How to prepare for Board exams for class 10th.

As a youngster, board exams are probably the first challenge a student will face among the many other challenges that will be thrown at him later in life.

10^th Board exam is not only a student’s exam, its an exam for parents as well.

1.     Ensure you give the required amount of time to each subject based on your proficiency and the vastness of the syllabus. While planning, ensure you account for each chapter and each topic in that chapter.

2.     Parents must ensure that diet of their wards should be good. Lots of liquids and home food rather than fast food or junk food.

3.      Students should not be pressurized to get 1^st or 2^nd rank in school. Avoid comparing him with other students when exams are getting closer.  Make sure that student has solved previous year board papers, at least the last 5-6 years. It will give him the much needed practice and also a fair idea of kind of questions which are asked in Board exams. You will find a majority of questions being repeated over the years.

4.      Memorizing certain formulae, notes and dates are essential for almost all subjects. Make sure you learn them by-heart well in time before the exam. Write down these points (formulae, theorem, definitions)on flash cards that you can carry along with you in your pocket or wallet. You can read them every time you have a moment to spare -- especially while you are travelling. You can write down these notes in bright colours on chart papers and stick them around your study place or pin them on to a board in your room. Every time you pass by, you will take a look at the notes which will  help you in memorizing them.

5.      Try to give as many mock tests as possible. Get an idea as to how much time you need to answer a particular question. This will help you know if you need to concentrate on speed or accuracy. Finding out how much time you spend on a particular question will also help you know your strengths and weaknesses. Once you find that out, stress more on your weak areas.

6.      Try to do time bound studies rather than concept bound, in last few months. Time bound means, every topic should be assigned some specific time and student must shift to another topic after spending stipulated time on that particular topic. Since there is no limit of depth for many topics specially in math and science hence it might happen that student will always feel that something can be improved. And while doing so he will be compromising on preparation of other important topics. At the same point of time, what ever details he is acquiring might be useless from the point of board exams. There is very little chance of a question beyond your prescribed textbooks. Ensure you are well versed with each concept and topic in your textbook. Do not ignore diagrams, tables or graphs in your textbooks as questions can be asked on any chapter from the textbook.

7.      It is always good to study in a group, say once a week. It will help you get your doubts cleared by your friends who might know how to solve a particular question you find hard to solve.. Studying in a group also helps you validate your exam preparation and efforts. Say, you have left out some portion of the syllabus purposefully; your study group can tell you if it's a good idea to do so. Spending time with your friends will also help you feel relaxed and refreshed.

8.      Make sure at least one month before board exam, student must wake up in morning early and should strictly study during examination time without break .For example if exam starts from 1 march and timings are 10am -1 pm, then student must study form 10am -1 pm from 1st feb, so that his biological clock will get used to with the examination timing and he will be at his best during that time and won’t feel tired and sleepy.

9.      It is not a good idea to ignore your weak subjects. The board exam result is an aggregate percentage of all your subjects. Give equal importance to each subject. In case you find a particular subject difficult, direct more efforts towards it -- practice more and more so that by the end of the preparations you are comfortable with all the subjects. Ignoring even one subject can lead to anxiety and dramatic fall in the aggregate percentage. For example, when you have scored about 90 marks in all five subjects while you managed to score just 65 in one, it will reflect on your overall score in a bad way and will also pull down your percentage to 85.

10.   A lot of students end up feeling sick due to pressure, sleep deprivation and improper diet. Ensure that you have at least 7 hours of sound sleep everyday and have 4 healthy meals every day. Drink a glass of milk before going to bed in case you are facing trouble getting sound sleep. Avoid junk food and foods which are difficult or take long time to digest.

11.   Try to analyze your performance, if you are not able to get good score in pre boards then is it because of lack of concept or lack of confidence or simply because of lack of examination skills.

12.   Don't give up on recreation and hobbies as they will help you relax and absorb more when you study. Please note computer games or mobile games use the same resources , the eyes and brain hence leave you more exhausted.  About 8 hours of dedicated study is enough to get you good marks.

During Examination Time:

Ø  If at all you are making calls /meeting your close friends avoid talking about exams.

Ø  Make sure you have all the Pens, Pencils, Erasers and sharpeners ready as far as possible don’t use any new pen,pencil  even shirt/trousers/socks/shoes/wrist watch/perfume /oil  and make sure you don’t have to make a last day effort ! Also, keep your Hall Ticket Safely with a photocopy with your parents.

Ø  Unwind with some music of your choice.

