Examination Preparation Techniques!!

This is translation of my original post in Marathi which can be read at http://patil2011.blogspot.in/2016/03/blog-post_19.html 

Currently it's examination time in the most part of India. As we stand today, parents are very closely associated with their kids' studies. One of the common thing which we discuss during these days is about the areas of the improvement which needs to be brought in during next academic year. In this post I have attempted to analyze the different aspect of studying throughout the year and then giving those finishing touches during last few days prior to the examinations. 

The factors involved in examination can be classified in below categories.

1. The source of information
2. The journey of knowledge from the source of information to Brain
3. Storage of the knowledge in brain
4. The last day preparations
5. Examination paper and the process of answering the questions
6. The importance of the practice papers
7. The examiner factor 

Let's review each one of them in detail.

1. The source of information - The books form the main source of information for an examination. One needs to refer to books if he / she aspires to learn the subject thoroughly. Some teachers give us notes from the books. These notes are summarized and covers the main bullet points from the book. For examinations of lesser complexity, referring to notes may give you higher scores but as the complexity of the examination increases, one needs to refer to book to score high marks.
2. The journey of knowledge from the source of information to Brain - The students keep on studying the topic throughout the year. During these study sessions the process of flow of information from the source of information (books / notes) to brain takes place. There are some students who have greater ability to store this information in the brain even after reading the study material only once. But most of them may need two or more reading sessions of same topic in order to learn / store it effectively.  Some of the information can be stored as it is and brain doesn't need to interpret the data. Examples being topics such as remembering capitals of different states in India. Whereas when one tries to learn different theorems in Geometry, he / she needs to learn the underlying concepts behind the theorem and store it in brain.
3. Storage of the knowledge in brain - Definitely there would very detailed theories behind how knowledge gets stored in brain. But being an ignorant person about them, I will try to derive a simple analogy with the way computer stores information. When we google about this, we get below information.

The data transfers from disk -> main memory (RAM)(temporary storage) -> CPU cache (smaller temporary storage near the CPU for frequently accessed data) -> CPU (processing). The CPU cache is a smaller, faster memory space which stores copies of the data from the most recently used main memory locations.

 On similar lines when a student is studying throughout the year, the information is getting stored in the hard disk equivalent section of his brain.

4. The last day preparations

The last day primarily involves bringing the knowledge from hard disk section of the brain to the RAM / Main memory section of the brain. Imagine a scenario when one is asked to appear for an examination without being allowed to revise the subject on prior day or suppose one goes to examination hall and then realizes that he / she has studied the different subject altogether. In this scenario the person will have to rely on the knowledge which is stored in the “hard disk” and will find it difficult to recollect all that information.

It is important for a student to plan for this prior day revision session while studying during the year. He / she needs to have a plan to cover all the topics during these revision sessions. The examination timetable plays an important role in coming up with this strategy.

5. Examination paper and the process of answering the questions

The student gets the examination paper in hand. He / she reviews it and starts answering the questions. The first question comes as an input to the brain.  Based on the bullet 4 above, brain refers to the section of the main memory where the relevant information is stored. During the course of the examination, the information which brain retrieves from main memory forms the cache.

Generally the students are advised to first concentrate on the questions, answers to which they know very confidently. The reason for this advice is to build up the student’s confidence and improve the efficiency of the brain to retrieve information from the main memory / hard disk sections of the brain.

The questions can be categorized into three types

·       Category 1 – The simplest one.

The answers to these questions are stored at one place. All the brain has to do is to reach that location and retrieve that information. Once retrieved, the brain coordinates with hand to get the answer written on answer sheet.

The examples of such questions would be to answer the capital of Turkey.   

·       Category 2 – Relatively simple.

 These are similar to category 1. Only difference being the required information is stored at multiple locations in the main memory and brain needs to reach out to these multiple locations and collate the data before coordinating with the hand to write the answer.

The example would be to answer the major crops taken in 5 countries in Asia

·       Category 3 – Complex

Here brain needs interpret the question accurately, find the relevant section where the information is stored and then proceed to analyze the information stored. The examples would be

The PMP questions where one is asked to analyze a given professional situation and come up with desirable solution.

To write an algorithm / computer program as a solution for given problem statement.  

Once a student is done with the questions which he / she could answer confidently then he / she moves on to the remaining questions. These are the questions which relates to the information which the student has not read from data source or the read only once sometime back. So the access path to this information is not clear at this point. But there are instances if you have answered earlier questions really well then the efficiency of your brain is at peak and you may be able to find the path to that information.

6. The importance of the practice papers

In India students give practice papers for important examinations such as 10^th / 12^th Standards. The objective is to give practice to brain to revise the paths to the main memory sections where that particular subject is stored. By giving multiple practice papers, these access paths become clearer to brain and time taken to retrieve this information reduces.

Also these practice papers makes brain more efficient in the analytical situations which are needed during actual examination.

The student also gets used to write required material in given timeframe and identifies the techniques to improve on time factor.

While studying for a subject, one should be aware of the realistic target for the marks in that subject.   

7. The examiner factor 

If the question paper primarily consists of questions of category 1 and 2 then the examiner factor becomes more or less irrelevant. But for subjects with majority questions of category 3, the interpretation of question and the answers as well becomes more important. The answer by the student goes as an input to the examiner’s brain. The examiner then compares this answer with the model answer which he / she has already framed in the brain. The flexibility of the examiner for the deviations from his ideal answer plays an important factor in deciding student’s fate in that paper.

Different professional courses have different techniques which need to be adopted. It is quite rare for an Indian engineering student not have experienced a “Night out” before a paper. The student has effectively stayed awake on a night prior to paper either revising or reading altogether new material. So the information is directly stored in disk and main memory or may in main memory directly. The lack of overnight sleep may play an important factor during the examination period on retrieval capacity of brain.

The objective of this post: While studying for a subject next year, please keep in mind the technique for the revision and accordingly place the information in your hard disk. The techniques for effective retrieval of hard disk information and your behavior during examination plays very important role in your success during the examination.