#1 factor you should consider if you want to crack tough competitive exams
Competitive exams like CA, GATE, IIT-JEE, CAT, UPSC, SBI PO, etc., are so tough to crack that these memes define them better than Wikipedia.
Yes, these are funny.
But the grim reality that students who are stuck in this vicious loop of failing and reappearing in these exams can’t be ignored.
It’s well documented that these students suffer from depression, anxiety, lack of self-confidence and self-esteem and a broken self-image.
Once you fall in this pit, it gets a hundred times harder to clear these exams.
That’s because you are constantly doubting yourself. Your faith and belief in yourself are completely absent.
You are not very motivated and driven to study because you feel you will quite likely fail again. So what’s the point of studying hard?
This mindset becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You fail again and dig yourself deeper into the mental darkness.
So how do we avoid or deal with this situation?
Of course, if someone has fallen into this trap, they must see a therapist.
But apart from that, this is the time when they must audit their study habits.
In fact, before you appear for the first attempt at any competitive exam, you must audit your study habits.
Improving your study habits and following the right study habits can often save you from falling into this vicious loop and its consequences.
Because you would have a much higher chance of cracking these exams at the first attempt.
But even if you are stuck in this loop and are dealing with the darkness, following good study habits can often help you finally crack these exams.
Now, the question is how do you identify flaws in your study habits.
The solution – Study Habits Analysis Tool (SHAT).
Let’s dig into what it is, how it works and how it helps you crack tough competitive exams.
What is the Study Habits Analysis Tool?
When the edge of a knife or a sword gets dull, you use a stone to bring back the edge.
In education and exams, your edge is your ability to learn, understand and retain important concepts of any subject.
Bad study habits dull your edge.
The Study Habits Analysis Tool is the stone that you use to get rid of the bad study habits and get back your edge.
This tool helps you identify bad study habits and best practices to improve them so that you can quickly move towards good study habits.
It tests and analyses eight parameters that influence study habits.
8 Parameters that Influence your Study Habits
Importance of grades
Many educational institutions and organisations still consider grades as performance indicators.
In this parameter, SHAT looks into your grades and suggests measures to improve them.
Realistic Schedules
This parameter helps you create realistic schedules that you can stick to consistently.
Having a study schedule is essential to ensure you are able to cover all the topics comprehensively, and still have sufficient time to revise.
It also helps you allocate time effectively for each topic.
Dealing with Distractions
This parameter gives you unique insights into understanding and implementing measures to curb these distractions.
Distractions are everywhere. Phone, laptop, social media, Netflix… you name it.
It’s important to mention here is that if you are going through mental health issues due to multiple failed attempts, such distractions become a way to escape reality.
Nevertheless, whether it’s distraction or escapism, it keeps you away from focusing on studying for the exams.
And that won’t help you crack that exam.
Habits of reading and note-making
This parameter deals with the importance of note making along with tips to improve.
Note making is important for active learning and improving retention.
Attitude
This subdomain deals with having the right attitude towards studies to enhance your performance.
It also shows ways to tackle negative feedback and criticism.
Having a good relationship with education and learning is important if you want to crack these exams.
Hateful feeling towards a subject, overconfidence, not giving a topic the time it needs and deserves, etc., show a negative attitude towards studies.
The sooner you move away from it and build a positive relationship with your studies, the faster you will be able to crack these exams with flying colours.
Environment
This parameter guides you on how to create an optimum study environment.
Your study environment determines how well you learn and how long you can stay focused.
A bad study environment will distract you. A good study environment will help you stay focused longer.
Volitional Attention
This parameter helps you identify why your attention and focus fluctuates and suggests ways to hold your attention longer.
Retention
What’s the point of studying if you don’t remember anything when you need to.
Reading and understanding are not sufficient. You must be able to retain what you have learned and be able to recall the information in the exam hall.
Any successful study habits demand good recognition, recall and relearning.
That’s exactly what this parameter help you with.
How does Study Habits Analysis Tool work?
Once you complete the test, you will receive a report.
The report contains an overall grade (A, B, C, D & E) with an explanation of what it means.
The report also contains grading (satisfactory or unsatisfactory) for each of the parameters mentioned above.
You will be also given tips, suggestions and exercises to improve your study habits.
How Study Habits Analysis Tool helps you crack tough competitive exams?
Educational institutes around the world teach us what to study.
But we are not really taught how to study.
Humans are horrible at introspecting themselves.
Very few of us can closely analyse ourselves and identify where we are going wrong and come up with ways to improve ourselves.
For the rest of us, we need someone to point that out for us.
Someone who can point out the errors in our study habits, guide us on how to fix them and show us the way to get into good study habits quickly.
And once you get into good study habits, you will be much closer to cracking those tough competitive exams.
Think about it.
If you have a year to prepare for an exam, and you start preparing for it using optimal study habits from day one, you would have a tremendous chance of clearing it.
So the more time you spend studying in the right way, the better.
Conclusion
How you study plays a gigantic role in how you perform in the exam hall.
That’s why you can’t afford to spend another minute studying wrong.
Whether you use this tool or get someone to teach you how to study right, you must develop good study habits asap.
That’s the only way to end the vicious cycle of reappearing for these exams.
If you could change one thing about the way you study or prepare for an exam, what would it be?
Let me know in the comments below.
