SIX Of The Commonest Mistakes Students Make While Preparing For Competitive Examinations

Clearing a particularly difficult competitive exam can change your life. It can open a brand new door in your life to a bright and rewarding career. Hence, this is not something to be trifled with, especially if you are really serious about cracking your upcoming examination with complete distinction.

Now, in here, we have highlighted a list of six mistakes that students commonly make while preparing for their competitive examinations. Go through them as carefully as possible and try to never repeat them in your exam preparations.

1. Not giving the questions a thorough read

Source- Wiki

Human brains have a tendency to see what they want to see. This becomes particularly true in a high-pressure environment, i.e., inside an examination hall. And then, add to it the factor of time which doubles the amount of pressure with each passing minute.

The first mistake that students make in such a high-pressure environment is to avoid giving the questions a thorough read. As a result, errors crop up from nowhere.

If you fail to read a question well, your brain can easily trick you into thinking that the question’s asking something different (which it’s actually not)—leading you to a mistake even before you realize it.

So don’t take any chances. Read each and every question thoroughly before answering the same.

2. Relying on a friend

Candidates need to realize that since they are giving the exam, they should be solely responsible for the preparations as well.

Complete reliance on external people like teachers, tutors, mentors, friends, etc. isn’t going to help them a lot in the long run. The first thrust needs to come from within. Help should be pursued only when it’s needed.

So make sure you don’t make this mistake while preparing for your competitive examinations.

3. Relying solely on past credentials

Do you believe in the same pattern? Honestly, if you do, you will land yourself in trouble.

Confidence is good, but overconfidence is not. Relying solely on past credentials isn’t going to take you further. So change this mindset (in case you have it) at all possible cost.

4. Planning, procrastinating but NOT implementing

Most students think and plan a lot:

“I will do this and this tomorrow and complete all of these sums within this and this time.”

Planning is not necessarily a bad thing unless it’s put into action. Most students plan a lot, but ultimately when the situation calls for the most, they fail to turn their plans into action.

So don’t just plan and procrastinate; try your best to implement it into action to benefit in the long run.

5. Collecting loads and loads of books and study materials

Source- Wiki

Collecting hoards and hoards of textbooks and other study materials may not do the job well. In fact, in certain cases, they can act as distractions ruining your preparations, on the whole.

It is, therefore, advisable to limit yourself to a certain number of books and study materials to improve your overall performance in the long run. After all, it is not possible for a human being to study everything; is it?

6. Focusing on an unrealistic number of examinations

“So you want to crack the SSC, GATE, CAT, GRE, and the UPSC Civil services examination at one, and the same time? Are you kidding? No?”

Oh well, we truly have seen candidates nursing such views where they want to crack every exam systematically one after the other. The results, in such cases, are often found to be zero, i.e., they haven’t successfully cracked any.

Hence, it’s advisable to focus only on one or (at most) two to significantly improve the odds of your success. The following Bruce Lee quote should make you realize the importance of this point more than anything else, in particular:

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

So that essentially sums up this article for now. Hope you had a nice and enlightening read.