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Many students have a dream to top exams. Most students are failed to score good marks in exams. Many of them failed to pass exams and on contrary, some are good at scoring the highest marks along with good grades without much effort. 

For most of the students to score good grades in exams means a herculean task. Don’t worry we are going to cover everything you need to know to top any exams. 

These ways are derived from the experiences of many top students of different educational institutions and my own exam experiences. Thus I’am pretty sure, these techniques are going to help you all irrespective of your current position.

1.Figure out how many marks do you need

 How much do you need to top any examinations? You got to know how many marks do you need to top any exam. This will give you the right direction to move on further.

For more clarity, you can analyze previous toppers of your class or institution.

2.Analyze past exam questions

Believe me, this is one of the most important steps of your entire journey. For this, get a question bank related to your exams. Reading everything is not going to make a topper in any way as during the exams you’ve very limited time. 

Thus knowing what is the most important can make your exams way easier exactly as the popular saying “Questions are the answers”.

Why analyzing questions is the most important step?

• It gives you a clear vision regarding which chapters are the most important ones?
• What to focus on from a specific chapter and what not to?
• You will know what are the most important types of question to practice
• It’s easy to know the level of difficulty of the exams
• Gives a clear idea about marks distribution for each type of question

4.Learn smart study techniques

Despite studying day and night all the time focus on increasing your abilities like speed reading, writing, and grasping the study materials in the fastest possible way.

You can use memory techniques like mnemonics, loci, or mind palace and peg system. Furthermore, you can learn speed reading techniques like QSR(Quantum Speed Reading).

5.Make an effective study schedule

 Studying haphazardly is not going to give the desired results. We are the creatures of our habits thus it’s of utmost importance to have an exact study schedule daily. You can take the following steps to organize your daily study time:

• Figure out your effective hours in a day. In which hours you are most productive? Some people have a habit of studying at night while some are most comfortable during morning or day time. Which one is your favorite?

• After figuring out your exact time for study, allocate specific hours for specific subjects. It’s better not to focus on a single subject throughout an entire day rather than study different subjects.

• Don’t allocate more than two hours for a single subject. Most importantly, take breaks from time to time. It boosts your concentration and helps to grasp study material more effectively.

• Always divide your schedule into different time blocks for fruitful results.

• Don’t frame a complicated plan resulting in you to an overwhelming situation. Make a plan in such a way that you can implement it easily and improvise as time progresses.

• Many people are too rigid to their plan whether that is good or bad hesitating to make timely changes. Despite this, be flexible allowing some crucial timely changes to your strategies.

6.Organize your study materials

Depending upon your university or any other educational institution, the study methodology might differ. Moreover, as a student, we might have different styles of studying. Some students prefer studying online while others prefer traditional textbooks. 

Whatever your method might be, it’s important to have a concise form of notes of bulky books for each subject. Studying notes makes your mind feel it’s easy during high-pressure exam days.

Organize all other required tools for your study, eg. highlighter, cloured pen, pencils, markers, sharpener, notes, related books in a specific place. Consequently, it will save both your time and energy enhancing your productivity.

7.Strengthen mental and psychological health

 Doesn’t matter how much you study before the exam unless you can’t keep yourself mentally strong you are not going to get the desired results.

• Eat brain-boosting foods like avocado, almonds, blueberries, groundnuts, turmeric, fish, etc. on a regular basis.
• Do exercise daily. Body stretching, skipping, few push-ups, can also help you greatly.
• Yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises can be game-changers.
• Drink an adequate amount of water and hydrate yourself from time to time.
• Don’t drink too much coffee cause it creates mental agitation

8. Work on your presentation skills

Writing really eye catchy and impressive answers certainly need excellent presentation skills apart from just studying. Every student might have some knowledge regarding the answer to a question in an examination. What differs from who scores excellent and who doesn’t is their presentation skill.

This is the reason why some students seem very talented during lectures in class but they don’t seem to be the topper in the examination.

So, now the question comes here, how can I have excellent presentation skills while writing the answers?

a) Write the answers in a pattern

        Don’t write the answer in a too direct fashion. For an instance, if you are asked to write an essay in the exam don’t just write in paragraphs and paragraphs. In spite of this write down to a standard format i.e. head, body, and tail. 

Similarly, depending upon the exams of your region you might have to write answers to different subjects in a different format. Therefore be aware of it and you can take advice from your teacher too.

Writing exact answers in a required pattern as per the need of the question is a must-have skill for the students.

b) Handwriting

    Neat and easy-to-read handwriting is the most important key. Therefore, practice your handwriting skills on daily basis on a separate copy. While practicing, place your finger on the middle of the pen’s grip.

c) Decoration

• Highlight the main points of the answers with a pencil.
• Keep the length of two lines between answers to answers.
• Separate two answers by drawing a double-underlined by pencil.
• Don’t scribble too much on the answer sheet.

9.Have an exact exam plan

 Different questions in the examinations have different weightage. Thus it’s important to know how much length of answer you should write for the particular question.  

Calculate all the time you are going to give to each question during the examination time and adjust your writing pace accordingly from the beginning.

Most importantly, read all the questions very carefully from top to bottom once then the first attempt those questions which you can answer perfectly.

Pre-practicing answers writing before the examination by setting a timer can be helpful as well.

I’m pretty sure these strategies are certainly going to get you excellent grades in the exams and help you top any exam.

10.Take mock tests regularly

Mock tests are the major weapons that give you the right direction of your progress. Self-evaluation and tracking become much easier. 

We have already discussed the importance of mock tests in our previous article for competitive exams. You can read the in-depth importance of mock tests.

Most importantly practice, practice and practice. Therefore, it’s paramount important to attend all the internal exams, weekly and monthly mock tests.