How to score well in ICSE Exams?

For students studying under the ICSE Board the mention of ICSE exams can cause considerable anxiety. With competition levels soaring, ICSE exams are usually the ‘make or break time' in a student's life. In order to score well in the ICSE exams students should concentrate on obtaining a thorough understanding of concepts follow it up with repeated and robust revision sessions.

In order to write quality answers and score well in the ICSE exams, students should incorporate the following points in their studies.

• Say no to cramming! Students often consider mindless cramming as a sure-shot and easy way to obtain great marks in ICSE exams. Some students cram out of habit and some out of necessity ("there is too little time left and so much to cover, where is the time to spend on understanding concepts!"). Whatever the reason, students should try to stay away from cramming and focus on building conceptual understanding. It is very important for students preparing for the ICSE exam to understand that cramming might prove very effective and sometimes yield instant results in the form of good marks, but in the long run it is an absolute waste, as you are sure to forget all that you crammed. Cramming or relying only on rote memory results only in the short-term retention of concepts and is in fact highly detrimental for subjects such as Science and Maths, where building progressively on conceptual understanding is the only key to better marks.

• Revising is must! It goes without saying that revising is one of the most essential ingredients for performing well in the ICSE exams. Students can reinforce learning by using a variety of revision aids available in a lot of websites. These revision aids will not only make learning effective but will also make scoring great marks in the ICSE exams easy. Students can start their revision sessions using chapter-wise tests along with comprehensive model tests available on these websites. Students can also revise using interactive curriculum-based puzzles that will add the much required zing into their revision schedules. For those last moment revision sessions before the final ICSE exams, students can refer to crisp,easily downloadable, chapter-wise revision notes available on these websites.

• Do not let stress get to you! A little bit of exam-related anxiety can often give the much required push to the student to prepare and perform well at in the final ICSE exams. However, prolonged and high-levels of anxiety can lead to overpowering stress and a poor performance at the final exams. While preparing for the final ICSE exam, students should try to stay calm and study with a single-minded focus towards performing well in the exams. Students should learn and revise as much they can before their final papers and perform some simple stress-busting activities to keep their anxiety levels under control.

• Do not use any unfair means! Students should not indulge in cheating or any unfair means to perform well in the ICSE exams. Students may occasionally tend to get easily lured by these short-cut methods of scoring good marks. Although it may seem like an easy way to score good marks in the examinations, but if any student is caught using unfair means, needless to say, very strict action is taken against the student. In extreme cases, it could even result in cancellation of the entire answer sheet.

So the next time you prepare for your ICSE exams, do keep in mind these easy-to-follow pointers to get better results.