Guide To Preparing For Examinations Part I

Guide to preparing for examinations: Part I: Before examination Nitin D Parekh, CA, CFA, MBA (IIM, A) Executive Director, Ashima Limited Most of the students dream for ‘no examinations’. Many students ask me ‘why there should be any examination at all?’ Still some of them tell, ‘even if there have to be some examinations, why so many and at so many times?’ Then there is a last lot of students who accept that examinations are certain like life and death but wonder, ‘why any preparations and what is there to prepare after all?’ Let me mention at the outset that I am going to give you all good tips on preparation of various examinations. However the primary focus in these articles would be school and college going students. I must mention that the tools, techniques and suggestions are all based on my experience of successfully passing various examinations with top ranking career including that of C.A., CFA, and MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad. Like any other student I have had experienced numerous mistakes or pitfalls. However it is not necessary that all of you must also lose your marks by making the same kind of mistakes. Again whatever I found to be useful in this regard, I have tried to pen down here with an objective to help the students score better marks in examinations. Why education?: The first question comes to the minds of students as to ‘why are there examinations?’ I would like to tell the students that they must ask themselves as to why they are getting education. Is the education a tool to achieve something in your life? If not then, are you going to school/college just because your parents have sent you there? Are you going to educational institutions for fun? Are you getting education so that you get a good bride or good bridegroom? Are you getting education so that you are able to make good career in job? Are you getting education because you want to excel in a particular business or profession? No matter, whatever is the purpose, list down the same and then think over what all you need to achieve in education career so as to fulfill your career goal. Thus there has to be a goal which is to be achieved through education. Why examinations?: Once you are aware about your goal of education, believe that the examinations are required to test whether you are fit to achieve the same goal. Let us not for the time being debate as to whether the examination system truly measures the worth of a person for the chosen goal or not as the same should be taken as given for the immediate purpose. Thus the examinations are required to test your knowledge, skills and abilities to respond to specific questions or situations. Why preparations?: Why one needs to prepare for examination? The students learn the subjects through out the year but are expected to respond to the tests

in a given period of say 3 hours. Thus one needs to remain up-to-date and prepare to answer whatever may be asked from the given curriculum. There is so much to read and so much to remember and then there is lot of competition. There are limited seats for most of the coveted education streams and the students who score over others in relative terms only stand to get admissions to such courses. It is very clear that the performance of students in the examinations is largely dependent on the nature and extent of preparation and thus students who are adequately prepared or over prepared certainly do better than those who are unprepared or under prepared for examinations. It is also true that the quality of preparation is as important as the quantity of preparation. Thus it is not the hours spent which count, but the manner in which they are spent in pursuit of specified goals. The strategies of preparation help in reducing the tension and stress of examination and help the students in gaining the much required confidence in effectively facing the examination. Are you genius?: Before I take up the matter of preparation of examinations, I would like to address one celebrated issue of genius ness. One characteristic of most academically bright students is that they possess certain qualities which are not found in others or not found to the same extent. These are the qualities which make you successful not only in student career but in life as well. It would make sense for parents to assess these qualities in their children and work on imbibing the same if they are not there. There is a question whether one is genius by birth or one can become genius by deeds and actions. Though the quality is partly given by your birth, the same gets influenced by environment and parents as well as by friends. By systematic approach some of the qualities can certainly be acquired. Thus there is no need of labeling your children as average and somebody else’s as genius. A right approach to preparing for examinations is to first prepare oneself tuned to certain basics. Tony Buzan and Raymond Keene have written a book on Genius. Mr. Michael Tipper has written an article on characteristics of Genius (1) and has beautifully described 20 characteristics of genius. I have utilised titles of these characteristics to explain the requirements from students and would like to narrate the same as under: 1. Vision: Vision means the objective to be achieved. One needs to be clear as to what is the short-term and long-term goal of education. 2. Desire: The history of all great persons reveal that they had burning desire to achieve their set goals. 3. Faith: Are you having enough faith in your ability to perform and achieve your goals? Are you sure your efforts and methods are in the right direction and proportions? 4. Commitment: If you have a vision accompanied by burning desire and faith in yourself, you need to develop enough commitment so that you do not give up no matter howsoever difficult the achievement of goal may be. 5. Planning: The systematic achievement of goals requires short-term and long-term planning. Effective planning is a key to effective time management.

