Preparing for Your History Exam

A Guide for Taking Written History Exams

Many students that I talk to are very nervous as their first exam approaches. This is especially the case when you are taking classes with a different professor for the first time. It may be confusing. You are not sure what the tests will be like and what grading standards will be used. Relax! This brief guide will help you prepare for a written exam in this history class and let you benefit from the mistakes of others. The time you spend reading and thinking about this information will save points on your grade and hopefully lower your stress level during tests.

A few general tips for taking the exam. Studying for the exam should be harder than taking it. You may not be certain which terms and essays will appear on the exam but you can be prepared. Specific advice for the essay and short answer portions appear below. Let me recommend a couple points first though.

While it may seem a silly point, I would recommend you get a good nights rest and proper nutrition before the test. Don’t be the one who falls asleep on your test sheet.

Don’t forget your Blue Book, your note card, and a couple good pens (always have a backup). Put the Bic down and splurge on a pen that has a comfort grip. Your wrist will thank you for it.

Read all instructions on the exam before you begin writing. Make sure to put your student information as requested. It might be a good idea to assess your question options and make choices as to what you want to answer.

Budget your time wisely. Bring a good watch and keep an eye on the time. This is where reading the instructions is important. Understand how many questions you need to answer and look at the point values for each. You may think that the essay deserves your best effort but often short answers are a significant part of your grade.

A Blue Book!

Tips on Short Answers:

Goal: The purpose of a short answer is to test your understanding of an important event, idea, thing, or person. A professor wants to get a sense that you understand the term sufficiently. A good short answer explains the meaning of the term as efficiently as possible. Here is a good way to think about the goal of a short answer: imagine you are talking to your friend who is reasonably intelligent but just not familiar with your subject. As briefly as possible, what would you need to tell them so that they know what the term means? You should answer the basic questions like: when did this occur, who was associated with this term, what happened, where did it happen, and why did it happen. Each of those bits of information are worth points and you want all of them.

The Importance of Significance: Beyond the basic journalistic who, what, when, where and why, you need to know something called significance. Significance is a magic word for historians. If your professor is not merely being cruel, the list of terms you get are significant ones associated with your subject and time period. Significance answers the basic question: why is this term important or meaningful? After explaining the term, you must express something which you find important about it. Think about how the term connects to major themes of the course. Was it the cause of something important? Was it the result of something important? Did it change the course of history? Don’t worry if you can say several different significant things about a term. Provide the most important one in your opinion and the professor will judge you based on the evidence you present. Let’s return to our imagined scenario. After explaining a term to your friend, he looks you square in the eyes and says “So what?” If you can give him a reason to think this term matters, then you have answered the question of significance. If you are worried about making your point clearly, you can even begin the last sentence, “This term is significant because . . .” and fill in the rest. Don’t lose points by neglecting to answer the “so what” question.

How do you prepare for this part of the exam? When you first see the terms for an exam you may be overwhelmed. It might be a long list of things that spark only vague memories. One obvious answer for preparation is to avoid studying the entire list in the day or two before the exam. If you receive terms during lecture, spend a little time afterward writing out definitions in a notebook or on notecards. If your lecture notes don’t have all the information you need, turn to your textbook or an encyclopedia (online encyclopedias are great for this!) Don’t assume your term will be listed in the index, though it might be. Many students will highlight portions of their textbook. If that helps you, then go ahead and do it as you read. The makers of highlighting pens will thank you. I think you will learn more, however, if you actually write out the definitions on another piece of paper. Highlighting can be a passive exercise that leaves a weak impression on your brain. If you have notecards, they are also very useful as flashcards. Write terms on one side and definitions on the other. You and your fellow classmates can order pizza and quiz each other. The loser pays! How is that for incentive?

