The 1st step towards your preparation for any competitive exam is to know the pre-requisites for the exam. You must completely go through the syllabus of the examination (you get that easily online). Apart from the syllabus, you must make a note of the weight of different subjects, so that you can plan your strategy accordingly. Scanning through some previous years’ questions papers really helps to get an idea about the examination pattern.
- Make and follow a time table
Once you know ‘What to prepare?’ it’s your time to plan ‘How to prepare?’ Make a time-table with both long term and short term goals that would assist you in timely preparation for the examination. A time table makes you more self-disciplined and really helps you to deal with haphazardness.
Few points that you can think about while making a time table are:
Set practical goals that you can accomplish (neither too low nor too high goals).
Reserve your study hours during those times of the day when you believe you are the most productive & can focus better.
Reserve more time for the more tough subject.
Do not reserve study hours at a stretch, block some time for short breaks in between.
Making a time table is very easy, but following the same is a more difficult part. Do not postpone, the work assigned for today must not be pushed to tomorrow.
- Concentrate on concepts- No rote learning.
Concentrate on knowing the concepts during your preparation. Do not adopt a rote learning technique. Knowing helps you to remember the concepts for a long time. In addition, with a crystal clear understanding of the concepts, you can easily handle questions connected to those concepts.
You can also develop your memory tips or interesting acronyms to remember formulations or equations or hard terminologies. You must always make your own short notes in your very own way, as they really help you big time to revise a few days before the examination.
- Self-evaluation is very essential.
Studying alone doesn’t make your preparation complete. You must examine yourself time-to-time for good preparation. You must write sample papers for the competitive examination you are readying for.
You should consider a few points while writing sample papers:
Create an exam-like surrounding and attempt the sample paper at a time without taking breaks within a limited time. For instance, if your examination is going to be of 3 hours, you must solve the sample paper also in 3 hours.
Evaluate and analyze your answer sheet properly. Promptly scan through the questions for which you gave wrong answers or couldn’t answer. Do not forget to revise those topics immediately.
Check your speed and precision while writing sample papers.
Sample papers assist you to get confidence and also assist you to get used to writing exams. It also aids you to come up with your own technique of attempting the questions.
Stay away from guesswork if there is negative marking in the competitive examination you are getting ready for.
- Stay positive and confident.
‘ Belief’ is a very strong tool. You must strongly believe in yourself and your planning. Make sure that you study the same way throughout the year, to prevent last-minute rush and stress. Spend 10-15 minutes before going off to sleep to very quickly recap all that you learned throughout the day.
A bit of exercise and meditation really helps to improve concentration. Do not take tension throughout the entire preparation time, in fact, steer clear of from stressful people. Every single moment you must tell yourself” I Can, I Will” and believe me you will do it!