Olympiad exams are competitive exams that are conducted by various organizations. The main aim of these exams is to help students to develop their logical and critical thinking abilities. But since making mistakes is inborn in humans, it’s quite common among students. Therefore it’s important to take notice of that and work accordingly to avoid that at any cost. But we should never see mistakes as our enemy, rather we should embrace them as they help us to grow academically as well as mentally.
Not having a plan
Most of the students attempt exams without any strategy. A pre-planned strategy boosts the score at the same time gives an idea of how to complete the paper. However, the lack of it would affect it in a very negative way. It leads to unnecessary confusion during the exam. Do not attempt the hard questions on your first go itself. Start with the easy questions and leave the hard ones for a second or third go which saves time. Another big mistake that students make in the examination hall is they spend too much time on a single question which is utter foolishness. Some questions in the paper are set only to waste the time of the candidates. These questions are the speed breakers. You should be smart enough to recognize such types of questions and move along accordingly. Go through the paper at least twice to make sure you didn’t miss any part.
Not Going Through The Question Paper Once
Most students jump to conclusions without much of a thought. And that can be very unhealthy for the student’s performance. Answering questions in a sequential order has more disadvantages than advantages as they often contain questions that require more time in between. By following this strategy students’ often lack time to attend to more weightage questions. This can lead to the lowering of the marks.
So, what is the right way to attempt a question paper? After receiving the question paper, do not start attempting it immediately rather read all the questions properly. By pre-scanning, the question paper will give an idea of where to start. Reading all the questions will also let you know which questions you have to attempt first. Multiple readings of the questions will clarify the doubts you had in the first go.
Reading Incomplete Question
This is another mistake seen often among most of the students while attempting the exam. This happens because of the overconfidence by which they do not read the complete question and start attempting it. Due to which they mark the wrong answer to it or even jump to the conclusion that they don’t know the answer and leave it. This can affect their marks so much. Therefore it’s mandatory to go through the questions carefully before answering them. Another thing to keep in mind is that the simple words which when ignored can change the meaning. For example words like why what, who, etc play a major role in deciding what the answer should be.
Ignoring the Previous Year Papers
Before attempting the exam, it is mandatory to solve the previous year’s papers as they will let you know the compulsory topics. Previous year papers are considered crucial for the students who are going to attempt the olympiad for the first time to get an idea of it. By analyzing the previous year’s papers, students can know the pattern of the examination and the difficulty level of the questions which is again a crucial factor. Prepare a schedule to complete the revision of the syllabus twice or thrice before the exam. The more revisions you take the more perfect you become with the concepts.
Marking the Answer to the Wrong Question in OMR Sheet
In a hurry, students often make the mistake of marking the answer to the wrong question number in the OMR sheet. Therefore, it is advised that before marking your answer in the OMR sheet, confirm the question number. Some students skip the questions hoping to come back to it later to solve, but as they continue with the next question they forget to leave the respective row and end up messing up the sequence thereby losing marks for all the questions after it. And this is a nightmare for every single student. The only way to avoid this is by rechecking the question number twice and the bubbling area twice. You don’t want to take any chances for it.
Work on your weak area
When we approach the exam the possibility of making mistakes in areas we lack confidence in is often seen. Therefore it’s extremely important to put an extra amount of effort and time into those topics. Repeated practice is the only way to get good at something we lack interest in. The more you work on your weakness the more it gets converted into your strength. When we concentrate our energy on something particular, it grows since energy is conserved which is a universal fact after all. Therefore as long as you work on them there’s no doubt you will get improvement.
Avoid Unnecessary tensions
Anxiety, panic attacks, nervousness, etc are other reasons for your bad performance in your exam. Apparently, these tensions cause nothing but a waste of time and energy for a student. Hence it has to be swept away completely from our life. Despite working so hard on preparation, some students tend to score badly because of these unnecessary tensions.
Being satisfied with your preparation can boost up your confidence and thereby give you peace of mind during the exam. As a result, you will be able to answer it with more confidence and give no space for all those feelings to interfere and take away your precious time. It is extremely important to ensure that you are mentally prepared for the exam. Because of the overwhelming feeling, many students tend to forget all the information. Having a prepared mindset for the event will help you overcome any obstacles.
You can refer to IEO English Olympiad Previous Year Question Paper Class 5 2015.
