How to handle the tough CSAT examination.

How to handle the tough CSAT examination.

How to handle the tough CSAT examination. If you do not believe in your abilities and end up worrying about the question paper, it will be tough. CSAT is an entrance test for would-be civil servant, the future bureaucrats of the nation; hence, it simulates complications that a civil servant has to tackle. This exam thus tests not only the general knowledge and language skills but also inter- personal skills and the logical reasoning and analytics of an individual. It evaluates one's managerial capabilities -- these include working under pressure, managing time, making decisions and tackling change. Strangely, most students neglect this aspect of civil service examinations. As a result, many bright students do not clear the exam. If you want to do well in CSAT, you should devote time to developing and honing a managerial aptitude. Here are a few points on how to go about it: 1)    Time management This is a crucial skill; if you want to master CSAT, you need to be able to manage time well. It goes without saying it is really taxing to solve 100 questions in 120 minutes twice for the prelims. This means the time pressure is deliberately imposed to see how a student deals with it. Rather than cracking under pressure, keep a more realistic target. The mains consist of to receive an interview call, you have to clear the cut-offs in each section. It will be useless to have an excellent overall score if you have neglected one section and done very well in the others. Time management is also crucial while preparing for the test. The real test is when it comes to managing time between your jobs or final year studies for your graduation, and your preparation for CSAT. Make a habit of working in Quadrant II of Stephen Covey's time management matrix, where one spends time on matters that are important but not urgent. DO NOT PROCRASTINATE!! Set your priorities right, create a definitive yet realistic goal and start working on that direction, irrespective of the hiccoughs you may face. In simpler words, graduation exams may not be urgent today, but one need not wait for the last moment to prepare for them. Unlike other years, you can spend about an hour or so from the beginning of the year on your graduation studies. 2)    Good judgement Like we said earlier, it is just not possible for anyone to solve all the questions in the stipulated time. You need to exercise good judgment in selecting which questions you need to attempt. About half way into reading the question, you can get a fair idea about whether it is tough or not. No points for guessing that any tough looking questions should be left without wasting time. Mark that question and leave it for the next one. Once you have completed all your questions you may return to the flagged questions and review them. Remember, if you leave a question unattempted without wasting more than 10 seconds on it, you are ensure no questions will be left unseen and you will still be left with ample time to come back and attempt the questions you have left. Most of the time, after spending more than a minute on a question and still not being to solve it, a student finds it difficult to leave the question. His logic is, "Since I have already spent one minute, a little more time and I will crack it." Do not attempt a question if you are unsure of the process. Remember every time you leave a question unattempted you are saving negative marking of .33 marks (assuming that your attempt would be wrong) and thus saving a lot of time and negative marks which may adversely affect your final score. You can mark the questions you have left in a definite manner for example a star for the questions whose topics you have studied but are having difficulty to recollect and a circle for the questions whose topics you have never read. Thus after you have attempted all the questions and you are back to solving the ones you have left, you should give preference to the questions with stars as the possibility of you solving it correctly is way greater than that of the questions you have marked with a circle. 3)    Tackling the pressure Winners are inspired by the prospect of beating the competition, whereas losers are cowed down by the competition. It is this pressure that takes the heaviest toll and this happens during the preparation and not during the hours of the actual test. Close to 30% students give up on their hopes of clearing the examinations by the time they give the mock tests. Remember, the paper is the same for everyone. If you have studied well and put in hard work, there is no reason why you should not be selected. In fact, it is this competition pressure that weeds out the losers from the winners. Your attitude goes a long way in contributing to your success. For some students, maths has been a problem area throughout school. Others have come from vernacular mediums and have serious doubts about their proficiency in grammar and vocabulary. Just remember, you need to move away from the 'conditioning' of your past experiences. Believe in yourself and believe in the goal that you have set for yourself. Do not rethink your position as a student and strengthen yourself. Take as many tests as possible and Identify topics you sailed through and topics that were difficult to crack. Determine these topics you are weak at and take time to make these areas stronger. Study hard and prepare without fear. You should consider this as just another exam and do not give in to the various pressures and insecurities.  Then, spend time on deciding a particular strategy for taking the exam, the order in which you would like to tackle the sections, which questions to attempt first and which ones to avoid within a section, the approach to tackling reading comprehension, etc. Experiment with these parameters while taking the various mock exams and take a call on which strategy works best for you. 4)    The exam pattern is changing The new CSAT paper has surprises in store. The pattern has changed and this has baffled many seasoned exam takers, as a newbie to the CSAT world this may be beneficial to you as a seasoned CSAT taker you should Keep an open and flexible mindset while taking the exam. You can't go in with a fixed strategy and your strategy must be flexible. Hope you find this article useful and will boost you to take the civil service examinations head on.

mytestbuddy   29/11/2011

TO STUDY ALONE OR TO STUDY IN GROUPS?

