No matter what course you are studying at LSE, you will encounter several formative assessments before you deal with summative ones. While formative assessments (technically) won’t affect your final grades, your class teachers provide tentative marks with feedback, just as if it were a summative assessment. For this reason, professors often advise us to take formative assessments seriously and to do our best. Then, how should we make the most of the formative assessment feedback?

Office hours – a magic bullet for clarification

Of course, I’m fully aware that different departments have slightly different policies on how students would receive feedback on formative assessments. Some might provide a digital feedback form, while others may require you to attend in-person meetings to receive feedback. However, I would strongly recommend booking additional office hours to capitalise on this precious feedback. There is no such thing as a “perfect assessment” – not just in terms of numerical grades, but also in quality – unless you have to calculate “correct answers”. In other words, there is always room to improve. Having conversations with class teachers on your formative assessment often clarifies why they provided certain comments to your work. They might give you additional tips on what they would expect in the next assessment. Teachers have dedicated their time to allow us to improve and discuss our academic interests. Why not make the most of it? This leads me to my next point: don’t focus too much on the provisional marks.

Don’t focus too much on provisional marks

I know, I know. It’s hard to ignore the numerical indicator of your academic performance, and unfortunately, it’s often the first thing that catches your eye once you receive your feedback form. Believe me, it’s not the end of the world! Rather, it’s the beginning. There’s no need to show off for earning high marks, and, on the flip side, there is no point in losing self-confidence just because of your grades. I would repeat myself here – your formative assessment results do not affect your final degree. Don’t be too obsessed with your results; instead use them as a basis to prepare for your next assessment (or even, a summative assessment!) Each module at LSE is carefully designed to prepare you to eventually excel on the course, which means that your formative and summative assessments are linked with each other at some point. It could be either the format of the assessment or potential topics that could come up in the exam. Whatever that might be, consider formative assessments as a set of warm-up exercises before you present your best self on your summative ones.

Take formative assessments to explore

By “explore”, I mean two things: a) explore the format of your assessment, and b) explore the topic of your interest (especially if you’re dealing with a written piece). First of all, it’s okay to make mistakes on formative assessments. Especially, as a first-year student, I feel the scope and depth of the university-level essay is incomparable to that of high school. So, take some time to familiarise yourself with the academic environment you’re in.

Secondly, topics matter. For some modules, they assess students solely based on the Michaelmas or Summer Term assessments. These assessments are cumulative in nature, meaning that you’re expected to prepare several topics in advance (just in case you don’t get the question that you really wanted). In this case, it’s a good idea to plan backward and strategically choose your formative assessment topic based on your interests. This should help you figure out potential topics you might want to prepare for your exams. With this strategy, you can kill two birds with one stone because preparing for your formative assessment would make you feel ready for another assessment on the same topic. Vice versa, if you end up not being attached to your formative assessment topic, you can just pick an alternative one for your upcoming summative exam. 

Hopefully, these tips will serve you well to prepare for your upcoming formative assessments!