Do Not Just Prepare but Crack Entrance Exams!

You must have heard this many times – there is one guru mantra behind every exam- Hard Work and there is no shortcut to success. There will always be lot of tips, alternatives and techniques but there is no real success story without hard work. Hard work comes through practice dedication and determination. You have to practice and achieve your dreams by doing several things.

You must be very clear in your life what career and goals you want to pursue. When you are having a clear vision it helps you to focus and work hard to achieve your goals. If you are aimless you don’t know where you are going and hence don’t feel like putting efforts to make it a success. Vision and aim are very important in life and add to that a Good dose of ambition and there is no goal that cannot be achieved. When your aim is set you motivate yourselves for that goal. Half of your race is won when you are motivated and ready to work with full dedication and determination.

So, the three Important words to crack entrance exams are: –

• Hard work
• Dedication
• Motivation

These three words will always lead to a path of success where you are ready to face any challenge with determination. There are ups and downs in life but it’s your attitude that helps you conquer your fear. Same implies to the entrance exams.

In our regular studies the exams are mainly subjective. You get in to a practice of writing those theoretical answers. Sometimes you are not sure of perfect answer, but have some idea about it, you still write that answer and end up getting 1 or 2 marks for that question.

Whereas the entrance exams are totally opposite in terms of answering. Objective questions are the key part of most entrance exams. While preparing for these exams you must be crisp and precise. Objective questions are bit tricky as compared to subjective ones. You will get few options for these questions but tricky part is that, the options will look similar. So you must be very sure which the correct alternative is. As mostly entrance exams follow negative marking system with every wrong answer so be careful while answering any of the questions. In the world of competition where seats get full in the terms of cutoffs, sometimes it can be matter of 1 mark. Hence pressure is going to be high to crack entrance exams.

The pattern to study for entrance exams differs in various aspects. The way you have studied for your boards will not actually help. You must study smart. Some students start the preparation one or two years before. This is useful because to crack entrance exam is an art which cannot be learnt over night. When you start preparing two years before you can find out a difference between subjective and objective. There is always a weightage for every topic which you should note down and allot that much time. Topic wise learning will always help and during exam you can easily make out which question belongs to which topic.

Several students believe after preparing the main course exam then one should start for entrance exams. It can be useful for some of them but after exams the time left for your entrance is too less and the portion is so vast that you cannot mug or understand all topics. You will not get much time to practice. We feel that we have learnt everything in our boards but when you actually start studying for the entrance we understand there is all new way of looking at these topics. There is a concept behind every question. To master that art it takes time.

Some tips are mentioned below:

Preparation: Be clear about which entrance exams you would like to appear and start preparing well in advance for the same. If you start preparing well in advance it will become easy on you and there will be no last-minute pressure.

Selection of exam you want to appear in: For the sake of filling forms do not fill them, be clear for which exams you have prepared based on your career goals and appear for only those exams. Preparing for all the exams can be tedious. So, prepare a list well in advance for entrance exams which you want to appear.

Subjects: Make a list of all subjects and mark the weightage. Write them on the starting page of your book so that you do not mess up with the topics. Prepare as per the weightage. The topics which carry high weightage spend more time on that.

Make Notes: While reading or learning you come across some important details write them down. There are several formulas or concepts behind certain questions, write them immediately in your book. So, while revising you do not waste your time trying to locate. During exams we do not get too much time to revise everything. Before exams make your set of notes which will be helpful for last minute revision.

Time management: You will come across several students complaining that they could not finish their paper. This is because every question has dedicated time allotted to it, if you spend too much time to answer few questions, there is a possibility you miss out on a very important section which you were confident and was scoring.

Use Calculus Tricks: There are few subjects (like reasoning and mathematics) where one can use some tricks which lead them to get a correct answer with lowest possible time. It helps you to save time which you can use for revising the answers. Note these when you are studying.

Selection of Questions: There is no thumb rule to start from question 1 of the question paper. As soon as you receive your question paper. Spend few minutes and go through the question paper. Attempt those questions first for which you are confident of the answer. This way you can score well. If you attempt the question which you are not sure will lead to demotivation.

Elimination: Entrance exams are the best example of probability. There are times when you do not know the answer but want to attempt that question. Simply try to eliminate the least probable of options, this may lead you to correct answer. Remember negative marking.

Practice: There is no substitute to practice. Practice previous year exam papers and time yourself so that you become well verse with the question paper. This will improve your accuracy and will increase your chance of attempting completed question paper.

Be calm and patient: Don’t feel anxious and stressful. Before exam be calm, read each question properly. Do not be hasty in answering. Because all the alternatives are similar so be cautious while selecting your answer.