Sureshot tips to max your marks

Examination is a process of elimination as also elevation. It is a filtering or distilling procedure adopted by any educational authority. Nowadays, examination is gradually becoming farcical or jocular with multiple choice questions classified into essay, short essay, short notes and objective questions in general. Gone are the days of our elders who were tested without any options or choices while that difficulty level of the questions asked was too critical, and even the number of examinees was limited to few thousands. Leave alone, the distinctions and first classes even, the general pass mark was considered to be a valuable accomplishment.

Naturally, the old generation SSLC (11th Class-Secondary School Leaving Certificate) Examination used to be at such a high standard English medium examination which has no match to any standard degree examination of our times. Therefore, those few alive now of that generation find the present standards as edifices without either surfaces or foundations. This is what alarms the grand people.

There are certain challenges that we encounter in the present day education system. The predominant among them include large size classes, high student rate of drop-outs, poor communication levels among the teachers and the taught, lack of academic ambiance, ill-equipped library and research facilities, lack of proper rapport between the teacher and the parent, and above all the felicitous ‘pass guarantee’ strategy as a short-cut method to pass the examination and so on. The advent of distance education stream or the lateral entry methods have also contributed to the appalling standards to the dismay of academic stalwarts.

Coming to the method of examinations based on text book or desk work, devoid of hard work but dependent on sheer luck, the questions are either repetitive or redundant where mere model papers, test papers or private guide books are good enough. This is the sorry state of our examination system. In spite of all these lacunae, it is pathetically deplorable that the number of failures has been augmenting. It is in this background that we ought to introspect ourselves, how to do away with these deficiencies in the examination system and promote a systematic and well-structured examination methodology.

Mere passing the examination or scoring higher marks in it also directly related to the examinees’ structured performances. A few tips may help the students to get higher marks in the examination :

As has already been stated, the student has a lot of choices to choose the questions that he knew well, out of a list. The student has to choose only those questions which are better known to him and the answers bearing clear-cut points or database or chronologically felicitous.

The evaluator normally is provided with the key or a scheme of valuation for his reference or guidance that helps him in the process of evaluation. For instance, if the question has three or four specific descriptive or narrative answers, the marks are normally apportioned among them. Therefore the student has to keep in mind the apportionment and attempt each of them rather than focusing on a few of them.

Because each part of the answer has specific allocation within the total marks allotted to question. This is extremely important in the case of essay questions.

Usually the students answer the questions in sequence, despite their ability to fare better the questions in the later parts or sections. The modern evaluation provides for well-structured template in recording the award of marks. Therefore there is no problem in attempting any question of his better performance in the entire question paper on priority basis. That means the student can choose the questions prioritizing any part or section in the paper, no matter whether it is sequential or non-sequential. The best answers must be attempted at first instance.

It is a common experience for every examiner or evaluator that the students write the answers to the questions, one after the other. In doing so, a lot many students do not leave adequate space between two different answers to the questions. It is a natural corollary that the examiner might mistake the two different answers as a continuum and award marks, treating the two different answers to different questions as one answer to a particular question, despite the heterogeneous answering. Therefore, it is advisable that the student should leave enough space between two different answers, better a thick line is also drawn horizontally between two answers as a mark of separation.

It is not wiser to exceed the choice permitted by the examiner, because it involves wastage of time, energy, caliber and performance. Instead, he can make use of the residual time, if any, after completion of answering the questions in its entirety. What is the use of answering more than what is required is the point? It is also advisable that one can review the entire answers once more, if necessary, for fine tuning or face-lifting.

Captioning is a very important scorer. While attempting the essay type of questions, punctuation marks, grammar, paragraphing etc., are required. At the same time, it is very important that each point or paragraph must be scrupulously captioned, so that the examiner heaves relief in his evaluation. The caption i.e., the heading must be indicative of the matter in the paragraph. It is customary to many students to memorize the captions while studying the text book and comfortable to recollect the subject matter under the heading.

In fine, any examination is an ordeal for any student in general. It is required for one’s elevation. Mere memory or by-heart system cannot always help, because any missing link would disturb the tranquil of the student. In the hands of a conscious and committed teacher to the excellence of his student, any examination is only a memory test rather than an ordeal or a brain-buster. Needless to say, the secret of a continual laurel of the corporate schooling lies in their well-designed and highly structured instructional strategy and continuous evaluation supported by the result-oriented examination system.

(The writer is director,

Narayana IAS Academy)