Unfortunately, students end up dreading the board examinations from the start of the academic year. Board exams are an important milestone in your study years and instead of being scared of them, take them as an opportunity to show your mettle.
Believe it or not, but with correct strategies, you can actually score 90 above marks easily in your board examinations. This holds true for students of both Class 10 and Class 12. Even if you consider yourself an average student, a little planning and much hard work will take you a long way. You would be amazed by your performance in the exams.
Just remember that for a board year, you need to stay vigilant in your studies from the start. Class 10 and Class 12 are both significant years and for these two years, give your studies the best shot you got. You will certainly not regret this later in your life. Board examination certificates are going to be your lifelong partners for future opportunities.
So get yourself a pen and paper and jot down the important tips we are going to share with you here.
Firstly, as we have mentioned, you need to stay attentive and alert since the start of the academic year. The most important thing you can do from the beginning is understanding the chapters taught well. And as you study the chapters keep making their notes. Now when it comes to notes, students often get flustered not knowing the right way to make notes. There are a few things that you need t keep in mind while making notes.
- Take time to take notes:
Don’t make notes the first time you read a chapter. Read the chapter once casually before your class. Pay close attention whilst it is being taught in class and mark the important points with a highlighter. Re-read it at home and make notes only then.
- Format of the notes:
The revision notes need not follow a particular format. They are personalized notes that will be used by you only. So make sure that the format is appealing and beneficial to you. Several note-taking methods have been researched over the past years. Different methods suit different students and different subjects. Look them up online and choose the method that suits you. These include outline method, Cornell method, SQ3R method, mind mapping method, T method, charting method, etc.
- Do not include unnecessary information:
Remember you will need these notes as a revision handbook close to examinations. So make sure it contains important information relevant for exams. Identify important information that you will need to revise last-minute and include that in your notes.
- Make short and comprehensive notes:
Make sure the revision notes are not descriptive. They should be neatly organized in bullet points. The clarity in the revision notes will help you revise better for exams. There is no use of revision notes if they are unnecessarily long or you can’t make out what you wrote in the first place. Use short forms and abbreviations wherever you can.
- Make the notes eye-catching:
Make the notes attractive so that they can hold your attention even later. Do not make the notes monotonous. Colour code important information. For instance, put all definitions in blue colour, chemical processes in red colour, analytical information in green colour, and so forth.
- Doodle away!
Doodle information wherever you can. The purpose of the revision notes is to keep them short, crisp, yet comprehensive. So if there is some information that you can draw instead of writing, then do that. This will also break the monotony of the notes and hold your attention using lesser words. Especially if you are a visual learner, this tip is going to benefit you even more.
- Include graphic aid:
Make sure that you make efficient use of tables, flow charts and mind maps wherever you can. This will help you retain information better. Tables are beneficial for information that contains comparisons or differences. Mind maps can be used to describe the information you are aware of using important keywords for later reference you can use flow charts to depict sequential information and processes.
- Do not make one huge set of notes:
For subjects like biology, keep a separate set of notes for all important diagrams. Similarly, for chemistry, physics, and mathematics, a separate set of notes containing the important formulas, derivations, and graphs, etc will come in handy close to examinations for quick revision. Keep different notebooks for different subjects for easy and clear reference.
- Keep the notes neat and organized:
Make sure your notes are neatly organized. Leave some additional space below every topic. This will allow you to neatly add any extra information that you come across later.
- Peer–review your notes:
Another thing you can do is compare your notes with that of your friends. So as you finish taking notes of a certain chapter, compare it with your friend’s notes. This will give you an added perspective of your notes. You may find a piece of important information that you missed in your own notes. You may even get ideas for using different note-taking formats from your friends’ notes.
Revision notes are a blessing for students. They are useful for two main reasons. Firstly, making revision notes imprints the information in your mind way better than just reading and memorizing. Secondly, they act as your best-personalized study tool for exam preparation. They are beneficial for last-minute reference and revision. So if you make some extra effort in making sure that you prepare state-of-the-art notes well ahead of exams, you exponentially increase your chances of performing better in the board exams. Slight cautiousness while making the revision notes will ensure that they are useful to you throughout the year. Just remember, that you are preparing these notes to be helpful to you close to board examinations so prepare them accordingly.
Hopefully, these little suggestive strategies will up your note-taking skills and you will be able to put them to good use during examinations