Step 6
Practice exam technique
Tasks allows teachers to set questions covering all the command words in the course specification across the full mark range. With command word help, mark schemes and level of response frameworks for students to self-assess their work with model answer videos for some courses too.
huge bank of longer answer questions
level of response questions
command word help
self-assessment mark schemes
model answer videos
huge bank of longer answer questions
level of response questions
command
word help
self-assessment mark schemes
model answer
videos
No other platform makes it this quick and easy for teachers to give students human-created exam-style questions with teacher, self, AI, and peer marking.
How
Use Tasks to set a small number of longer answer questions for students to tackle either in class or for extended homework.
Mix up the experience for students. Sometimes setting just one long mark question to cover in class.
A popular approach to spacing is to select some questions from the most recent topic, some from a previously taught topic, and some from a topic taught some time ago.
Set the task to be "self-assessment" to reduce marking, but importantly to give students an opportunity to engage with mark schemes themselves too.
Once students have answered the questions, they can mark their own work by ticking points of the mark scheme to indicate how they allocated their marks.
Some high tariff questions use extended marking frameworks where marks are not awarded for each point made. These are modelled to exactly match exam board mark schemes.
Teachers can moderate and change marks if they need to.
Every task has its own analytic reports allowing the teacher to identify questions that have not been answered well.
Model answer videos are provided for Computer Science courses.
Why use Smart Revise
The workload for teachers is significantly reduced. No writing questions, no building papers, no photocopying and no marking.
Students and teachers can exhaust the past-papers available. Smart Revise has a bank of hundreds of new, original, exam-style questions written or reviewed by past or present examiners in the style of real exams.
The questions never go beyond the specification. They exactly match the knowledge students require.
The number of marks and the command words (e.g. "state", "justify") are all exactly matched to the course specification. If the maximum mark for a question in a paper is 8, then the maximum mark for a question in Smart Revise for that paper is also 8.
Level of response frameworks where answers are marked in bands, and chained lines of reasoning are also included.
Computer Science courses have model answer videos included that can be used for walking-talking exam experiences.
The research says that:
- Understanding the exam, practicing questions and applying mark schemes is by far the most effective revision technique.
- Using revision guides and knowledge organisers are surprisingly not that effective because that can be too passive.
- Using highlighter pens on notes does little to boost performance and it may actually hurt performance on higher-level questions.
- Doing the same questions again and again over a long period of time, not just at the end of the course can raise attainment.
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58
Rawson, K.A., Dunlosky, J. & Sciartelli, S.M. (2013) The Power of Successive Relearning: Improving Performance on Course Exams and Long-Term Retention. Educ Psychol Rev 25, 523–548
Top tips
We recommend choosing several topics, a small number of questions, with self-assessment.
Alternatively, setting just one high-tariff question and then going through it in class with self-assessment builds confidence.
Students engaging with mark schemes for themselves is a very valuable exercise, it is not lazy teaching.
Once the task is committed to the mark book students can also see model answer videos (for computer science).