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5 tricks to help you prepare for your competitive exams

Cracking a competitive exam seems a daunting task. Accomplishing a huge volume of study and solving a number of complex problems in a limited amount of time is really a tough job. Competitive exams require a certain mindset and understanding which is quite different from a regular school and college academic test. 

Nevertheless, following a smart study strategy and keeping the right mental attitude can make the whole process a lot more manageable.

Read & Understand about Exam and explore Syllabus

The first step is to understand the exam for which you are applying. As you know each competitive exam is different from the others, so it’s important to read the guidelines and process carefully before applying for the exam. You should know what the exam is all about and how it can help for your career. Before start preparing for the competitive exam, explore and understand the syllabus mentioned in the application. You should know about the list of syllabus and content that needs to be studied for the exam.

Make a list of syllabus divided into chapters and units. You should go through the syllabus before starting the preparation. And check the marks allotted for each segment of the syllabus. Then, you can start giving priority based on the weightage to the syllabus and study well for the exam.

Organize Study Area

Have you got your study area at home? If not, then choose a study area that is more peaceful and calm. Make sure that you organize your necessary things for a better learning environment, for instance, the comfortable chair and light, table, stationery items, books and more according to your needs. Everything has to be arranged as per your comfort so that you develop learning with complete concentration and interest. Clean space brings more positivity and confidence.

Make and follow a timetable

Once you understand that what you have to prepare for the exam, next you have to plan that how to prepare. They have first thing in your plan should be ‘proper time management’. A time table makes you more disciplined and focused. Scheduling your work is quite essential to help you remain on track of right preparation for one of the most important exam of your life.

Given below are many important tips to consider while making an effective timetable:

• Set realistic goals that you can achieve in each study session.

• Schedule most of your study sessions for those parts of the day when you find yourself to be more productive. For example, some students can learn better during early morning while some others study more effectively during late night hours.
• Allocate more time to the difficult or complex subjects.
• Do not forget to block some time for short breaks in between.

After creating a timetable, following the same is more important. Procrastinating the tasks will lead to a bulk of pending topics which would be difficult to prepare during the last days before the exam.

Never try to study anything new in the last few days

Last few days are to revise your study notes and clear the slightest doubts you may have. Make sure you have studied every important topic and revised it as well before the exam. Don’t start anything new as studying a new topic in last few days will have two consequences, first you would not get enough time to recall that new topic and second you would even lose time to revise the old topics. This would make it difficult to sustain the learning in brain which may result in a bad exam. So, during last few days, only need to clear your doubts and brush up your preparations for the exam. Don’t bother your mind with added pressure.

Following the study tricks explained above will definitely help to organize your study making an easy and effective preparation for the exam. Just keep one thing in mind that cracking any difficult exam would become easy and simple if you study not only hard but smart.

Take Mock Test 

It’s very much advisable to take mock tests during the preparation of the exam. It can help you analyze the types of questions that might appear in the exam papers. You can take mock tests even when your syllabus isn’t complete to perform well in actual exams. It helps in performing better and improving your skills. 

Be Motivated

You have to be motivated and confident to crack the exam. Believe in yourself and remember that motivation can help you achieve your goals. Keep a positive attitude towards yourself that you can crack the exam and get selected. You have to be surrounded by people who can motivate and support during the preparation. Make sure that you give your best during the preparation and less worry about the results. 

Practice

Practicing previous papers can bring a lot of difference in your preparation. Sometimes we might go blank when exam papers arrive as the questions seem to be quite different and difficult to understand. In such cases, you can get an idea of looking back into the previous year’s question papers. It can help in understanding the kind of questions that might appear for the exam. So, collect question papers for the last five years and try to practice because you never know if any questions from those papers might appear in the exam. Also, it will give you some idea about the topics of high priority. There are many online platforms where you can practice test for better preparation.