How To Plan The Studies And Prepare For Exams

How To Plan The Studies And Prepare For Exams

How much time do you need to prepare for your upcoming exams? The answer depends on your preparation level. Students who are regular in studies and give two hours each day from the beginning of the session, perform well in the exams than the students who start preparing for exams, one or two months before.

It is a proven research that students who are regular in their studies are found more relaxed than those students, who try to prepare in a short period of time. The stress levels of both categories of students also differ significantly.

Students who start preparing for exams in the end carry more stress and overburden themselves due to which they get panic and loose confidence level.

Good Exams Preparation Strategy

Breaking the sessions into manageable pieces and spreading it over several days, is a good exams preparation strategy and help students, to manage their studies more effectively.

Below are important steps, which students should follow, to prepare well before actual examination.

Step 1

Choose A Good Location To Study

Students should identify a neat, clean and calm place for the studies. The place should be free from noise and other disturbances. This place can be in the home as a separate room or students can join the nearest library, to serve the purpose.

Step 2 

Calculating The Actual Number Of Hours Available In A Day

Before starting the studies, students should know the actual number of hours that are available to them, for exams preparation. Students should take in to consideration, all the other responsibilities and events like Job, Coaching, Family Matters, Friends etc etc while calculating the availability of actual number of study hours. It also depends on the study habits of students like some students study for long hours in a day and others study lesser number of hours in a day. 

Students are required to leave some hours from total available hours, for revision, practice and MOCK examination. These are covered below.

Step 3

Identification Of Difficult Subjects and Weak Areas

Students should know their weak subjects and more importantly the weak areas / topics in those subjects. Weak subjects and areas / topics, require more time and concentration, therefore, time should be allotted accordingly, to prepare those weak subjects and areas. 

Students should also take into consideration, the weight-ages of the topics which are mentioned in the syllabus, before allocation of time. Sometimes, topic which is difficult for student is not important from exam point of view, therefore, lesser number of hours or time should be allocated here.

Step 4

Allocation Of Available Time Between The Subjects

Students should allocate the available time between the subjects in such a way that all the syllabus is covered, before the actual exams. 

Keeping in view the difficulty level of subjects and weightages as per the syllabus, time is required to be allocated. It is considered a good strategy, to prepare two subjects per day. 

One subject might be a practical subject like Accounting or Maths and the other one might be a theory subject like Science or English. Again it depends on the priority of students.

Step 5

Include The Revision Time In Available Hours

All the subjects must be revised, well before the actual exams. If the time for revision is not planned, then the whole strategy of exams preparation might go in wrong direction.

Step 6

At least 2 to 3 Times Of Revision

Students who attain good results, have habits of revising the subjects and syllabus at least 2 to 3 times, before the actual exams. Therefore, it is recommended to the students that revision time be allotted, to each subject, so that the whole exam preparation get revised properly. 

Effective revision also boosts the confidence level of students and ultimately results in good grades.

Step 7

MOCK Examination Before Actual Exams

After all the preparation and revisions, students must take the MOCK exams for each subject. Students are required to select 2 to 3 past papers of each subject and solve them in such a way that actual exam condition is created. 

Like for example, if there are 5 subjects then students are advised to give total of 12 to 15 MOCK exams for all the subjects.

Step 8

Checking Of MOCK Examination And Identification Of Mistakes 

After giving MOCK exams, students after taking a break, after each individual MOCK exam should check the answers sheet and mark the mistakes prominently, with another color pen or marker. 

Students should give marks, according to the level of performance, in each subject MOCK exam.

All the mistakes are required to be noted on a separate paper, to revise later. Students should look again on the mistakes made in the MOCK exams. The revision of mistakes, will make students very clear, not to repeat them in actual examination.

Following the above steps give students confidence and good results in the exams.