Hints and Tips when Studying for the Amateur Radio Exams

Thanks to Shabaz who wrote this after passing his exams lately.

Exam Techniques: A Dozen Tips
Having sat the Foundation Exam and then the Intermediate Exam, I decided it could be worth
mentioning what few tips & tricks I’ve learned so far.

1. Really try to understand things! It’s easier to remember stuff if you know what that stuff
   means. This isn’t always possible as a beginner, but worth aiming for.
2. Sometimes it helps to use formulas even though they might not be essential for the
   exams. For instance, a 6 dB loss can be considered as a 3 dB loss (half) followed by
   another 3 dB loss, resulting in a quarter of the signal. But you could also just remember
   it as 10^(dB/10), which would be 10^-0.6 which is 0.25. If you’re uncomfortable with maths,
   that’s OK; you’ll soon memorize these formulae, and let the calculator do the
3. hard work.
4. I try to find patterns. For instance I remember that 10 W EIRP is equal to 6.1 W ERP, and
   not vice-versa, by observing that EIRP has four characters whereas ERP only has three
   characters. 10W is larger than 6.1W, which corresponds to more characters in the
   abbreviation! Silly, but it works for me.
5. Don’t over-do it. Personally, I can only concentrate for up to an hour, and then I might
   want an hour break. I find I can absorb stuff if I go to sleep thinking over the last few
   difficult-to-remember items.
6. Definitely use the Exam Secrets book, either on the day before the exam, or (if you like
   flying by the seat of your pants) on the morning of the exam. Don’t underestimate how
   long it takes to go through the Exam Secrets book; it can take a up most of the day, so
   plan your exam for late afternoon if possible.
7. Pee freely, pee frequently before the exam, and then stay hydrated throughout! Keep two
   bottles of water : ) If you have butterflies, then eating some chocolate before the exam
   helps to line the stomach.
8. Get used to your scientific calculator. Personally, I really like the Sharp EL-501T – it has
   all the best functions, and has old-school Casio calculator operation style where you
   type the number and then press the function key.
9. During the exam, keep an eye out for trick questions. For some reason, RSGB seem to
   like such questions. If you’ve done the Exam Secrets, then you know what I mean, and
   you’ll know the kinds of things to look out for.
10. Definitely make notes as you revise, in a book, not sheets of paper which will be lost.
    The writing process cements the knowledge in your brain. For the intermediate exam, I
    wrote about six pages of notes.
11. Use a clipboard to organize your papers. Nothing worse than having to keep sorting out
    your printouts and scraps of paper during the exam when you should be focussed on the
    questions and not on the stationary!
12. When writing notes, try summarizing in diagrams or in a few short lines. Split things out if
    you can. It’s easier to remember two list of three items than one list of five! Need to
    remember Q-codes? Split them up into groups!
13. . If you find you’re doubting yourself when reviewing your answers, if you were initially
    confident on a question, and if you have no rational reason to want to change it, then
    don’t second-guess yourself. Also, make very good use of the ‘flag’ capability on the
    day, so that once you have completed all questions, you can really take the time to focus
    on the ones that you were unsure of. On a particular math-related question, I forgot how
    to do simultaneous equations quickly! Fortunately, since I had flagged that question, I
    could afford to spend a lot of time on it, more than ten minutes, and got that question
    correct. Ten minutes on a question would ordinarily be a bad idea, but great if you’re
    satisfied with the other questions and now have time.
14. Seize the moment : ) It’s good to go through your study book for a few hours fairly briefly
    just to get an quick overview of what you might expect in the exam, then just go ahead
    and book the exam for (say) a months time. Then you have no excuse to not do the exam,
    even if you don’t actually start revising until the week before.

YOU CAN DO IT!