Ø  Dream a bit. Smile a bit. Dream that you are going to give a very very good paper :). Just don’t entertain bad thoughts. Half the battle is won or lost always in the mind. Once you win it in your mind the brain takes over. (The other half is of the brain!)

Ø  Avoid discussing about the paper gone by in the gap between two papers. That will either make you complacent or tense, both ways u lose.

Ø  Almost all  the questions asked in board exams are very close to the practice problems which you have studied and solved in last two years during your preparation.

Ø  PRAY  JUST CHILAX :)

Post Exam: Parents must realize that, a god score in board helps students to gain confidence and set the tone for a successful academic career but it just doesn’t contribute anything directly for the future. For the matter even the 12th board results are also not as important as results of entrance exams which they will be appearing for, after 12th. If you feel that student is inclined towards science then he must seek for some engineering or medical college after 12th. Admission in engineering and medical colleges happen through entrance exams for engineering and medical like JEE Mains, JEE advance, AIIMS , AFMC etc. Best time to prepare for such exams is immediately after 10th exams. May be a student can take a break of 10-15 days to get rejuvenated. Parents must collect relevant information for good coaching classes for IIT JEE and Medical.

Here are a few links which will probably help you to get many important details of all good coaching classes in Pune for IIT JEE. Details of good faculties in JEE and medical arena in Pune and Fake results of IIT JEE Pune, many such crucial information are given in following webpages.

Links: JEE master blog

            How to search good coaching classes in Pune

            Medical Examination Preparation.

Tuition Class for Science and mathematics for 8th 9th and 10th standard students

Before enrolling your child to any  tuition classes for science or mathematics, a parent must be aware of few basic things

1.     What is the main objective of joining any such class

2.     How is it going to help in senior classes like 11^th and 12^th.

3.     Will these classes contribute towards his preparation for engineering and medical entrance exams like IIT JEE mains, JEE Advance, AIIMS and AFMC

4.     Will child develop any interest towards science and mathematics after attending these classes.

Lets take these points in details.

Most of the times, many parents enroll their kids to coaching classes or tution classes so that student will be able to get good score in school exams. Many such classes emphasize on plain mugging, They can gauge the set of frequently asked questions in local exams/tests of schools either by their experience in education field and sometimes by some other means as well. Directly or indirectly students are made to solve those "important" questions again and again and subsequently students find those exams very easy and come with flying colours, making their parents feel proud. Consequently children and parents are happy and respective coaching ( tuition) classes get strong branding for science and mathematics.

But how does this contribute towards the future of the student ?  It would be a far better option, if a student is made to understand the basic fundamentals of mathematics and science. This knowledge doesn't only help in getting good score in school but it makes the thought process of a child very logical and fast. A student with enhanced thinking can do better in all fields, let it be academic or non academic.

Many of the top rankers of engineering and medical entrance had joined some foundation course in their cities. Rao classes in Mumbai have successfully conducted this course at many centers. Time, Prime Academy Pune, M.Prakash Academy, DG Foundation,  has similar foundation courses across many of its centers.

Few good students of such foundation batches who joined the foundation batch in classs 8^th were promoted to Foundation Hybrid (which is meant for 9^th and 10^th student) on the basis the outstanding performance. Many of these students get to attend class 11^th lectures even when they are in 10^th and  9^th. These students finish their syllabus of 11^th and 12^th well in advance. The same syllabus is for all engineering and medical examinations as well. By the time these students actually write these competitive exams, they become relatively far better than their colleagues and hence they end up getting much better score.

Parents should not simply run for marks by plane mugging, Fake results IIT JEE Pune and cities like hydrabad and Kota have made such an impact that most of the aware parents have vision for better future of the child.

Sooner you realize the importance of quality coaching for IIT JEE and medical in form of foundation courses, better it is for a student. Just consult few good coaching classes for foundation and enroll your child. For details of such coaching classes you may refer

http://blog.oureducation.in/top-coaching-institutes-for-engineering-in-pune/

http://iitcoachingpune.blogspot.in/2014/01/iit-jee-coaching-in-pune.html

best wishes for your preparation to become a top engineer, doctor or any things of your choice. :)

JEE preparation: Do's and Dont's

What not to do when you are preparing for any competitive exams like IIT JEE mains JEE advance, Medical entrance exams like AFMS and AIIMS

1.     Never start JEE preparation late.

2.     Avoid joining a coaching class with following traits:

a.     One which has more of marketing and continuously keeps on hammering. Usually an institute with good quality teaching need not rely on heavy marketing. Pune’s best coaching class for IIT JEE, M.Praksh never gave a single advertisement and still manages to get good quality students.

