And then try again. Students also will often spend a lot of time on the lecture notes they took during class. They will rewrite them, they will underline them, they will highlight them, etc etc. It does NO GOOD during exams to have beautiful lecture notes but little information in your brain. 1. do what you need to do to get the material into your brain 2.
Every instructor has their own 'style' for exams.
Once you have learned the material, you still need to demonstrate this by doing well on the exams. Look in detail at old exams posted on the Web. Use the style of posing questions in your learning the material, ie. use similar questions to yourself when you are convincing yourself that you have learned the material. Look in detail at the answers given in the keys. Learn how these answers 'relate' to the questions, so that you learn what Smith expects when he asks questions on an exam.