| Do not get swayed by `myths' about examinations. Put your best foot forward and plan well. |
TAKE IT EASY: Think logically and keep your confidence in tact at the examination hall.
THERE ARE several myths about examinations. Never fall a prey to these. Some of the popular myths are:
The examiners deliberately set difficult questions. (A baseless conjecture.)
I will not understand the questions properly. (Why? What others can understand, you will also understand. You are not particularly inferior to others.)
Anyway, I will not pass the examination. (The past results will tell you a different story.)
Unless I know everything, I cannot pass the examination. (In the first place, there is no one who knows everything. Even if you do not know some parts of the syllabus, normally you can score well in the examinations.)
I will forget everything in the examination hall. (You are unnecessarily nervous, if you feel so. Be confident that if you have learnt your lessons well, your memory will not fail you in the crucial moments. Get rid of needless anxiety and focus on your lessons.)
You can learn everything the previous night; your memory will be fresh. There is no point in struggling to prepare for the examination wasting several months. (This is an old wives' tale. Systematic preparation is the key to success in any examination.)
If I fail in the examination, everyone will make fun of me. (Yet another instance of unwanted fear. You think about success and not failure. However, the failure in a single test does not make you a laughing stock. There are candidates who pass and those who fail in most examinations. Even if you fail once, you will pass the next time and forget the failure and move forward. Hope for the best and work steadily.)
If someone suggests any such myth to be true, do no trust his/her words. Think logically and keep your confidence in tact.
In the hall
Your performance in the examination hall is the most vital factor that decides your score. Something similar to the serving of a well-prepared dinner. All your hard work in preparation would come to nought if you fail in doing the right things at the right time in the examination hall. If the questions are of the descriptive type, you should necessarily go through them at the outset, so that you can identify the relatively easy ones to be attempted in the beginning.
Also if there are choices, you should make a plan of the questions to be attempted. The optimum combination of questions that would give you the best score should be carefully selected.
At this stage, it is necessary to make a point very clear. If the question paper is of the objective type, in which all questions are compulsory with no option for individual choice, do not waste time by going through all the questions in the beginning. Read each question and provide the answer then and there.
The popular use of objective questions is in competitive examinations that aim at ranking the candidates based on relative merit, and, therefore, there will be deliberate inbuilt time constraint. Each second is precious in such a situation; even a small amount of time wasted may tilt the balance in one way or the other.
Prior analysis
A prior analysis of previous question papers of the same examination would give you an insight into the possible style of questions that are likely to appear in your examination. A discussion with senior students may take you to some point of guidance, preventing you from falling into any kind of traps or errors like the ones committed by them. Experience is the best teacher. But you cannot make all possible errors and then correct them. The wise invariably learn not only from their own errors, but from the errors committed by others as well.
The marks allotted to each question should be considered while deciding the time you should devote to answer it. What is expected from you is not writing all you know on the subject, but presenting what forms a good answer to the question.
To the point
Elimination of irrelevant data is as important as presenting the essential data. Do resist the temptation to write everything you have learnt on the topic.
The popular dictum of schoolmasters, `Answer to the point', is pertinent in this context.
Further, if you write all that you have learnt and not just what is expected of you, the examiner would feel that you have not come to grips with the content of the lesson. This, in turn, will go against your interest in gaining a good score.
While allocating time for each question, you have to give some allowance for unforeseen roadblocks during writing.
First impression
The first answer should be your best answer; this would create a fine impression about you in the mind of the examiner. This impression will certainly have a benign influence in the matter of deciding the marks for other descriptive answers. To gain this advantage, start with a question you are confident of scoring well. It is important that you write legibly.
B.S WARRIER
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