How to Read an Exam Question Properly (Before You Write a Word)
Most marks are not lost while you write. They are lost in the thirty seconds before, when a nervous student skims the question, misses half of what it is asking, and starts writing the wrong answer with great confidence. Reading the question properly is a skill, and it is the cheapest marks in the paper.
Written by Michael Siaw Larbi
A professional exam question is not a prompt to write everything you know. It is a set of instructions, and it gives you far more than students realise. The scenario is full of planted clues, each pointing to a specific treatment. The mark allocation tells you how much to write and how long to spend. The requirement often hides several separate tasks in a single sentence, and there is small print that quietly tells you what to leave out. Read all of it properly and the answer almost writes itself. Skim it, and no amount of knowledge will save you, because you are answering a question that was never set.
The habit that pays
Slow down at the start. Sixty to ninety seconds spent decoding the question, the requirement, the clues, the marks, the small print, is the highest return you will get on any time in the exam. You cannot answer well what you have not read properly.
This is the discipline underneath everything. It pairs closely with the guide on command words, which decodes the verb. This one covers the rest of the question, and it comes with four small tools to practise on.
The Scenario Is Evidence, Not Background
Students treat the scenario as scene setting to skim on the way to the requirement. It is the opposite. In a well written question almost every detail is there for a reason, planted to trigger a specific treatment or to be the very thing you are marked on. A date, a percentage, a family relationship, a phrase like "shortly after the year end" are not colour. They are instructions in disguise.
Read the scenario asking one question of every sentence: why is this here? Try it now across three papers. Pick a scenario, then tap the details that are doing real work and see what each one is telling you to do.
Clue hunter
Find the planted details
Tap the parts that point to a specific treatment.
Mensah Ltd acquired 80% of Adom Ltd on 1 July 2025, when Adom's retained earnings stood at GHS 4 million. Adom's year end is 31 December. During the year, Adom sold goods to Mensah for GHS 600,000, a third of which were still in inventory at year end. Shortly after the year end, a major customer of Adom went into liquidation. Adom's finance director is the brother of Mensah's managing director.
Akua is resident in Ghana for the year. Her employer gave her a furnished bungalow and a car for private use. She received a cash gift from her church, and interest on a savings account with a bank in Ghana. She paid her self-assessment tax three months after the due date.
During the audit of Bonsu Ltd, a new inventory system was introduced two months before year end. The company's main supplier is owned by the chief executive's wife. The year-end inventory count was not attended by the audit team. Management has estimated a large provision for a legal claim. The company has breached a loan covenant since the year end.
Found 0 of 6.
What it tells you
Tap a highlighted detail above.
Every sentence was working. Across all three papers the lesson is the same: the scenario is where the marks are hidden in plain sight, and the student who skims walks past most of them.
The Marks Tell You What to Write
The number in brackets after a requirement is not just for the marker. It is an instruction to you. It tells you roughly how many points to make, how much depth to go into, and how long to spend. A student who writes half a page for two marks and three lines for ten has misread both, and will run out of time on the wrong question.
A rough rule helps. At a typical pace of a little under two minutes a mark, the marks convert straight into time and effort. Tap a mark value below to see what it is really asking for.
Mark decoder
What is this mark allocation asking for?
Tap a mark value to see how much to write and roughly how long to spend.
What it is asking for
Roughly how long
The marks also reveal where the paper is really won. The requirement worth fifteen marks almost always carries a higher command word, and that is where your best thinking belongs, not poured into a corner worth two.
One Requirement, Several Tasks
The requirement looks like one instruction, but it often contains several, joined by a quiet "and." Each task is usually marked from its own pool, so doing one perfectly and forgetting the other leaves half the marks untouched. The fix is to underline every verb and every deliverable before you start, and to make sure your answer has a part for each.
Here are three requirements, each more tangled than the last. They look like single instructions, but each hides several separate tasks, marked from separate pools, and the small jobs are the ones students skip. For each one, decide how many tasks you can see, then reveal the split. The third is the kind that hides a quarter of its marks in plain sight.
Split the requirement
How many tasks is hiding in each?
Example 1 · warm-up
Calculate the goodwill arising on the acquisition, and explain how it should be treated in the consolidated financial statements. (8 marks)
Two tasks, two separate pools.
- Calculate the goodwill, a figure with workings.
- Explain its treatment, in words.
A perfect calculation with no explanation throws away the second pool. Answer both.
Example 2 · trickier
Calculate the taxable income for the year, state the date the tax is due for payment, and identify two penalties that apply if the return is filed late. (12 marks)
Four markable parts in one sentence.
- Calculate the taxable income, the big computation.
- State the due date, one line, and the easiest mark to forget.
- Identify the first penalty.
- Identify the second penalty, because two means two. One penalty earns half.
The small jobs, the date and the second penalty, carry real marks that students leave behind every sitting.
Example 3 · the full tangle
Draft a report to the board that evaluates whether the company should accept the new contract, calculates the expected net present value of the project, recommends a course of action, and explains two risks the board should weigh before deciding. Professional skills marks are available for the clarity and structure of your report. (25 marks)
At least seven markable parts.
- The format, a report to the board, not an essay. It carries its own marks.
- Evaluate whether to accept, both sides before a view.
- Calculate the expected net present value.
- Recommend a course of action, a clear decision.
- Explain the first risk.
- Explain the second risk, because two means two.
