Exam preparation and cracking strategy

The season of exams has started. Four major exams: UPSC Civil services examination, SSC CGLE, SBI PO and SBI Clerical Exam are ahead. Aspirants are busy in learning and preparation and there are more chances of mistakes to occur. No matter you are preparing at home or some institute, we recommend you to plan and prepare a schedule for cracking the exam. If a plan can get you a job, we think there's nothing worth losing. If few months of hard work can be get you a good job, prepare a schedule and stick to it. This article will serve as a helping guide for preparing a pre exam schedule to prepare and crack exams:

1. Go through the previous year exam papers. Check the level of difficulty / competence level required , time for the examination and the time required to solve each of the section. Also check if there is any modifications in pattern of exam. This way one can get an idea of time and the competence level required for preparation and cracking the exam.

2. Analyze yourself. Analyze the weak and strong sections based on exam pattern and syllabus for exam. Previous year papers can be of great help here also. Mark those sections on syllabus or jot it down on a piece of paper.

3. Collect resources/ books. Here, I would suggest that use quality books and subject material. Solving one problem that clears your concept well is better than solving 100 problems that leaves doubts in your mind. You might be having many books/resources for a single topic or no book for the topics/ subjects. Select the best and the easiest resources that clear concepts well and easy to understand. You can visit the recommended books page of this blog for more help. 

4. Make a planned schedule. Calculate the time available for preparation from the day of preparation to 1 week before exam. Study at least 8 hrs a day. Allocate time to various topics that need to be covered. Focus on the topics that need to be covered earlier. Cover easy and scoring topics first. Then go for the difficult ones. Focus more on accuracy in solving the problems, speed will improve accordingly. Work on weak topics and concepts. In one 1 week before exam, revise week sections again.

5. Once the schedule is prepared and book or sources for preparation are at you hand, start preparation. Pray to God to provide strength to crack the exam. If you get stuck in a particular question and do not know where to find solution, throw it on social media, websites and forums to find solutions

6. Do not get distracted during preparation. Stay calm and peaceful. Take sufficient breaks wherever necessary. Practice meditation in morning.

7. Take weekly timed tests to check your concepts and to access the level of preparation. Use model test papers, test series, online test papers etc for taking tests. If a question is consuming more time than required, mark it and move ahead. Later if some time is left, you can come back to same question again. No matter how much you prepare, tests are important to access the pre-performance before taking the actual exam.

8. Take the print of admit card one week before the exam so as to prevent chances of  site crashing or slow loading of website at the last moment (before a day or two of examination) due to heavy traffic.
Also take print of other things like id proof etc, if required at the exam center.

9. Before a day of examination, take black/ blue ball pens and other instruments as mentioned in instructions of admit card/ hall ticket. Read instructions on admit card once and check whether all the things required in the examination center are lying with you or not. Keep all your pens. pencil, admit card, photocopy, photograph etc at a single place.

10. On the day of examination, offer a prayer to God. Take your admit card and other instruments from the place where you kept it. Take wishes from parents/ guardians and go with smiling face and confident face.

Final words: No matter you make it in your first attempt or not but you know now how to prepare for the next exam. Also don't get disappointed if you fail to get through the exam in one or two attempts. Since the seats are limited, some will crack it and some will not. If you are not satisfied with your performance, we recommend to do a post exam analysis. Jot down on a piece of paper what mistakes you did in the current exam and what should be done so that same mistakes must not occur again in the exams ahead. Work on your weak points again and surely you will have better results in front of you.

Best of Luck! Give your best.

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