b.     Never judge an institute on the basis of the results produced by that institute two or three years back. Fake results of IIT JEE pune has befooled many students. Just ask for last year results and make sure that you ask for contact number of random students from the list. Sometimes few institutes publish results of those students who they never taught.

c.  Sometimes there is big a list of IIT JEE toppers qualifying from an institute, but most of the teachers who have taught them are no more with that institute and have long left them and joined another institute. Current Results of such institutes have no credibility.

d.     Don’t join an institute where traveling time is more than 90 minutes a day.

e.     Sometimes institutes commit a classroom very near to your house and once fee is collected, they cancel the batch and you are asked to go to some other centre. Bakliwal Tutorials collected the fee from many students staying near Vimanagar and committed them Vimanagar batch which must have been very close their house but when classes commenced, students were shocked to realize that Bakliwal Tutorials shifted their batch to Lloyd chambers which increased their commutation timing by around 2 hours !! Most of these students left Bakliwal Tutorials and joined other institutes close by but by that time students suffered due to syllabus mismatch between the two institutes. Similar was the case with Time Academy batch, where students were committed afternoon batch but almost twice a week they were asked to come in evening disturbing their schedule.

3.     Avoid being in group of negative thinking people. Try to be in good company. Good mood and atmosphere of serious competition is always infectious.

4.     If you get demotivated just make sure that you meet your teachers and mentors. Bakliwal from BT and Lalit Kumar from Prime Academy Pune are real good mentors  and terrific motivators in Pune.

5.     Avoid Smart phones, Cable connection and other distractions at home and study place. It is very difficult to resist but relatively easy to avoid. And hence ensure you avoid things like Television, internet surfing, facebook, tweeter, playing games on your smart phone as controlling the usage is just next to impossible. 

6.     Never get demoralized if your score dips in comparison with board score which was 90+

7.     If you have missed few lectures or concepts in past because of any reason, don’t miss lectures to compensate for those missed out concepts at the cost of contemporary topics. First concentrate on current topics and try to extract extra time to study previously missed topics (On Sundays or public holidays) or else leave them and get back when revision starts.

8.   Never Cheat in practice test to Fake results in IIT JEEpunemock Tests..

9.     Don’t read too many books.

10. Don’t try to dig in irrelevant topics which are not important.

11. Avoid joining multiple coaching classes for different subjects or may be board  or entrance exams. Many times because of professional rivalry, many coaching institute talk bad about other institutes where students are going simultaneously and faculties of either institute don’t  gain respect in the eyes of the students which finally affects students morale and grasping and hence his performance.

12. Avoid Medical and engineering simultaneously. Don’t try to sail in two boats.

13. Don’t miss classes and don’t be late. If faculty is late it won’t affect a student much but if the student is late then he might miss some key concepts which is likely to affect his/her performance.

14. Avoid postponing the revision. Revise everything same day for best efficiency.

15.  Ask all your doubts in lecture. Don’t hesitate and don’t postpone it will keep piling on you.

16. Many times students have good concepts but not able to score good. Don’t get disheartened, discuss with your faculty to analyze the cause. It might happen that there is a very small change required in your strategy and that might just triple your score ! Yaa It happens, believe me !!!.

17. Many a times a student is very good conceptually in Physics and he can write equations but while solving these equations, he commits silly mistake and ends up with a wrong answer. If he is aware of the fact that he is good in physics but just lacks practice then he will get motivated and start working hard on this problem, rather than simply getting de-motivated and at times leaving studies.

18. Before exam you must take care of these things.

19. Avoid strenuous sports which requires too much of energy and time. Sports with a body touch with yr opponent i.e. football, Basketball and Hockey to be avoided for injury concerns. Simple sports like TT , Badminton are fine.

20. In between your study slots take a short nap or go for a short slow walk as just sitting on comuter or video games will engage same set of resources (Eye and brain) which you are using extensively while studying.

21. Concentration is another issue student faces. Try any of the below and do what suits you to increase your attention span.

a.     Change the subject or place of study.

b.     Read aloud. Or walk while you read inside your study room.

c.      Solve sums as they will force u to concentrate.

d.     Have a cup of tea or coffee (though not often)

e.     Have a bath.

f.      Change your T shirt

g.     Have a small chat with your sibling.

h.     Or a small slow walk…. Or Pranayam.

i.   You can also record “reading of your notes” and play it back on your headphones while revising your notes.

j.     Just avoid heavy meals and have small snacks 4-5 times a day and ensure u drink sufficient quantity of water.