- Professional skills marks for clarity and structure, earned by how you write, not what you know.
Miss the report format and the professional skills marks and you can lose a quarter of the question before a single technical point is judged.
Notice what climbs across the three: not the difficulty of the knowledge, but the number of separate jobs hidden in one sentence, and the marks attached to the ones that are easiest to miss. You also see the command words inside each, calculate, explain, evaluate, recommend, each asking for something different. That is where this guide meets the command-words guide: find every verb and every deliverable, and give each one its own answer.
Where Good Students Slip
Even strong candidates lose marks to the same handful of reading mistakes. They are easy to fix once you can name them, including the small print, the quiet instructions that tell you what to leave out. Tap each one to see the slip and the fix.
The traps
Six ways good students misread
Discuss wants both sides of an argument. A one-sided answer, or a flat description with no argument, scores a fraction of the marks. Fix: when the verb asks for an argument, give points for and points against before any view.
A textbook answer that ignores the scenario reads as if you did not need the question at all, and examiners reserve marks for applying points to the facts given. Fix: tie every point to a detail in the scenario, by name and number.
Calculate and explain is two tasks; discuss and recommend is two. Do one and stop, and the second pool of marks is simply never attempted. Fix: underline every verb in the requirement and check your answer has a part for each.
A page for a two mark part and three lines for a fifteen mark part is two misreadings of the marks, and it is how good students run out of time. Fix: size each answer to the marks before you start writing.
Inventing assumptions when the scenario already supplies the figure wastes time and often loses the mark tied to the given number. Fix: take the scenario's numbers and relationships exactly as stated unless told to assume otherwise.
Instructions like "ignore taxation," "work to the nearest GHS thousand," "prepare extracts only" or "you are not required to prepare the notes" are marked exactly as written. Ignore them and you either lose marks or waste time doing work that earns none. Fix: read to the very end of the requirement and obey every instruction literally.
The question is not in your way. It is on your side, telling you exactly what to do, if only you slow down enough to listen.
The Ninety-Second Routine
Put it all together into a short routine you run on every question before you write a word. It costs about a minute and a half and pays for itself many times over.
Read the requirement first. Go to the requirement before the scenario, and find out exactly what you must produce. Underline every verb and every deliverable, note the marks, and read to the very end for the small print. Now you know what you are looking for.
Read the scenario with the requirement in mind. On the second read, every detail has a job. Ask of each one why it is there and what treatment it triggers, and mark the clues as you go. This is where skimming students and scoring students part ways.
Plan to the marks, then write. Sketch a quick plan with a line for each task and each clue, sized to the marks on offer. Only now do you write, and you write calmly, because the hard thinking, working out what the question wants, is already done.
What I Tell My Students
When a strong student loses marks they cannot explain, I ask to see the question, and I ask them to read it aloud, slowly. Half the time they hear the part they missed before they reach the end of the sentence. The knowledge was never the problem. They answered the question they expected instead of the one in front of them. Reading slowly feels like it wastes time you do not have. It is the opposite. It is the time that saves all the rest.
Michael Siaw Larbi
Do This Today
Take one past question and do not answer it. Just read it properly. Underline the verbs and deliverables in the requirement, note the marks, find the small print, then go through the scenario and mark every detail that points to a treatment. When you compare with the answer, you will see how much the question was telling you that you would once have skimmed straight past. Do this with five questions and you will never read an exam the same way again.
Questions Students Ask
Why do I lose marks when I revised the topic?
Often because the marks were lost in the reading, not the knowledge. Skimming the question means missing half of what it asks: a clue in the scenario, a second task hidden in the requirement, the depth the marks called for, an instruction in the small print. You then write a confident answer to a question that was not set. Reading the question properly is what protects the knowledge you already have.
How should I read an exam question?
Read the requirement first, so you know what you are looking for, and underline every verb and deliverable. Then read the scenario with that in mind, asking of each detail why it is there and what treatment it triggers. Note the marks to judge depth and time, and read to the end for any small print. Only then plan and write. The whole routine takes about ninety seconds and pays for itself.
What does the mark allocation tell me?
It tells you how many points to make, how much depth to go into and roughly how long to spend. At a little under two minutes a mark, the marks convert into time directly. Two marks is a quick point or two; ten marks is a developed, structured answer. Matching your effort to the marks stops you over-writing small parts and under-writing big ones.
How do I know if a requirement has more than one task?
Look for joining words, usually and, and for more than one command word. Calculate and explain is two tasks; discuss and recommend is two. Each is normally marked from its own pool, so underline every verb and every deliverable and make sure your answer has a part for each. Doing one perfectly and forgetting the other leaves half the marks on the table.
What is the small print in an exam question?
It is the quiet instructions that tell you what to leave out or how to present your answer: ignore taxation, work to the nearest GHS thousand, prepare extracts only, you are not required to prepare the notes. These are marked exactly as written. Miss them and you either lose marks or waste time doing work that earns none, so read to the very end of every requirement.
Does reading slowly waste exam time?
It feels like it, but it is the opposite. The ninety seconds you spend decoding a question is the highest return time in the exam, because it stops you writing the wrong answer and then having to recover. The students who rush the reading are the ones who run out of time, because they spend it writing things that were never going to score.
This is the third guide in the Excellence Blueprint, MSL Business School's study and exam technique series. A new guide publishes every week, written by Michael Siaw Larbi.
