With two exams looming next week and one the following week I am trying every possible tactic to push facts and quotes into my brain. My exams are essay based and require me to write 2-3 essays in the space of 2 hours including in-text references. For this reason I have been scanning each of my modules’ study direct (VLE) page to make sure I haven’t missed any key readings or useful info. The pages look like this:

With each week of teaching on the left hand side. I am guessing that as there are roughly 10 weeks of topics and 10 questions on the paper that there will be a question from each week. Therefore I have been specifically focussing on 6-7 topics that I am particularly interested in such as whether mining can be sustainable, climate change and bio-diversity.

Environmental Perspectives as a module is fairly straightforward, we have been given 2 key readings each week (short sections posted on VLE) as well as links to further readings and other media which expands on the topic. Unfortunately our tutor does seem to go overboard on certain weeks:

 

Not sure how anyone has the time to look at all these alongside 3 other modules. It’s really useful to refer back to however during revision time.

There are also 2 past exam papers available which can be accessed from the VLE:

These have been really useful in getting an idea of what questions could be asked for each topic.

My second exam this week is for the module Culture, Race and Ethnicity (CRE). This was initially less straightforward than Environmental Perspectives on Development (EPD) as no one was too sure how many questions were on the exam. However, this was cleared up on the forum where students post questions and our tutor replies so everyone can see:

The resources for CRE are laid out in a similar way to EPD with each week on the left hand side and general help on the tab below:

 

Some of the weeks are linked together such as Diaspora, home and belonging and Transnational Cultural Practices. Therefore related literature can be applied to both topics whilst revising, making recalling quotes a little easier. We were advised for this module that further reading is not needed to get an average grade, however if we are aiming for a  higher grade we must search for our own relevant resources and quote them in the exam. These can be found by searching for authors or more general topics in the library search page:

which can be accessed on the VLE. 

Good luck to everyone with exams this term!