Here's some advice for the upcoming midterm: be succinct when writing your response to a short answer question. For instance, if I ask something like:
What are the primary sub-processes of the product engineering process?
Don't give me a long drawn-out answer, just say:
Development, Project Management, Software Configuration Management, Requirements Change Management, and the Inspection process
That's the response that directly answers the question and will get you the most amount of points for the least amount of effort.
If you provide too verbose a response (and students often do this when they don't know the answer but are trying to earn partial credit), you end up short changing yourself on other problems that may require more time to solve.
So, when taking the midterm, be sure to first work on all the problems you know you can solve, providing short to-the-point answers to short answer questions. Then, turn your attention to questions that you are unsure of and attempt to answer them. This requires that you read the entire test before you start working on it, and do the problems out-of-order. But, you'll find that you will use your time more wisely and ensure that you answer all of the questions that you are capable of answering.
Hope this helps!