How to prepare for Examination

Planning and Time management.

A well-known saying is “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. Planning and time management is a key to success. It helps you to complete your course in time and save time for revision. If you don’t plan and study haphazardly, there are more chances that you may not be able to complete your course before exam.

How a student can plan properly? It is easy. First of all, see that how many subjects are included in your course. How many chapters, lessons and exercises are there in each subject? How much time is available for completing your course? For instance, you are a student of semester system, you have six months for preparation exam. Make a plan for your study, how to complete the entire course in the available time. Divide the total time (months, days or hours) on the .of each subject. Do exclude a month (better the last month of session) for final revision for exam. Write down this plan on a sheet. Such plan is called schedule or syllabus. Make a time table having time for each subject on daily basis. Paste your plan and time table on wall in front of your study chair or study place. Start to follow it.

          Frankly speaking, you can study a book having 15 chapters in a single week if you have the strong determination. I mean to say, always be particular about your precious resource, the time, and have strong determination, if you want to be a successful student.
(see “Making a plan” and “Making a time-table”)

Regular classes and studies – perseverance.

            Regularity and perseverance are basic elements of effective study and signs of successful student. Study should always be kept maintained. Study for a day and giving up it for some days and then starting again, is not a good way. You must study regularly (without pauses of days) in order to succeed. Regular study helps you in two ways. First it relieves you from wastage of time and second, the most important one, you have food for thought in your mind from previous lesson or topic which helps you in learning the next lesson or topic easily. All the lessons are inter-related. You should study regularly so that you have your previous learning fresh in your mind which helps in learning next lesson with perfection and in less time comparatively.
Similar is the case of attending classes.

Making Good Notes.

Making useful and helpful notes is important part of your preparation for Examination. It helps in fast learning and fast revision. It saves your time when you read it in future. Notes can be made from many sources but the main two sources are as follows,

      • Teacher’s lecture
      • Books and guides

Be alert while sitting in classroom. Listen to the lecture with full heed. Extract from the lecture, the important and helpful information, and main ideas which teacher want to convey to you. Write it down on a paper.

Similarly be focused on ideas of your lesson while you study. Read each sentence with full heed and extract from them, the important and helpful information, and main ideas. Write it on a paper. Finally shape your notes in a good way so that it can be effectively used in future for re-learning and revision.
(see also “Making good notes for study”)

Review - Revision.

        Revision is an indispensable part of preparation for exam. Revision helps learning to mature. You complete your course and you learn well but it is not the end of it. You should revise it again and again. It is a fact, if you study a chapter well and don’t revise it, the learning you have in your mind from first study will vanish with the passage of time. If you don’t revise for a month, it is more likely you may forget it after a month or two. It needs to revise it again and again for keeping it in mind for a long time.

          Revision does not take much time because you have already learnt it but you revise to refresh your learning.

          Another advantage, each time you revise you learn more and you get new ideas. You should have a month (usually last month) in your schedule for final revision for exam, if you want to score really. Final revision is very much important.

Study all – Avoid selective study.

Selective study is a risk-taking activity for a student. Sometimes, student thinks that some topics are more important than the others. He usually consider those questions important which were frequently repeated in the previous exams. He prepares those topics only which he thinks are important and skip the others. As a consequence, he gets low grades in exam because he is also asked those question which he skipped thinking them not important.

          Remember, exam is given in entire course not in selected areas of your course. Every lesson and every topic is equally important. You should be fully prepared. It is the will of test-maker that he can select any part of the course for giving question in exam. 

Preparation For Exam Guidelines - Page 2

Past paper – Specimen or sample papers.

            Do study sample papers or past papers. It gives you idea about the format of question paper. You come to know which types of questions are given in paper, i.e.  essay questions, short questions or MCQs. It is very important you know the format of paper because it rectifies the direction of your study for exam.

Take Some Pre-tests.

       Pre-tests are these tests which are taken before the main exam on monthly basis or weekly basis. Pre-tests play vital role in your step by step preparation for exam. It tells you how much are you prepared for main exam. It shows which areas in book need more study. You come to know about your weaknesses . You learn how to attempt question in paper. How to answer in a good way to get high marks. It also eliminates your stress for your main exams because you get acquainted with solving question papers.

                   If your institution gives you monthly or weekly tests, it is good, if not, then you have to manage it on your own. Make tests for yourself or tell someone to make tests for you. You can also get past-papers (previous papers) for this purpose. Solve them and mark them properly and see how much distance have you covered on the road of preparation for Exam. 

Question-wise Preparation.

A question paper comprises of different type of questions to test your knowledge. There are mainly three types of questions

1.  Essay Questions (Long descriptive answer with full explanation – more marks)
2.  Short Questions (3 to 5 line answer – less marks)
3.  Multiple Choice Questions, MCQs (Answer one from the given choices)

Study or learning method is the same but preparation method varies for each type.

          Preparation for essay question includes learning a topic, extracting its summary and learning how to represent it in good way in paragraphs or with headings.

          Preparation for MCQs includes learning a topic and extracting the hidden information in each sentence which can be asked as MCQs.

          For short question you should consider definitions, jargons, scientific terms, particular name of types of something, names of phases involved in a process etc. These are the areas which test maker touch for short questions but it does not necessarily mean that you skip rest of your course.
(For detail see “Question-wise preparation” and “Test taking Strategies”)

Always be in state of examination in normal days.

       The days of examination are wonderful. We have gap of one or two days for each paper during exam. We revise and prepare the whole subject in only one or two days for coming paper. Normally it seems very difficult. It is very easy because in exam we are in a state of worry that we may get less marks in the paper and that’s why we study more in little time. Frankly speaking, that study is very productive as well.

          Own this state of exam in normal days if you want to enhance your study outcome in little time. Study as you have to take test in it tomorrow. Try to do more in little time. Try to speed up your study.

Preparation in days of examination.

            The session for preparation ends. Finally, the days approach, for which you started preparation from the day one of session, “the days of exam”. It is natural student gets a little bit tensed in the days of examination though he is fully prepared. A little bit stress is good because it plays positive role. But never let your stress overcome you which makes hindrance in your preparation either. Have confidence in yourself and revise your subject for coming paper. By now, you have learnt a lot, you have full command on all subjects because you have undergone step by step preparation for exam throughout the whole session.

(see “Relieving Exam Stress”)

          Arrange all the allowed things you need in paper i.e. clip board, pen, ink calculator (if allowed in some papers), rough work sheet (if allowed).

          When you have paper tomorrow never remain vigilant the whole night. Have proper sleep (at least 4 hours). You need fresh mind to attempt your paper.