How to use the online timer
An hour is a common length for a single paper or a module test, and how the hour is spent decides marks almost as much as what was revised. The most frequent avoidable loss is time: a strong answer to question one, a rushed answer to question four, and question five left blank because the clock ran out. Reading the whole paper first and roughly dividing the hour by the marks available takes two minutes and repays them.
Marks are the currency, not effort. Twenty minutes polishing a four-mark answer while a fifteen-mark question sits untouched is the classic mistake, and it is easy to make under pressure when the first question happens to be the one you happen to know well. Writing the rough time budget at the top of the paper makes it visible, and glancing at it every twenty minutes is enough to catch the drift.
Leave the last few minutes for checking rather than writing to the final second. Careless slips, a missed unit, an unanswered part b, a page not turned over, are easily recovered at the end and are impossible to recover afterwards. If a question refuses to come together, move on and return to it; sitting on it protects nothing and costs the questions further down the paper.
Common questions
How should I divide an hour across the paper?
Roughly in proportion to the marks. Read the whole paper first, jot a rough time per question at the top, and check against it every twenty minutes or so.
What if I get stuck on one question?
Move on and come back. Sitting on a difficult question protects nothing and costs marks on the ones further down the paper that you could have answered.
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