Skip to main content

Score more in Exams!!!

Image
By
As the examination draws very near, it is crucial to stop the endless reading and change gear to startegizing on how to improve and polish your performance.  Students forget that marks come home based only on what is written in the answer paper, for the examiner (especially in board examination) has no way of knowing how much you know, have toiled or what a nice guy you are! It is your performance that determines your score.

Therefore, it is time to get smart at this final stage and maximize your marks with the following tips.

1.     Stop acquiring further informaton, and shift your focus to improving your presenation. Remember the “R”s : Read, Retain, Recapitulate, Reproduce, (w)Rite, and Revise. The time for Reading is up.
2.     Focus now on “retaining” and “recapitulating”. The best way is to go chapter by chapter, trying to recollect the points and diagrams, mostly with the book closed, taking a peep into it once in a while when you get stuck.
3.     Take a mock test. You will find that your sequence of thoughts, hand writing, writing speed, time management, and many more such issues are quite out of tune as you have been only reading, and not writing, in the last few weeks. This mock test will be of immense help to get you the practice of writing again, so that your hand does not pain or go into cramps during the main examination.
4.     Practice diagrams and label them. They are crucial for science students. Remember that a picture is worth more than a thousand words, and fetches more marks.
5.     Timing needs to be sensible. You should attempt every question so that the examiner has a chance to give you marks, no matter how less. If you have not attempted a question you cannot expect anything but a zero.
6.     Make your answer sheet appealing to the examiner. Number your answers, indent your paras, mention points indicating each one with a number or alphabet, underline key points, and label your diagrams. Your answer paper should look neat, legible and attractive. Marks are given for the number of points mentioned and not for number of written pages. If your command on the language is poor, write points in telegraphic language rather than write full prose and create a bad impression with too many grammatical mistakes.
7.     Keep your pen box and admit card ready the night before.
8.     Catch at least 6 hours of sleep and have a good breakfast before you leave for the exam.
9.     Saying a silent prayer helps.

Give it a spirited try, as you would in a crucial game, and hope for the best. Remember that it is just an exam, and that there is a life beyond exam. Many, like Sachin or Bill Gates, had not done well in exams, yet succeeded in life.
As published in HT City (Hindustan Times) dated 27 February , 2011.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching and Learning – is there a trick?

By
One of the big mistakes that we as parents and teachers often make, and that could stifle the mental development of our children, is to treat them as just small adults! In fact, it is this attitude of grown-ups that could be leading our next generation to become stereotyped conformists rather than original thinkers and innovators. And if we intend to drive home health messages and inculcate healthy habits we need to tailor our efforts to their cognitive potential. That children indeed think and discover the world differently was first noticed by a Swiss scientist Jean Piaget in the early 20th century. He studied his own three children grow and was intrigued by how they behaved, played games and learnt at different ages. With further observations and experiments, he propounded the theory of ‘cognitive development’, placed great importance on the education of children and is hailed even today, 30 years after his death, as a pioneer of the constructive theory of knowing.  He...
1 comment
Read more

The Doctor’s Dress

By
The familiar white coat worn by physicians as their distinctive dress for over 100 years, has started generating  murmurs  of controversy. It is not uncommon to find the blood pressure to be higher when measured by a white-coat-wearing-doctor in the hospital or clinic than the readings obtained at home by relatives.  This is due to the anxiety that the white coat and the hospital setting evokes in patients, and has been termed “White Coat Hypertension”. Mature clinicians often routinely subtract a few points from these measurements when entering records in case charts or calculating the dose of anti-hypertensive medications to be prescribed. The white coat scares children too.  Kids often express their dislike for this dress by crying and screaming and by denying access to their bellies or chest for examination by paediatricians in this attire. Many pediatricians across the world have folded up their white coats and taken to informal colourful dressing to...
2 comments
Read more

Questions from a Doctor’s Life

By
There is hardly any person in Uttar Pradesh who has not heard of Dr D K Chhabra, a senior neurosurgeon, who died recently. Over the decades his expertise, pragmatic advice and popularity had broken the shackles of his narrow surgical field coming to be known as a “brain-specialist”and a genuine adviser for all health problems. I got to know him in 1987 when I joined the upcoming Sanjay Gandhi PG Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) in Lucknow as a young member of the faculty in Gastroenterology. He had moved from his alma mater the KG Medical College where he is still regarded as a legend. An omnipresent bachelor doctor living in the duty room readily available to help anybody anytime.He was tasked to heading and developing Neurosciences at SGPGI. He had an eye for detail and was tasked additionally by the director to set up not just his department, but the whole hospital, the building, equipment and the campus. DKC was a tall and handsome man who spoke little. But when he did inl...
1 comment
Read more