Exam tips

What should you bring to the exam?
-Pens
-Coloured pens/felts for drawing
-Highlighters
You can ask for spare refill from the exam coordinator.

So how will the exam work?

1. We will study the dance performance in class and practice answering different questions about it. It is important you use our Dance language in your answers (this is on the next page called 'Dance components')

2. In the actual exam, you will be given 5 minutes to read the questions and start planning your answers. During this five minutes you should highlight all of the important words in the questions to make sure your answers are focused on these key words. We will practice this in class.
   
   

3. A recording of the dance performance (3–6 minutes in duration) will be shown twice, with a pause of 10 minutes in between.  During the 10 minute break you can start making notes.
   
   

4. Technically, you are allowed to start answering the questions at any time after the examination begins (before and during the video plays)
   
   

5. You are allowed to refer to key aspects not shown in the recording to support your answers. 

IMPORTANT DETAILS TO REMEMBER

• You will NOT be given a list of the Dance components in the exam, so it is important you revise and memorise the Dance terminology as part of your study.
  
  

• Bullet points in the questions are provided to guide candidates in selecting and adapting their knowledge as relevant to the question and are not a list of what must be covered in their response.
  
  

• You should NOT repeat ideas in different parts of the question, unless you are just re-emphasising something, advance or expanding on your previous points. You should use new sections of the dance for each question. This is why planning is SUPER important.
  After reviewing the national results from 2023 & 2024, the students who selected an appropriate question and utilised the planning pages to adapt their knowledge to the question were able to respond most successfully.
  
  

• You should use the KEY TERMS provided in the question e.g. "describe, explain.."
  Candidates who referenced key words from the questions tended to produce clearer, well thought out, and balanced responses.
  
  

• You must provide complete response and in depth interpretations and detailed examples to back yourself. These 3 things, will help you to do your best.

• To do well you need to understand what the key words actually mean .

• You must link the topic of the question to your interpretation, with specific and relevant examples from the dance.
  
  
  

• Candidates who did not achieve, often did not transfer their knowledge to address the question and instead provided rote-learned, or general facts and information that were not relevant to the question.
  
  

• Candidates who cited relevant examples to support their answer to a question, achieved higher grades than those who referred indirectly to examples. Cited examples can be detailed descriptions from the work. Other cited examples could be reviews, critics, interviews etc..
  
  

Successful candidates showed evidence of planning:
-consistently reflecting clearly structured ideas;
-an introduction;
-paragraphed content;
-the planned use of examples
-clearly drawn conclusions.
These aided in addressing the question and helped with providing appropriate evidence from the dance. 

ULTIMATE EXAM TIPS

 Any questions or concerns? Please contact your teacher:
Miss Samuel: jsamuel@ormiston.school.nz