6. Persistence: The quality of persistence helps in sticking to the goals irrespective of the negative outcomes or failures. Abraham Lincoln did not give up his goal of becoming president of America though he got defeated many times. 7. Learning from mistakes: One very important fact even the rankers should understand is that it is very natural to make some mistakes. Indian star cricketer Sachin Tendulkar also gets clean bowled with zero run. This does not mean that one should give up. The genius students take mistakes as a learning ground to make further improvement. 8. Subject Knowledge: The success does not come only from dreaming. You have to acquire subject knowledge to gain expertise in any field. One way of trying to acquire substantive subject knowledge is to read, read and read the same subject many times and from many more sources. 9. Mental Literacy: Mental literacy means the knowledge and understanding as to how the mind functions. This also includes understanding of memory and other skills. 10. Imagination: Imagination is a great art and those who are visionary are gifted with this quality. If you are able to have vivid imagination of whatever you want to accomplish in the life and then strive to achieve the same, you are certain to succeed in your mission. 11. Positive Attitude: A positive attitude is a superb vitamin to help you survive the difficult situations and find opportunity amidst adversity. 12. Auto-suggestion: There is a student club in Ahmedabad run by Unnati Institute in the name of ‘I can, I will’ which is based on the principles of positive attitude and auto-suggestion. If you believe in yourself, why not tell the same to yourself frequently to keep yourself guided on your chosen path of goals? 13. Intuition: At times you think that something will happen and it will actually happen. This is your intuition or gut feeling. Most of the successful businessmen possess great intuition skill. Shri Karshanbhai Patel of Nirma has had this intuition that a cheaper but good quality detergent will be used in place of costly ‘Surf’ detergent and then what has happened is a history. You must trust your intuition and mostly you will be right. 14. Mastermind Group (Real): Your group has a significant influence on your habits and thinking processes. This is the reason why your parents are always concerned about the type of friends you are with. If you are in the company of intelligent, hard working and career conscious students, you are likely to follow their path and be like them. When I was studying in 10th standard I was told by one student to be with him in reading as the same would have great influence on his reading habits according to his parents. 15. Mastermind Group (Internal): Even if you do not have access to many intelligent and successful persons directly, you can always keep them as your role models and follow their path to success. 16. Truth and Honesty: It is said that a lie once said always needs to be remembered but truth said anytime does not need to be remembered.

Always try to become honest to yourself in your time management and achievement of goals. 17. Courage in the face of fear: You will be required to take decisions and actions with full courage to face the consequences even when you fear failure. You may face a test paper which is highly difficult and you fear that you will not get the expected marks; still you need to collect yourself and do the best possible performance. 18. Creativity and Flexibility: Successful persons are those who are able to conceive and implement more creative and flexible alternative ways to solve the problem. If you do not succeed in your plan, try some another plan. If that does not work try something else and something else…….till you achieve your goal. Never give up anything, anytime. (except your ego, of course!) 19. Love of the Task: If I give you a choice of meeting Shri Amitabh Bachchan or study your science book what would you like to choose? Whatever may be your choice reflects on your priority and love and interest for the task. If you love the things you are doing then you would be able to excel in the task. Many parents force their children to study a particular subject and then complain that the child does not grasp the subject. How do you expect him to grasp something he or she does not love to do? 20. Energy: Find out the situations, people or anything else which provide you enough energy to achieve something. On the other hand find out the situations, people or other things which come in your way of getting enough energy to achieve something and work to get rid of them as fast as possible. The preparation for examination can be discussed in terms of before examination, during examination and after examination. The present article will discuss some of the aspects related to before examination. Again the preparation aspects can be divided into four sections (2) like Substantive Preparation, Material Preparation, Physical Preparation and Mental Preparation. Substantive preparation refers to learning the material which is the subject matter of the exam. Material preparation refers to the physical items to be taken for the exam. Physical preparation refers to specific care about food, sleep and rest. Mental preparation refers to the attitude and self responsibility, avoidance of tension and stress and being motivated and charged to take up the exam. Substantive Preparation for examinations: I would like to discuss some of the important aspects of substantive preparation for examinations in this article and other aspects would be taken up in next articles. The first and foremost aspect of preparation is reading. There are a number of questions which students get on this subject. These are discussed as under:

