After I got an overwhelming response to my first article titled exam tips, I decided to go in to further to give some more tips on preparation of examination and time management therein. I hope as earlier, these too render some help to fellow students and professionals.
As the professional courses involve a mixture of different subjects and that too to be prepared in one go, it really poses problems. Gone are the days when we could divide the subjects in 2-3 semester and prepare the subjects in parts. Now the whole book has to be prepared in a time frame of just a couple of months. And then comes in need of the useful yet complicated concept “TIME MANAGEMENT”.
In this article I will try to give to you my opinion of time management and how I prepared for my exam keeping in mind the time I had.
1. Taking up subjects:
How the subjects should be divided to study it systematically and also not wasting time.?
This is the question which has a great impact on the final result. How should the subjects be divided?
We will take 6 subjects to prepare for an example. If your examination has some time left, say you have 6-8 months to give your exams; so according to me you have ample time to prepare. In such case if you even study 1-2 chapters daily of any subject with 3-4 practical sums consistently, it will be more than enough for you to pass with flying colors.
But if you have less time.Then this ‘time Management ‘pops up. If you have 2-3 months to prepare, then it has to be utilized wisely to avoid failure. And the best way is to, pick one practical and one theory subjects at a time.
If you observe, on an average we study ‘seriously’, in early morning (if you wake up) or at night (the fav time). In these both time frame, our minds are comparatively fresh + the environment is bit quieter. And so in this time frame I would suggest, picking up a Theory subject; as in this time learning is lot easier. Take up the subject chapter wise , one by one and start learning, slowly you will see your portion completing. But of you are a early sleeper(I am) ; I mean if you are not addicted to waking up till midnight unnecessary chatting or surfing, so you should solve a couple of practical sums at night and sleep to wake up early in the morning.
I have seen that it’s difficult for people to wake up early, but all through passing cs, I reserved the toughest theory subject for the last month before the exams and prepared it only in the morning. It helped me as I prepared it in the last, and in the morning I studied only that particular subject.
During the day practical subjects should be done. Start with theory part. As soon as you feel sleepy or bored; start solving the sums and illustrations. .
And believe me, like this you will cover 2 subjects in 1-1.5 months time frame. And then you can repeat the same for other subjects as well.
2. Topics to be dealt with:-
The best way to crack these exams are self study as I told in my earlier article, but the question here arises is how to do it.
For this I would say; firstly a normal reading from the module /study material,/ course book is highly useful. “Because at the end, the question paper is a part of the course itself.” The biggest benefit of reading is, that you are fully aware as to, from where a question is asked. Sometimes any random line of the book is quoted and its related question is asked to explain. In such case if you are unaware of the answer but have read the book, you will know the source of that line and so can write something or the other accordingly.
After reading once, try to answer the questions given at that last of the chapter. If you can answer it, its excellent; but if not, don’t panic; because those are the most difficult ones.
After a thorough reading try to solve scanner/exam papers, and see how much have you learned. Scanners are very useful to understand the exam pattern and questions.
It also helps to know the most asked questions.
Although scanners are not a sure shot ‘mantra’ of success, but it creates a path for preparation.
After you are aware with the type of questions asked, now go on again to prepare the subject in a concrete manner; that is; learning the sub headings and understanding the concepts…
If you follow these steps seriously, you are ready to give the exam after a last day revision.
One more thing:-
One should highlight or mark the portions which seems important and which can be forgotten till the exam time. By this, when you will revise the subject, a day before ,then only studying these will suffice ( if you do not make notes) and you will not need to read the whole book or panic by looking at the huge syllabus.
3. Revision-
Revising, what is studied earlier is very important, “more than studying”. it will remain fresh before the exam , and will help you focus more..
Hoping these tips help my fellow professionals…
GOOD LUCK!
Click here to refer to earlier article.
By- CS Divya Agrawal
Contact me on- Csdivya_agr@outlook.com
Disclaimer- The entire content in this article is written according to my views and experiences. It may vary from to person to person and according to different manner of studies..Please do not entirely rely on these.
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