Role of Practice Tests in Preparation

In this post let us discuss the way one should prepare and Role of tests in preparation for any Engineering Competitive examinations.

First prerequisite is, we should have a copy of syllabus of that particular exam. Those topics included in syllabus should be covered from standard books. Formulae sheets should be developed. Important points should be noted down. In your first read, every point may seem to be important for you. So, don’t note down points in the first reading of any book. You can take in second (if you are confident enough) or third reading. Means you have to read each book minimum two times. Now we can move on to second and important stage of preparation ie., Practice and Taking Tests.

Aspirant’s Rank/Percentile will depend on this stage only. Up to this level everybody is one and the same. No serious aspirant goes to exam without prior stage. But because of lack of guidance/awareness, many serious guys also attend exam without this stage. One who prepares properly for this, they only will become toppers. One has to practice/analyze old question papers, example/exercise problems from some good books, solve from problems oriented books, and attend tests. Proper orientation towards the exam will come from this stage only.

One has to analyze old question papers first. Once if aspirant complete one topic/subject in his first stage, he should take all questions from old question papers from that topic/subject. Then his confidence will improve in that area and he will come to know where to concentrate more in that topic/subject. Accordingly he can prepare again topics which are left unknowingly. But typical aspirant keep it to last in his preparation. Difficulty here can be understood. In market old GATE/IES question papers will be available in year wise that to with many mistakes. In the starting days of preparation, one cannot/ don’t want to segregate each paper to topic level/subject level. Typical aspirant want to first complete the syllabus and then want to see old question papers as MOCK exams. If you ask any topper of any competitive engineering examination, he will definitely say about topics left by him. So, orientation is needed at early stage of preparation. (our www.onlineies.com will solve this problem. Of course it may take one more month to completely upload all question papers at topic level. It will give all old GATE/IES questions according to topic selected by you. Its FREE as usual.)

Now you should compare yourself with toppers for the tests prepared by Experts/toppers from previous batches. Here one should know the difference between MOCK/Practice exams and original exam he is going to appear. Now a day’s many websites/coaching institutes came up to do BUSINESS in this area. They are giving Rank/percentile blah blah…like original exam one is planning to appear. But at this stage you don’t want rank/percentile etc., (of course we also give this in our web platform) but

1. Your weak areas/strong areas compared to the topper of that particular exam. For example, if one take Subject level test, one should get the topic level analysis dynamically. So that one will come to know his weak areas in topic level compared to topper of that particular exam. If you take Branch level exam, like MOCK GATE etc., one should come to know his weak areas/strong areas at least at subject level compared to the topper of that exam. Then you will come to know where to concentrate more. These areas our www.onlineies.com site will give you with proper graphs.

2. As they are charging for taking online tests, nobody get confidence about their percentile or rank. If its free, then most of the aspirants attempt the tests and topper comparison/rank/percentile will be appropriate. But these guys don’t want to give appropriate analysis, as they want to gain something from online tests.

As our online tests is both dynamic and FREE, user gain advantage. Here we are giving these tests free, because we are dedicated to give correct analysis to our aspirants who trusted us in giving GATE/IES/PSUs coaching. Let me explain. Last year one guy named Uday used to be topper in some of the tests, but got rank around 1000 in GATE 2010. From this year, our aspirants should not/will not get such a situation.

Now comes to the final stage of preparation. Weak areas explored by prior stage should be strengthened here. One has to take some more tests in these topics/subjects just to brush up. Here comes our Random Generated Tests. These will generate tests according to user wish. They can generate tests of their choice with proper selection for topic/subject/branch with level like Basic/Medium/Advanced.

Apart from these, we kept Challengers zone, dedicated to maintain tempo among toppers from each branch. If one becomes a topper in one paper, he is entitled to enter into challenger’s zone. He can challenge his test to his co-aspirants. If his mark was crossed by somebody else, he will get a mail saying that somebody topped in your test. In each case topper’s get a mail about topper’s marks/analysis. You will be intimated through Newsletter about PSU notifications/FREE downloads/Formulae sheets downloads/updates etc.,

Though some/more of the applications are not working, we make sure that everything will be ready by June 15^th 2010.

***They alone live who live for others.-Swami Vivekananda. Let us live together....***

-Ever Urs,

K.N.Rao,

Director, IES Bangalore. (99003 99699)