In order to do well, in addition to knowing a lot about your subject, you also need to know everything about the exam itself: how many and what type of questions you need to answer, how much time you get for each question, what is expected in the answer, which questions are most likely to be on the test, and last but not least, the exam schedule!

If your course teacher is going to grade your exam, then you can get important clues about what questions to expect in the exam and in what way to answer them from the class. Pay special attention to things s/he gives importance in class or spends a lot of time on. Do not miss the last classes before the exam, that is when you are most likely to get hints about likely questions. Also, look at the past questions

Make testing yourself a compulsory part of your preparation. Take old question papers and solve them within actual time and other conditions. Use it to find your weakness. How much time are you taking? What kind of mistakes are you making? Find out ways to overcome those weaknesses.

Here is an example of how self-testing helped a group of students in a Cadet college. These students found that they were finding it difficult to finish their geography test on time. After a lot of thinking, they found a solution to their problem.

In their exam, they needed to draw a map of Bangladesh and identify the location of different important places on it. They didn't know which places they would have to locate but they knew they would have to draw the map of Bangladesh. They had some time in between when they got the answer sheet and when the questions were handed out. So as soon as they got the answer sheets, they drew the map. And when they got the questions, they just located the places they needed to! In this way, they saved valuable time!