1. What to read?: There is so much to read on any subject like textbooks, study guides, reference books, 21 expected questions, sure suggestions and subject wise books like Mathematics in two days, science in two days and so on. This is in addition to study notes and pamphlets given by school, coaching classes or tuition teachers! The students only utter ‘Oh God!’ I know some students telling me that even if all 24 hours are available for study, we cannot complete entire reading material. The right question is whether one is anyway expected to read them all. Not really. Then the question arises as what is to be read. I am of the firm opinion for all school and college going students that they have to compulsorily read their textbooks. No arguments to be made against this! Now whether the textbook reading is enough or not depends on the subject, your own understanding, the contents of the textbook, the type of question paper in the examination, your interest in the subject and efficiency of time management. There is certainly need to supplement the textbook reading material by other reading material provided you have understood well the contents of textbook. The question arises as to if you read more than one type of material then what would you ultimately remember. For this my suggestion is that you read a particular topic from textbook and then also read from say a guide and then compare the description and details of the topic. Whichever source is better keep that as a base and put an x (cross) on the same topic in another source. There would be some points which are likely to be there in this cancelled source, which distinct points should be listed on the chosen source of reading. You may give new serial numbers to these additional points from a cancelled source. Thus now when you would read this chosen source, you would have better details combined from both sources. On my meeting many 12th Science rank holders I was told that they keep textbooks as a main source of reading and at times for some subjects supplement the reading by not more than one additional reading material. The practice of reading the same material over and over again as compared to reading different reading materials helps in remembering the subject matter and, barring competitive examinations based on objective type questions; this practice helps in securing higher marks. 2. How to read?: How to read addresses issues of methodology of reading and various reading practices. One technique is that of faster reading by not reading word-to-word and not going for re-reading called regression. Faster reading saves a lot of time. Amongst many techniques aimed at better reading, SQ3R is one of the most powerful techniques. This technique is very effectively used by me from 12th standard to Chartered Accountant, IIM MBA and CFA course. This technique is the basic foundation of my academic success leading to consistent rank holding career and I would very strongly recommend to all students. The full form of SQ3R is survey, question, read, recite and review. Let me explain this technique in brief as under: a) Survey: Survey the reading material before you actually start the reading. Here you are doing study of the title, main sections, going through preface to the subject and thereby creating your mental framework as to what are

you likely to read. Here you are making broad review of reading material. This is also referred to as Mind mapping process. b) Question: While you undergo the first step you would be able to recall everything which you might know about the subject. Now from this prior knowledge and survey think of the questions, which you think would be probably answered by reading. The headings and titles may lend useful hints in framing such questions. This step brings the purpose and prepares you mentally to have a meaningful focused reading. c) Read: With the purpose in mind now read carefully one section or topic at a time. Find the main points and also understand the relationship of one sentence with another. Understand the order of the sentences and try to tell your mind how you get convinced not only with the individual sentences but even the inter relationships of different sentences. d) Recite: After you are through with a particular topic of reading, close the reading material and try to recite all the main points aloud or write them down. This is the most important stage of study. I always followed the method of writing down the main points in this step. Unless you do recital, you will forget 50% of what you have read in one day. e) Review: You have now completed reading and recital successfully. Now review the entire chapter to ensure that entire reading makes sense to you and you are able to remember the order and sequence of the material. If you are not satisfied review again. Such review process should be carried out first time after 24 hours of study and then on a weekly basis to strengthen the memory. The research reveals that most forgetting occurs within 24 hours and thus recital and review help in preventing the evaporation of knowledge. As per Mr. Pauk, the only one minute of review after learning can double your retention 3. How much to read?: Each one us has got tremendous capacity to read which we hardly recognize and put to use. For students of 10th or 12th standard normal day reading should be of 5-6 hours which should be increased to 1012 hours when schools/ colleges are closed for exam preparation. It makes sense to develop reading habits of longer hours from the beginning of student life. This will be quite useful when you take up any professional course after graduation. I had average daily reading of 15 hours during last 5 months when I did my C.A. (Inter). This means that if at all I read for only 12 hours on a particular day I made up the same by reading 18 hours on another day or by reading 16.5 hours on two other days. That is why many students tell that full form of C.A. is not Chartered Accountant but ‘come again’ for exams! Are you serious to this extent? 4. When to read?: Different students find different times convenient for reading. Some like morning hours, some like evening to late night reading and some do not like anytime for reading! My personal experience is that early morning reading is better as compared to late night reading for better reading comprehension and understanding as well as memory. However during the days of exam it is advisable to have night reading compared to early morning reading. Any change in your system of reading timings will require at least 10-

