How you can secure maximum marks by writing fantastic answers on the day of your graduation or post-graduation exams
How many marks need to clear M.a English 1st Sem in each subject?
So
let’s divide this entire process in few simple steps
The
first step
And only prepare for
five units and that too thoroughly so that if you get a question from any of
these five units you are able to write a perfect answer so the first point is
to make a list of the units that you would be studying for this particular
example so after making a note of important units that you would be taking up
and studying for this particular paper it is important to begin analyzing previous
your papers I have always told you that whether you’re preparing for a
competitive exam or for a university exam you should always look at the
previous year papers all these previous your papers help us to analyze the
trend help us to understand
what
kind of questions should we expect in the paper on the day of the exam so very
smart student would always first look at the previous year paper and then start
his preparation for that particular paper so once you go through all the
previous year papers and jot down the questions which have been asked from the
unit you have selected you will notice a pattern you will notice that all these
questions would either be of 15 marks or 20 marks and the examiner is going to
expect you to about six to eight pages for these answers now it is important
for you to understand the fact that it is not always easy to write our answer
in eight pages because if a question comes comment on the symbols used in
Virginia wills to the lighthouse you might write about two to three pages
Smart student would always know ways in order to elongate the answer
then eight pages it’s a big deal so what to do in such cases also you need to make a note of the time you would be given about twenty to twenty-five minutes answering a question where you need to write eight pages so you need to be very smart you need to actually remember the data you’re going to write because you cannot generate an answer right there during your exam so a smart student would always know ways in order to elongate the answer.
when I used to prepare for my exam I used to
always keep certain things handy and I used to use that material everywhere in
my answer sheet for example if I’m preparing a play like Hamlet I would always
have some points about Aaron Issa I would always write something about William
Shakespeare I would always talk about the literary movement Hamlet was a part
of I would also talk about some inter textual references I would also write
certain quotations here and there in the paper and there would be a lot of
other things that I would include in spite of the fact
what question has been asked from that particular unit so all these things you will be able to understand once you analyze the previous your papers because sometimes students read the entire play and go and attempt the paper and on the day of the exam they figure out that in spite of reading the entire play they were not able to write a proper answer because they have not prepared themselves well so by understanding the previous your papers you would exactly know what kind of questions you can expect and what the examiner expects you to write in
The Second step
second important step which is to prepare notes now I have seen that students
would never prepare their own notes they would go to the market and buy some
guide books the most popular ones are by a publishing house Ramji Lon so the
author of the book is Ramsey LaLanne you’ll find a lot of guide books available
on different novels plays and poems now the problem with these guide books are
that almost every student is going to prepare their answer from these guide
books
how are you going to stand out and how your answer is going to be written in a
different manner if compared to these other students answer or in your
university so it’s important for you to get away from this traditional practice
of mugging up answers from a guide book and start preparing your own notes I’ll
give you a detailed video in which I will explore what all things you should
include in your notes and how quickly you can make your notes but in this video
I would like you to note the fact that guide books are not appropriate for a
university exam the factors that the guide book contains about 100 120 pages
Mansfield Park for your University exam and you start reading all 100 pages it
is going to take a lot of your time so you need to know pattern where you can
quickly make notes I used to make notes in within two hours for every
particular unit okay also to mug up so much information which is given in the
guide book is nearly impossible because you need to read guide books for each
and every unit so if you have four papers and in every paper you need to
prepare for five units then in 20 units you would not be able to feed so much
data in your brain also the problem with guide books is that you will not find
the most coring part in the guide book
the guide book is not going to talk about enter textual references guide books
generally don’t give you a list of quotations which you can use also guide book
doesn’t talk about the introduction to the age so Mansfield Park was written
during the Victorian period and the guide book is not going to give you
information about Victorian age which you can use in your exam paper to show
how well-read you are to the examiner
so
these are some demerit of guidebooks because of which I always ask my students
to stay away from guidebooks the most perfect way to write a proper answer or
to prepare notes is to use computerized notes open an MS Word document and stop
reading from different websites like cliff notes park notes great savor and
just copy material which you like in points and put them in your Word document
categorize it under different headings themes symbols characters then you can
talk about introduction to age introduction to writer and your notes already so
when I used to make notes I used to hardly make notes for six to seven pages
long you can get a sample of my notes
I would first include introduction to the
writer then I would include certain points on introduction to the age that is
the Victorian age then I would talk about introduction to Pride and Prejudice
then I would also include certain critical comments on Jane Austen I would next
include certain intertextual references certain quotations and finally I would
also jot down points analyzing major characters talking about theme symbols
motives and this is how I used to make my notes within 6 & 7 word pages
and
I used to learn them and write it on the day of the exam so my notes would
include general topics as well as specific topics for example if a question
comes on discuss the themes in Pride and Prejudice I would talk about certain
general things that is introduction to the to the writer critical comments
quotations intertextual references all these things would be included even in
that question and then a significant portion of the answer would deal with
teams in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice