Competitive Exams Are Not, What We Think They Are
My experience with exam preparation, has been very rich. I learnt many lesson the hard way and I am sharing why, you should really think before sitting in a competitive examination.
Competitive examinations are little shortcuts, that can significantly up your career and give you an edge over others in this vastly populated country. While some of these exams just give a little success, others exams like UPSC/IES has the ability to grant, tremendous power and responsibility.
Just one year of study and one exam can change your life. It can give you the success, you may not get in many years of hard work. This idea of shortcut in career, attracts a gigantic crowd of people, preparing for different examinations. This is the reason why, there are more than 100s of competitive exams in our country, with lakhs(can be crores) of people appearing in. Almost 10 lakh people sit for civil services examination, 2 lakh people sit in CAT and over 13 lakh people are sitting in NEET. There are towns known for preparation of different examinations.
The Risk Factor
However, no one is concerned with the risk factor/selection rate involved in these exams. For some exams, the success rate is as low as 0.1%. From a winning point of view, this isn’t, you will go for.
What if I asked you to invest, most of your money in a company with 0.1% success. I bet, you wouldn’t, yet, no questions asked before putting time, money, efforts and piece of mind in this examination shit.
I get it, you have a “I will do it” or “I am the best” attitude, but How do you know that? You can’t even know if you are better than majority.
A Perspective Toward our Country
If millions of these young people, were to work for a year instead of preparing for exams. The GDP of country would have been so much different, but we just want shortcuts.
These exams are more biased now
Okay, so you decided and you are dedicated, you are going to prepare for some famous exam…But How?
Coaching Institute, come as a boon for you. An ABC institute has given multiple toppers over years(You want yourself on that list so badly), have advanced teaching ability and optimized system to keep an step ahead of other competitors.
But, your competitors are studying from the same institute only(or the other institute BCD, which is same). You didn’t see that coming…
In old times, when these institutes were not present, these exam preparations were learning opportunities. Students had to learn many things like:
1. Time Management
2. Study Optimization
3. Fast Learning Techniques
4. Life Skills
5. Emotional Intelligence
6. Decision Making
7. Pressure Handling
8. Not too much of syllabus (Cause even Sharma ji, who was a student then, can’t study that much without coaching)
These were the lessons that made these exams so successful. Students used to prepare for exam and the examination prepared students for life. The effort was all worth it.
At present, all students need to do is to cover the whole syllabus and mug up most of the questions that are predicted by the coaching institutes.
The Knowledge never converts too Wisdom
And even if your lottery is out and you are big success, your quality of life won’t increase.
Most aspirants, are just the source of business for these coaching institutes. This has become a gambling game, disguised to be called a selection examination.
Who wins The Game
This game is not a gamble for some, for they are well informed, skilled and learnt to control their life’s success to much extent than you and me.
It’s not just a one year game.
For most of the toppers, this preparation has been in process from last 5 to 10 years… SHOCKED!!
Most of these are the skills that are mentioned in the last section. The toppers know how to learn very fast, they know how to handle pressure, other than academic excellence.
You may have heard, that UPSC topper’s parents are both IAS/IPS, or IIT toppers have parents from IITs.
A topper can crack any examination, like a cricketer can chase any decent score or a musician can play his music at any given stage.
Topping an examination is skill, that can be learnt and takes time.
Here are my experiences:
- My father topped two huge examinations, without any guidance. Yet I wasn’t even able to pass jeemain even in two attempts. Because I was unable to master the skill of cracking examinations. Well I never even got a full score even in class test. You get it.
2. Recently I met a person who got under 100 rank in mains, only to drop from IIT Delhi and Top in AIIMS. There are many such names on the internet, and they can do so, because they are good at the skills of cracking an examination.
Your knowledge, hard work and number of solved questions don’t matter if you can’t master the skill of cracking the examination.
But if you are good at scoring in exams and want to try it GO FOR IT. This may be your best experience.
NO means NO
If you don’t think that you can crack an examination, than don’t go for it. There can be more important priorities in your life and don’t leave those priorities, just because your friends are sitting for that exam.
Appearing in these examinations, without will or without these skills, is abuse to you. Failing after all these efforts only fills a person with guilt, disregard for oneself and destroys almost all the confidence.
When someone doesn’t understands, why he fails every time, depression seeks in and aspirants go for suicide.
Say NO to this abuse. Say NO, if can’t go for these examinations.
Say NO to your parents and don’t give reason, because NO mean NO.
My Experience
Thankyou if you have read this far and you care to read my experience.
I went to Kota to prepare for IITJEE and it was a failure as mentioned above, but not a wrong decision. It was hard all the way through, but I learnt some of the most important lessons in my life, when I was preparing for my exams. I learnt many ideas that were invisible in my comfort zone at home.
If you think/feel you have the ability to crack an examination, my suggestion is to go for it.