On your marks - get set - go! After weeks of practicing and revising, the day of the exam has arrived. You can now show off everything you have learned.
Here are some tips and tricks to help you succeed in your exam:
How do I go about reading the task?
Which words should I pay attention to?
How do I recognize the requirements?
What strategies can I use while working on the task?
Read the task carefully
Read the task carefully and understand what is required of you. Only then should you start working on it.
Tip: Use a pen to highlight the most important information in color, e.g. technical terms, facts, figures, units, signal words, etc. It is best to use one or several highlighters.
Understanding requirements
Exam tasks can be challenging. It is important that you understand what is specifically required of you in each question. Therefore, pay attention to the use of the following words:
Negations, e.g. Which group of people at Universal Informatiker GmbH does not enjoy special protection against dismissal? Which of the following groups of people is legally incompetent? In which case can a trainee at Universal Informatiker GmbH not be dismissed without notice?
the given number of mentions and possible answers, e.g. "Name three factors on which the cutting speed depends". All answers that go beyond the first three answers are not scored.
Operators are signal words that give you a direct indication of the requirement and level of difficulty of the task, such as "name...", "explain..." or "assess...".
Develop your own strategies
Think about your approach. For many trainees, it can make sense to start with the easier parts of the task first in order to collect important points. For the multiple-choice tasks, however, it is advisable to work through the tasks in order. This will help you keep track of the tasks that have already been solved and those that still need to be solved.
Manage your time and energy well. Therefore, at the beginning of the exam, get a brief overview by calculating approximately how much time you want to plan for each part of the task. The points targets will give you a rough guide. The rule of thumb is: the more points are given, the more time it will take to complete each part of the task.
Include breaks in your schedule, e.g. after every hour or after every part of the task.
Avoid time thieves. If you notice that you are having difficulty working on a question, don't get stuck, but skip to the next task that is easier for you.
Use the process of elimination. Not sure what the right answer is? Then try it the other way around. Which possible answers do you think are wrong or unlikely? If you can rule out two out of four options from the outset, then you have a 50% chance of getting it right!
Avoid careless mistakes. Transfer the correct solutions to the bound tasks (Part A) directly onto the marking sheet to avoid transcription errors.
Note: Your written final exam consists of both bound (Part A) and unbound (Part B) tasks.
Bound means that you are given a choice of answers and only one of them has to be ticked (multiple choice).
Unbound means that you have to provide your own solution.
Sample of a marking sheet for bound tasks, from: IHK Region Stuttgart, https://www.ihk.de/blueprint/servlet/resource/blob/4555668/985b4452c2fe63262fec43471e1d74c8/pal-markierungsbogen-richtig-ausgefuellt-data.pdf (10.06.2022).
Everything must be in order.
It is particularly important that your writing is neat and that your solutions are formulated in a way that the examination board can understand, especially in the case of open-ended tasks (Part B) where you have to formulate your answers briefly.
Limit yourself to the given question and keep your answers as short as possible.
Note on formalities for mathematical calculations: In your solution, show the complete calculation path (formula, approach, result, unit) and, if necessary, formulate a suitable set of results.
Get a feel for the situation and practice your behavior during the upcoming exam. Have you already discovered our exam preparation on eCademy? Here you can simulate the final exams Part I and Part II as well as the WISO part of the job-specific exam under realistic conditions.
This will take you to the exercise:
... and so to the simulation:
