As most people would tell you, it is not easy to crack an entrance exam in India such as IIT-JEE or IIM-CAT. It requires a lot of hard work, great deal of preparation and an ability to think clearly under pressure.
Follow these 6 tips for acing your college entrance exam in India.
Tip #1: Plan your studies.
The most important thing is to plan how you are going to prepare for the exam. This means creating an effective plan which makes most of the available time. Focus on topics that find more difficult and also allocate time for those that you find easy. Have at least some time in extra for unfinished work.
Tip #2: Have a clear exam strategy in place.
All students have specific strengths and weaknesses. What are you good at? Where do your talents lie? If you are good at math, build upon your strength and aim to get 100%. If you are weak at chemistry, try to get better at it and aim for at least 90%. You are not going to be perfect at everything, so you should have a clear sighted strategy in place for how you go about the entrance exam.
Tip #3: Don’t over study.
A lot of students make the mistake of studying too many books. This is not what you should be doing. Just pick up 1 or 2 good text books and master them. Work out all the exercises and make sure that you are thorough with the concept. More is not necessarily better – the quality or focus of your study is more important than how much you study.
Tip #4: Practice previous year question papers.
It is very important that you should practice previous year question papers well. This will give you a look at the actual questions that are asked in an entrance test. You should attempt to answer as many such question papers as possible. That is the best preparation you need. Make sure to answer them in a simulated exam like environment, within a set period of time.
Tip #5: Be careful when reading a question.
Often, we have observed that students tend to be over anxious or over excited when reading the questions during a test. Examiners are very smart – they attempt to trap students by asking them a tricking question that is actually easy or an easy looking question that is actually difficult just by the way they word the question. You need to see through that and understand the meaning behind the question before jumping in to answer it.
Tip #6: Optimize your exam time.
You will have 90 minutes at the test. Make the most of it and make sure to have a good look at all questions before getting started. Use at least 5 minutes for this when you receive the question paper. Mark the questions that look difficult, so that you can attempt to answer them later. Do the easy ones first and finish them as quickly as possible before moving on to the harder ones. The most difficult ones or the ones that you have no idea about, attempt them at the very end after you have solved all questions you are confident about.