As many of my friends know, I can spend hours upon hours giving tips on taking the latest exams. So here is my quick and concise bullet list of items to make sure you are fully prepared for your exam.

Before I start, these tips are obviously geared towards IT Certifications such as WebSphere Portal, Lotus, Blackberry and others.

However, these tips will help anyone for any exam, including college exams, high school exams - but our main goal is to get you to pass that certification exam for IBM, Lotus, WebSphere, DB2, AIX, Apple, Oracle!!!!!

Get ready the night before. Make sure you have everything you need - two forms of identification, car keys, etc.

Know where and what time your exam will be.

Don’t be late! Set as many alarms as you like to ensure that you arrive at your exam in plenty of time.

Take the tutorial before you start the exam. Becoming familiar with the experience will make you more relaxed and allow the correct answers to flow.

Make sure you know how long you have to sit the exam, and keep your eye on the clock. Whenever I take an exam, the first thing I do is write down the number of questions, the time I started the exam and the time limit.

Consider how many marks are available for each question and allocate a proportional amount of time for each one. I have noticed a trend with the new Domino 8.5 Lotus Certification exams. They are allowing you 90 seconds per question. Starting off and taking two minutes per question will hurt you, and it will hurt you bad.

Read the question! I know this sounds simple, but many test takers misread questions.

If you can’t answer a question, leave it for now and come back to it at the end if you have time.

Relax… Take a deep breath at the beginning of the exam, this will help you to collect your thoughts and keep you calm whilst you are writing.