When faced with a question paper under examination conditions, it is common to home in on topic words that stand out as familiar before proceeding to write down an answer. However, this is likely to result in an ‘all I know about…’, narrative response and one that does not address the demands of the question. This is why it is important to stay calm and take a few minutes to carefully unpack the task. The best way of doing this is to identify, define and explain key words and terms in the question.
Key words and terms crop up in three ways in examination questions: through the command stem (for example, ‘assess the reasons…’); through themes (for example, ‘the development of government…’); through the topic being focused on (for example, ‘the Beer Hall Putsch…’).
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