“Time out! Stop writing!” Throughout the history of examination, this has probably been the most common refrain for students. And for students getting ready to take their first Board exams, time management or rather the lack of it, can become a big worry.
A lot of stress has been laid on time management, which has been the most talked about and at the same time, probably, the most misunderstood parameter for any examination. There may have been numerous instances when you may have been…
- Determined to answer a question even if it has already taken most of your precious time?
- Stuck in the middle of the solution to a problem in Geometry and going totally blank?
- Sprinting through the last few questions in the final 15 minutes?
If your answer is an affirmative, it’s time you understand the micro and macro aspects of time management. No doubt, you have sat for a dozen sample or mock CBSE exams yet managing the preparation as well as examination time is the most important issue at hand. Examination experts from TCYyonline.com provide their recommendations for managing your time and optimizing your performance in the Boards.
Time management must be understood from two angles –- one highlighting the preparation time and the other focusing on the time during the examination. Let’s tackle them one by one:
Scheduling the preparation time:
With just 10-12 days to go before the Boards, the following points can help you keep a well-managed preparation plan in place:
1.Know the pattern: Most of us are familiar with the Test Blueprint that is available on the CBSE Website. This blueprint explains the relative importance of various chapters in the subject.
Hence, it is a good idea to look at the blueprint for each and every subject and note down the most important topics (from the point of view of weightage). It is better to list them in the form of table as given below:
Now keep striking off the topic the moment it is done. You may find the blueprints for all the subjects by logging on to www.cbse.nic.in and putting the subject and Class name in the search.
PAGE_BREAK
2.Prioritizing Subject-wise Revision: Everybody has some favourite subject(s). Recall what is (are) yours and make sure that you work on it (them) in the late evenings. Afternoons are to be kept strictly for Mathematics as we tend to feel sleepy after having lunch. Early mornings must have a warm-up topic (like the one from your favourite subject), followed by relatively tough ones. The weekly schedule must include all the subjects but daily schedule must not have them all. Keep days for various subjects. For instance, 4 days for Mathematics and Science with half-day allocated to each and weekends for languages.
3.Revision Notes: Keep the revision notes handy with you. If you have not made those you will find some for Science on www.steps.tcyonline.com “Revision notes” is the best tool with you to quickly surf through the important points for a topic.
Managing examination time
For our 10th graders, how to make the best of the given time is the most important issue. Time management is viewed from two dimensions i.e., Macro and Micro. Let’s take them one by one:
1.Macro Time Management: Roughly, paper for all the subjects is divided into 2–3 major parts. For instance, Mathematics has three types of questions SA I, SA II and LA types as described in the Blueprint of Mathematics paper. Hence, it is important to divide the total time into three parts and clearly define the start and end time for the three sections. But it is self-destructive to divide the total time by 3 to get the time for each section. This is what we call time mismanagement. A better way is to look at the blueprint again as it gives you the average time that examiners want you to spend on each type of question. For example, following is the excerpt from the blueprint of Mathematics paper:
Now we know that the expected time taken by SA I questions is much lesser than that of the SA II and LA type questions. Therefore the total time for completing the first type of questions should be calculated as follows:
The above table confirms that CBSE does not want you to spend more than 40 min on Section 1. This is a very important input as we otherwise end up spending 20 precious minutes additionally on Section 1 when we divide the time equally (1 hour each) on the three sections.
Moreover, the total time is 145 min; add to it the 15 min reading time making it 160 min total. One still can have 20 extra minutes for re-checking the calculations and formulae and making final adjustments. This is the logical way to divide time in the examination. You may download and get the blueprints for each and every subject from www.cbse.nic.in or from www.steps.tcyonline.com and plan accordingly.
2.Micro Time Management: This is the second step in time management. Here, we look at the following important recommendations:
i.The maximum time to be spent on each type of questions must be clearly defined. The total time to solve a problem or to answer a question can be divided into three parts:
1.Time spent in understanding the question statement and knowing what is expected viz. units, length of answer etc.
2.Time spent in thinking of the best possible answer and sequence of steps.
3.Time spent in writing.
PAGE_BREAK
There is no doubt in the fact that if the topic is known and / or is your favourite, it takes only 1 or 1.5 minutes to write the answer. It can be generalised from the above fact that 2 to 2.5 minutes is the time that one can spend on planning what to write. Therefore, two-and-a-half minutes is the maximum time per question you may spend planning the answer and if it takes more than that, it is good to skip the question before wasting anymore time one it.
ii. The attempt must be made in two rounds. In the first round, questions which you think are easier, must be attempted first. Moreover, it is a good idea to mark those questions which you think are very difficult while surfing through them in round 1. This will help you focus on the right questions in round 2, thereby saving your precious time.
iii. When we attempt the paper we are always recommended to revise in the last 10 - 15 minutes. The problem here is – many of us do not know what to revise! The solution to this confusion lies again in the analysis of your sample tests. While analyzing your MOCK CBSE tests, always jot down the marks that you could not score because of whatever reasons. For example, if your score was 40 out of 60 in Science (Theory) paper; you must have noted down the reasons for losing the precious 20 marks out of 60.
The most common reasons are:
1. Careless Mistakes
2. Miscalculations
3. Did not understand the question at all
4. Stuck in the middle of the solution
The next step is to assign the number of marks deducted because of each reason. This helps you understand that in the last 10 minutes’ revision time you must go back to such questions which you always mess up with during your attempt. This makes the revision result-oriented and focused.
Let us hope that you would manage your time well and take the best out of the precious moments available before the D-day.
All the best.
(Tcyonline.com is the online initiative of Top Careers & You)
Comments
0 comment