The day of the exam: a routine for each paper, from the night before

Check the practical details first, while there is still time to fix them.

• The paper. Which paper is it, when does it start, and where? Check with your school or exam centre, not with a friend. If your subject has a choice of practical paper, make sure you know which one you are entered for.
• Your documents. Whatever your centre asks you to bring, such as your statement of entry or an identity document, put it in your bag now.
• Equipment. Pens in the colour your centre asks for, a pencil, an eraser and a ruler. For maths and science, a protractor and compasses. A calculator if the paper allows one, with a battery you have tested. Spares of anything that can run out or break.
• The rules. Your centre sets the rules on phones, watches, bags and pencil cases. Know them before you arrive.

Then stop. Look through your mistakes list or summary notes for that paper if it helps you feel ready, but do not start anything new. Go to bed at your usual time. A clear head tomorrow is worth more than one more late hour tonight.

Eat something, even if you are nervous. Leave with more time than you need, because traffic and queues at the centre are hard to predict. Arrive by the time your centre gives you.

If you want to look at something, keep it light: your formula list, a few definitions, your notes on the mistakes you tend to make. Stay away from friends who want to quiz each other outside the hall. It rarely helps, and it can shake your confidence for no reason.

Before you go in, put your phone and anything else that is not allowed where your centre tells you. Taking a phone into the hall by mistake can cause far more trouble than any one question.

When you are told to begin:

1. Fill in your details exactly as the paper and the invigilator instruct.
2. Read the front cover. How many questions? Do you answer all of them? Is a calculator allowed? Does it say how accurately to give answers?
3. Note the finish time, and work out one or two checkpoints, such as where you want to be halfway through.
4. Skim the paper if that settles you, so the long questions are not a surprise.

Then start. If the first question throws you, begin with one you can do well and come back to it. A good first answer settles the nerves.

To pace a paper, divide the time by the marks. That gives you minutes per mark, and a budget for each question: on a paper at about 1.3 minutes per mark, a 6-mark question gets about 8 minutes.

The table is our own arithmetic from each paper's time and marks. It is not advice from Cambridge or Pearson, and it leaves no time for checking, so aim to run a little ahead of it.

When a question passes its share of the time, write down what you have, leave a space and move on. You can come back to it. Some marks on every question usually add up to more than full marks on half of them.

Lots of students have a moment in an exam when their mind goes blank. It passes faster if you do something rather than stare at the question.

1. Put the pen down and take a few slow breaths.
2. Leave that question. Go to one you can do. Getting marks on the page brings the rest back.
3. When you return, write what you know. The data in the question, the equation that links them, a labelled diagram, the first step. Starting is often enough to find the rest.
4. Watch the clock at your checkpoints, not every minute.

If you feel unwell during the exam, raise your hand and tell the invigilator. If worry about exams is affecting your sleep, eating or daily life, talk to a parent, a teacher or your school counsellor well before the exam. You do not have to manage it alone.

Once a paper is over, you cannot change it. Going through every answer with friends outside the hall mostly produces worry, and the answers you compare are often wrong anyway.

Note one or two things about how it went instead, such as your pacing, while they are fresh. Then eat, rest and turn to the next paper. If two papers are close together, the next one deserves your attention more than the last.

The time to fix pacing is before the exam, not on the day. Sit whole papers on the real time limit in the weeks before, so the clock feels familiar. On Eudika Learn, timed papers run a countdown that submits at zero, and the mock test builder lets you set a clock on a paper you build from chosen topics. The multiple-choice guide covers Paper 1 pacing in more detail.