Just night before the exams it has become a ritual for all the members of our wolf pack to come together and study together. It is customary for everyone to bring a nicotine intense drink and to swear ones allegiance to the gang and vow to remain awake throughout the night whatsoever be the consequences. I would prepare the room for the studies and even light an incense stick and offer prayers to all the gods I know and apologizing to others because I don’t know about them. By the time all the rituals are over its late enough that one of the weaker members of the pack would start yawning and it is a known fact that yawning is contagious. Before even the first concept of the first chapter is cleared everyone is tired and the exhaustion is evident as if the wolves have been hunting without food for more than a week. This is the time when innovation conquers over the logic and the suggestion of mixing beer with redbull and a table spoon of coffee seems to be most logical thing to do. Drinking that horrendous liquid is not enough because that has to be followed by deep fried dumplings and deep fried chicken, basically something has to be deep fried. An hour later, at least one of the team members is down and other two are drooling and dripping saliva over the book. The situation worsens when other hostel buddies comes banging on the door and waking us up saying that the exam is about to start in ten minutes. Even though this has become ritualistic every time we appear for any exam, it makes me wonder whether studying alone would be any different or not.

So this time I decided to betray my friends and took that bold step of studying alone. The ritual was the same, lighting incense stick, praying to all the gods that I know and apologizing to others because I don’t know about them. I was missing the deep fired goodies and the horrendous liquid all the time but this time around i did manage to read few topics more than when I was with my friends. But something was missing, I did realize much later in the night that when I used to study with my wolf pack we had one advantage over studying alone, we would solve each other’s doubts and help each other in their weaknesses and thus by clearing each other’s doubts we would cover many topics which we might miss while studying alone!

Now that put me into a dilemma what to do? One day I realized while facebooking that why not combine both the experience into one. Why not study alone and be together at the same time? Why not be tied in a social networking media where we share each other’s doubts and solve each other’s queries and be away from temptations like mixing coffee power with redbull and then boiling it.  This is when I started creating a platform for education that is social and private both at the same time and after a researching and trying and re- trying for more than one year I came up with the idea of www.mytestbuddy.com and thus it came into existence. I hope the students would appreciate my efforts and would like the interface that I have created.

IMPORTANT FACT about medical entrance examinations

IMPORTANT FACT about medical entrance examinations

IMPORTANT FACT about medical entrance examinations

POST graduate medicalentrance examinations can be tricky as the course work is very lengthy and it is practically impossible to memorize all the facts within the time limit as given. Students often undergo phases of depression and anxiety and can even face nervous breakdown under pressure situations. Initially the post graduate medical entrance examinations may seem like any other exam but very soon the students realize that this exam is lot different from any other exam that they have ever encountered.

This exam does not only come with a lengthy course but also comes with limited number of seats. There are very few seats and number of students appearing for the exams is overwhelming and thus even though you have prepared for your exam sincerely, you may not be selected as the competition is worse and this situation worsens year over year as newer and newer batches are added to the list of the students preparing for the examination.

It has been observed that even though you have the least amount of time for preparation for your first attempt at the post graduate medical entrance examinations, you have the maximum moral during your first attempt and hence there is a maximum probability that you will excel at your first attempt only.

The only secret for the success at the first attempt is HARD WORK, and no amount of tricks and mnemonics and shortcuts will ever compensate for that. You need to be through with your basic concepts and your basic concepts will take you a long way in your quest for medical entrance examinations. You need to create notes and arrange them properly so that you can refresh the basic concepts during the times of the examinations. This you can very well do online atwww.mytestbuddy.com.  At mytestbuddy.com you can not only store your notes online and arrange them properly but also you can access notes from your peers and rate them and store them for future use. It is an excellent medium of studies. It is India’s only social networking website for education.

For the post graduate medical entrance examinations you not only need to master the basic concepts but you also need to practice seriously. You need to practice previous year’s question papers and need to master the paper style thus while attempting an paper you will not be startled by the paper and you will start solving the paper more efficiently and more accurately.www.mytestbuddy.com provides an array of questions in its study online feature and you need to go through it to hone your skills.

For the post graduate medical entrance examinations, mytestbuddy.com provides an ideal platform for students to shine and master the skills that are required. Mytestbuddy.com makes your quest for that coveted medical seat easy and much more sensible than it ever was.www.mytestbuddy.com