RBI grade B is one of the most sought-after examinations in our country. Every year lots of eligible students apply for the same and put in their best efforts to clear the exam. Among the many applicants, we can surely find a huge chunk of working professionals who are equally aspirant to make it to the coveted post. Let’s run through some tips and tricks to aid them in their preparation.
Being full-time professional leaves one with very less preparation time to approach an exam with confidence. With good amounts of dedication and determination, a right approach can be set from the beginning to sail through the exams and come out in flying colors. Let’s see how this can be done.
Setting a modular approach
The very approach from the beginning right from creating a timetable to managing it in a timely manner plays the trick. Modularize your approach. Understand your daily schedule. Make a plan. Strategize how you want to go about the exam preparation. You are the best guide for yourself. Try to balance your professional life with exam preparation during your personal time. Once you know how to go about planning your preparation, half the job is already done.
Before beginning any exam preparation, ideally one must explore what the examiner seeks from the question paper that is set. Read through the examination syllabus that is notified in the website. Run through the educational material that is prescribed by the exam authorities. Analyze the content briefly. Understand the depth of the syllabus.
The next good thing to do is to find out the exam pattern. Learn about the various sections that the question paper contains. Try to familiarize yourself with the time limitations of each phase. A thorough knowledge of the exam syllabus and how they have been questioned in previous year papers will surely give a fair idea of what is expected from applicants.
Test Yourself
Before beginning to start with the actual preparation, attempt a previous year question paper or a practice paper. This will give the applicant a fairly good idea of his strong and weak areas. By attempting a paper without any preparation, the applicant would come to know in which areas he needs to focus more on. He would also be able to realize the sections where he is weak at and would require more efforts.
After attempting a practice paper, analyze your performance in the exam. Be true to yourself. The score in the practice paper may not be too high as it is a paper attempted to realize your strengths and weaknesses. Don’t worry about the score. Look out for your weaker sections. Focus on improving your skills in those sections.
Time Management
Once you have analyzed your strong then you are confident about a topic, it makes the least sense to go over them again and again. It surely improves your confidence in the particular area, but there is no extra learning happening there.
Make sure to stick to your time schedule of two hours every day without fail. If on a particular day, you aren’t supposed to dedicate time for your studies, do make plans to accommodate them on the next day and get through with the missed topics.
It’s time to Study
When you prepared your timetable, make sure you framed the timetable, placing the basics of all concepts in the beginning. Keeping the basic concepts at the beginning will provide a good base for your preparation and help in keeping basic doubts to a bare minimum. Make yourself thorough with all the basic concepts.
Identify questions in previous year papers based on these topics. Learn how questions are framed on these topics. They may help you to identify more than one ways in solving a particular question. On a general note, identify different ways of solving a problem. Take up the one that consumes the least time during the actual examination.
When preparing on a daily basis, make a good routine of taking down notes as and when you finish a topic pertaining to a particular section. Prepare notes concisely; they should help you during your revision time. It would also help you save a lot of time in locating the topic in case you want to refer back to it at some other time. Be clear in your writing and specify what is actually expected out of the topic. Highlight key points. Write down important facts and numerals, dates in history, etc. without fail.
You could also stick to video lessons/ tutorials on a regular basis to cut down time spent on a particular topic. If you are stuck at a particular concept, unable to understand or unclear about its explanation, the best thing would be to take video lessons for the same. Instead of re-reading through the same content again and again, it would be less time consuming if you spent the same time wisely on some video resources to clarify your doubt areas.
The core aspects of preparation
After an initial round of pre-preparation for almost a week, spend the rest of the time in your timetable doing the actual preparation from an examination point of view. You are now through with your basics. You could attempt one previous year question paper each day. This helps in building your confidence. You have reached one level higher after familiarizing yourself with the basic concepts. So stick to the timing of the examination and go accordingly to crack your practice papers.
Step up and go in depth about the concepts you already learned. For example, if you have completed an overall learning about ‘green revolution’ and have a fairly good idea of what it was all about; it’s now time for you to look further deep down. Look into the in’s and out’s of the background of green revolution, who initiated it in our country, why it came about being called so, what were the measures taken, the current scenario etc. In short, get deeper into topics and make not of key points at each step. Have a good understanding about the topics without leaving aside anything significant associated with it.
If you are unable to dedicate more time during the weekdays, it would be smart to dedicate more time during the weekends. Make the most of your weekends. Spend at least six to seven hours during the weekends to cover a good part of the syllabus.
Revision is an important part of exam preparation. If you commute by car/public transport to and back from office, make use of the travelling time effectively. Use the commuting time to do quick revisions to glance through previous topics. During lunch breaks at office, take a quick fifteen minute quiz to test your understanding of concepts. This will save you enough time for revision, at the same time building up your confidence and preparedness to attempt the paper with clarity.
Towards the last wing of your preparation schedule, it is most important to focus on plenty of revisions. Revising notes taken down during studies, key points, facts and figures, etc play a good role in answering questions without too many doubts in mind. At the same time, spend at least the last part of your preparation schedule in going through a daily newspaper which will boost your confidence in the general knowledge section.
Conclusion
Every person has a different life scenario. To walk that extra mile, it takes a lot of confidence, backed with thick determination and limitless dedication in one’s mind. Staying committed to one’s goals will leave oneself with a lot of clarity about their dream and ambition and set the stage for a good preparation time.
If you still have further queries, you can mail to rakesh@xamnation.com or whatsapp 8447 688 161.