How do you write a good short answer? You may be thinking, “how long does a short answer have to be?” There is no standard answer. That may be frustrating to hear but all that can be said is that it depends on how effectively you communicate the main points. Some people are wordy or vague. Others can write a clear sentence that says a lot. A short answer will likely take 4-5 sentences to define the term and its significance. If you prepare terms for the exam, look at your definitions. Ask the journalistic questions of who, what, when, where, and why. Your professor will. This should tell you what you need to lookup.

Tips for Completing Essays:

Essays are often stressful. The questions can seem intimidating at first and they require you to process the largest chunks of information. Read the essay question carefully. I suggest you outline your answer before you write a single word. No single instruction will help you write a perfect essay. Instead, here are some hints on the common mistakes that appear on student exams.

Not answering the question: Students often include information that does not answer the essay question. There are many reasons. Occasionally, you add this extra information to hide your lack of careful study. Avoid this at all costs! Professors may be egg-heads but they can spot your efforts at BS easily. More often, however, a student adds factual information to an essay that simply does not answer the question. If the question asks you for the causes of the Revolution, you don’t need to explain the war itself. Make every sentence count. Solution: When you receive your exam sheet, carefully read the question several times. Look closely at what the question requires and does not require. If you have essay choices, you should read each question thoroughly and decide based on your ability to answer them as completely as possible.

Lack of organization: Students lose points if their essay jumps around from topic to topic without any organization. The information you give may be correct but the disorganized manner in which you present it prevents the professor from following your answer carefully. It is the same if you are talking with your friend and you switch from one idea to another without any predictable pattern. Solution: Before you even write your first sentence, take your time to formulate an outline (if you have not already written one on your study card). Present ideas and events in a logical order such as cause and effect or chronologically.

Vagueness: Vagueness is one of the most common problems. It can happen when students use vague language to explain a point or even when you use a specific term without explaining its meaning. Vagueness comes in many forms, such as . . .

Use of terms or concepts without explanation: When you use a term, make it a habit to explain its meaning briefly. Professors want to make sure you understand the term and are not just repeating it.

Lack of dates: Oddly, one of THE most common mistakes students make is to avoid writing the dates for terms. When taking a history class, you need to think like a historian. Historians consider dates to be very important and frankly you can not organize information about the past unless you associate it with certain time periods. Knowing when something occurs is often crucial. Solution: Make it a habit to learn and associate dates with your historical facts. When you mention an event or concept or some other important piece of information, make a note of the date even if you merely put a year in parentheses. I encourage students to make a timeline in preparation for an exam. It may seem like extra work but it helps you to organize what you know and will allow you to write better essays.

No mention of specific people: This is easy to do. Names of people we never knew are easy to forget. And its so much easier to remember that the English passed the Declaratory Act and lost the Siege if Yorktown, rather than Lord Rockingham and General Lord Cornwallis. Avoid using generic labels like “Puritans” if what you mean to say is John Winthrop. Take the time to associate important people with their terms.

Oops I remembered something wrong! Our brains work in mysterious ways and sometimes they don’t cooperate in retrieving historical facts. One of the real difficulties of a history class is managing the huge volume of information you read in your textbook and hear in lectures. You try desperately to make sense or patterns out of this flood of dates, names, places, and events. During tests, your brain is buzzing with the stuff crammed in during your recent study. Often students will forget some fact or remember it wrong. In the heat of the moment, students can be confused and the next thing you know, you are writing that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution (which he didn’t!) or that the British won the Battle of Saratoga (which they lost). What should students do if they are aware they have forgotten something important for an essay? Many students will ignore it and hope their knowledge of other facts will cover the loss. Every professor may feel differently about this lapse but I encourage students to write what they know. If information is simply missing then a professor can not judge the reason. If you know the actions that a person takes but can’t remember his or her name, I would suggest you admit the mistake but still attempt to discuss the material. In this way you will get some of the points and maybe all of them if the professor thinks the name is the least important detail.

Hopefully this has given students some basic points to help prepare for and take history exams for this course. If you have any of your own suggestions, feel free to share them with your professor. Who knows . . . you may even get bonus points. How is that for incentive?