Turn that pre-seen into a pass

The LAST thing you want to do when are you sat down in your OCS exam is to be reaching for the pre-seen because you did not completely cover it in your revision, time will not be on your side as you have three hours to get through tough questions. 

In my experience, the best way to save time in the exam is to make up for it now and get to know the pre-seen inside out so that you don't ever have to look at it in the exam itself. Who else agrees?

The examiners definitely agree. Every examiner's report will refer to how well students managed to engage with the pre-seen or not. If you don't believe me, let's see what the examiners had to say in the OCS examiner's report: "Preparation on the pre-seen material is vital. Ensure that you are very familiar with the business, especially the financial information, before the exam as this will help you with applying your knowledge and will save you time".

So what can you do to help you remember all the key points from such a sizeable document as the pre-seen?

1. Make your own revision notes or scratch-cards as you go. You should then keep coming back to them, even re-writing them over and over again to cement these into your memory. Perhaps even use different colours and highlighters for the extra important information.

2. Once you have done this, you can scribble down notes and ideas that you think are linked with this information, doing this as early as possible will definitely make you feel a lot more comfortable with the pre-seen when you are finally going into the exam! Particularly useful when it comes to knowing the industry!

3. Make your own voice recordings of important information about the document. Research has shown that you are more likely to remember information when you are listening to your own voice; alternatively just talking through the document can help with information retention. When you have your recording listen to it from day to day, before you know it you'll have the pre-seen covered!

To help you sail through the pre-seen we have our own industry analysis in both video and document format - check out all our Operational pre-seen materials here.