15 days to stabilize and you should not give up patience during this trying period. Some benefits of early morning reading are these: a. When you wake up early morning for reading, normally everybody else in the family is sleeping so nobody would disturb you at that time. The outside atmosphere also will be calm and peaceful thus conducive to reading and comprehension. b. If you have decided to follow night reading schedule and set time up to say 12 o’ clock then it is quite likely that your eyes will keep on watching the clock to find out whether you have reached the set time or not, unless you are the one who gets totally engrossed in reading and forgets the time. Is it not a time, you evaluate yourself on this criterion? c. If you have habit of late night reading, you would have physically exhausted because of day long schedule of activities. If you had gone to cinema theatre and could not get tickets for watching movie ‘Swades’ that also would come to your mind like a movie trailer and keep on bothering you, thereby reducing your concentration. 5. When to start reading?: It is very clear that the reading must start with the commencement of school or colleges, if not before. Those students who work with the classroom training in the schools or colleges and keep pace with them on a regular basis will do better in the examination. The reason for this is that when the learning is fresh in your mind you must read and revise immediately so as to push the matter to your long-term memory. Thus the students who do not pay attention in the beginning and start preparation at the end time would be putting so much in their short-term memory that their memory will not be in a position to absorb and they would possibly feel memory loss during the examination. Those who try to work at the last hour also resort to cramming which hardly helps at all. 6. Individual reading or study groups?: The preparation for examination in a group of two or three offers several benefits. The study group allows exchange of ideas and learning. The discussion platform helps in clarifying the doubts and in recital of learning. When equally capable students are forming the homogenous group they can also get help from each other and get motivation and drive to excel in the examination. Care has to be taken in forming such group with the students who are all having serious career orientation and willingness to work in the group. It must be noted that such group does not become a ground for discussing non academic topics and thus waste everybody’s time. School or college gossips or other discussions are best to be avoided. 7. Time management: The students must properly prepare their study plan by preparing daily, weekly, monthly and annual time tables, possibly in a reverse order. The most important enemy of time management is procrastination, meaning tendency to postpone the tasks in future-which may never be completed as tomorrow never comes! Regular adherence to time tables and continuous revision of the same based on experience and exigencies are must. Set the targets, list down the time, specify reading materials and other

resources required to achieve the same, get the resources in time, use them as per targets and chase the targets religiously. Be realistic in your planning. You should provide for some free time or free days so that you take care of exigencies and have time for other activities. Time management is an art and can be a separate subject in itself. 8. Revision techniques: There are a number of principles which enhance the effectiveness of revision. The first revision should be done in 24 hours, the second in a week and third in one month to increase the chances of better memory and recall. The practice of over-learning, spaced learning and recital should be employed to create strong long-term memory. It is advisable to follow recital and recall practices for better memory rather than simple rereading. The readers may refer to my articles on memory published in Times of India, Ahmedabad edition in June 2004 for more details on these reading strategies. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------References: 1. Michael Tipper, Characteristics of Genius- Part of the Accelerated Leaning Series www.happychild.org.uk 2. Muskingum College, Centre for Advancement of Learning