Practice Exams - 6C

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Introduction

Historically, the single most important exam preparation tool was past exams and examiners' reports. Unfortunately, the CAS has stopped releasing exams and the last available examiners' report is from Fall 2019. There is a long history of published exams but these will become less relevant over time as syllabus readings change. The types of questions on exams has also started changing, partly due to computer-based testing, but also due to the stated goal of the CAS to emphasize "higher-order" thinking. All of this means that original practice exams are going to become increasinglyly more important.

Meeting Notes

Links to meeting notes: Meeting Notes - Practice Exams - 6C

Purpose of Practice Exams

Practice exams have a few different functions that correspond roughly to different stages in the study process:

Early stage:
  • Students can scan the questions on a practice exam to get a sense for where they need to focus when studying.
Middle stages:
  • Students can begin attempting selected exam questions as they cover each reading.
Late stage:
  1. After covering the majority of the syllabus material, a student can attempt a full practice exam with notes and/or without notes.
  2. Once a student knows the material well, they can do a practice exam under exam conditions. This is a test of time management and exam-taking strategy. A reasonably well-prepared candidate can easily add a few points onto their score, which can turn a failing grade into a passing grade. For example, they should always make it to the end of the exam, even if they skip a few questions, because often there are easy questions at the end.
Here are a few more details regarding the purpose of practice exams:
  • Show the student what's important:
→ Nobody can learn the whole syllabus - there is too much material.
→ We have to show them what's important because someone just learning the material doesn't have enough perspective.
→ Past exams were an excellent guide but this is becoming less relevant, particularly for new readings where no past exam questions are available.
→ We will have to use our knowledge of the material to select what seems important and likely to be asked on future exams.
  • Advance a student's knowledge in graduated steps:
→ The first practice exam should be relatively straightforward - no tricks - just a test of whether they know basic facts and calculations.
→ The second practice exam should be divided between straightforward questions (roughly half the exam?) and questions of greater difficulty that test (or begin to test) higher-order thinking.
  • Boost confidence:
→ It's important to have 1 practice exam that's easy. Students need a place to start and a relatively easy practice exam will solidify their knowledge of basic facts and calculations. It will also prepare them for a harder (more realistic?) version of the exam. (There is a lot of repetition from exam to exam.)
→ Developing confidence is another way for someone to improve their score. (Recall from above that good exam-taking strategies can also improve someone's score.)
  • Teach exam-taking strategies:
→ This was briefly mentioned above.
→ Further details can be found in the On BattleDay and BattleActs Analytics wiki articles.

Ideally, we would have several graduated practice exams, but let's just start with 2.

Resources for Creating Practice Exams

Principles for Creating Practice Exams

General Principles:
  • # of questions = 28.
    • To break the task down into manageable pieces, I think of the exam as being made up of 7 groups of 4 questions each.
  • total points = 70.0.
    • Use past exams as a guide to point-value for different types of questions.
    • For essay style questions, each distinct fact is usually worth 0.25 pts.
    • For calculation questions, the number of points is related to how much calculation is involved.
  • The proportion of questions from each reading should follow the percentages in the Ranking Table
  • The order of questions should follow the pattern of past exams.
    • This seems to follow the ordering of the Learning Objectives A, B, C, D given in the syllabus.
    • But I also made a table showing past exam questions by topic that might be more helpful. See Exam Summaries.
Details:
  • I made an Excel spreadsheet that provides a framework for creating practice exams. This is a work in progress and I will upload once I get a little further along. (It's almost ready.)

Practice Exam 1

  • I will provide a link to the current version.

Practice Exam 2

  • I will provide a link to the current version.
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