answering examination questions is cut to the chase. Pleasantries and longwinded introductions are unnecessary.

For example, in answer to question B, such an answer might start with something like:

“There are many people involved in various aspects of a project. Projects vary in complexity and the importance of roles reflects this. In considering the roles of individuals and groups in projects, it is necessary to take into account both their responsibilities and their level of authority. These too can vary with context. Understanding the roles of different people in projects is important.”

All of this might be true and one might even argue that it is vaguely relevant to the question, but it is not what is being asked and is therefore not going to earn marks. Unlike the above example, many preambles are of the motherhood and apple pie (M&A) variety (see below for more on M&A).

2.6 Choosing the wrong question

This is a subtle point. Most examinations offer some degree of choice and sometimes students choose poorly. Questions may be broadly divided into two types:

·  those which require specific knowledge of a field and

·  those which ask the student to apply his or her broader knowledge in what may be an unfamiliar context.


Consider questions A and C (both from the same paper) above. Question A is of the latter type and looks harder, but it is actually a much lower risk option than question C. Question C is much more specific. If you do not know what ‘coverage’ means in data mining, you will get zero for that part of the question. On the other hand, most students in the module facing question A should be able to use their general knowledge of management and information systems as well as their common sense to make a fair stab at answering it and, with a reasonable general knowledge of the systems found in a company, they could even do quite well. (It would also have helped if they attended the lecture where this was discussed at length!).


In practice, most students who did question A in this examination did much better than those who tried C and really did not know all of the answers (apart from one remarkable student who got 25/25 for a textbook answer).

2.7 Missing parts of the question

This is surprisingly common. When you read a question, you should underline each of the points that requires an answer. Sometimes these will be set out as bullet points. Other times they will be in the question. The third part of question C is a good example of this. In the examination several students left out a part of this question (such as the risks involved in data mining). This included students who had otherwise given good answers, suggesting that they could have answered the missing part competently as well.