Olympiad Class 7

Olympiad is a set of specific examinations either at the national or international level. It is available mainly in STEM courses.

20:52 22 November 2021

First and foremost, if it is you, a 7th standard student looking for an Olympiad, then bravo, kids. Congratulations! You are a step ahead of 70% of students of your age. A student needs to realize the importance of Olympiads in their resumes. Olympiad is a set of specific examinations either at the national or international level. It is available mainly in STEM courses. Olympiads do need some rigorous preparation and dedication. Any Olympiad can be easily cracked if you have a burning desire to crack it. 

 

“If you wish, You can.”

 

General guidelines to be followed for any Olympiad/competitive exam:

 

Know the paper pattern before preparation.

It starts with knowing the syllabus and understanding the instructions. One should know the exam syllabus and exam pattern before preparation. This knowledge helps candidates appear for mock tests and prepare as they have an idea of the type of questions and the difficulty level of questions asked. It is knowing the paper pattern before the exam is also vital. It helps the student's mind grasp and understands questions accordingly. If you have appeared for some Olympiads, you must have experienced multiple-choice questions that are pretty different from regular subjective exams in schools. Hence, it makes it easy for an aspiring student to know the exam s/he will be sitting for. 

 

Know the syllabus before starting to prepare. 

Secondly, the candidate should be thorough with the exam syllabus. All the exams have one thing in common: they tend to cover all the topics. So an essential tip for any aspirant would be to cover all the topics. Do not leave any topic for the exam. Even if you are not an expert in the case, a glance at it will help you while giving the exam. Make sure you know the basics of every chapter covered in the exam. Generally, the olympiads do provide their guides to study. Focus on guides. Many students take topics from guides and then start surfing them on the net and unnecessarily dig deeper into a topic. The guide makers are well aware of the topic given, and they prepare the guide accordingly. Do not try to dig deeper into a topic unless you have once finished all the topics. Once completed all the topics, you find any topic difficult or exciting. Of course, you can go ahead to study more about it. 

 

Focus on mock tests.

Do not ignore mock tests and especially their analysis. The analysis of a mock test enables you to understand your strengths and weaknesses. Once completed all the topics, make sure you appear for a mock test once a week. Further, in the last 15 days, appear for a mock test every three days. Schedule your time to give a mock test on one day and analyze and work on it for the next two days. Like this, you will work on your mistakes and resolve them in the following paper. If done consistently, you will be done with all the chapters. There won't be any apparent area of the scope of improvement for examination. 

 

The final nightmare is D-day. 

Many students mess up their examinations because of fear inbuilt in them. This fear needs to be eradicated far away, and appear for exams with complete confidence in one's preparation. To avoid anxiety attacks, one can relax 24 hours before the exam and stay away from books. Just keep calm and give your best.

 

For all the math wizards, here are some essential tips for you:

 

Start preparing notes. 

Mathematics is a subject of rules and theorems. It becomes difficult at times to memorize all the theorems. Hence, it is recommended to prepare notes. You can have a separate notebook dedicated to only theorems. To make the note-making process more interesting, you can use different color pens to highlight different things. Like heading to be written with red, the statement with blue, example with black and some exception with green. This will not only make the note-making process enjoyable but also revising process easy. If you need to revise only the statement, go through only the blue part of your notes, and you are done! 

 

Follow 80/20 rule.

The 80-20 rule is very efficient when it comes to subjects like mathematics. Everyday whenever you sit to study, divide your time such that you can devote 80% of you time to studying new concepts and 20% time to revise old concepts. This will help all your concepts to stay fresh in your mind and not collapse after some time. Now revising of concepts could be done either through revising theory or by solving problems. For this start with revising theory, and once you are thorough with the theory portion start with practicing. Math needs more practice than rote learning. Never leave a chance to try a question, it always brings something new in it. 

 

Maintain a ratio of 75-25%.

By 75-25% ratio, spend only 25% of your study duration on studying theory portion and rest 75% in practicing those concepts. Mathematics Olympiads generally don’t ask theoretical questions. The theory is only to set a context for you as a learner. The complete competition is how you solve questions. Keep practicing!

 

Keep a track of time spent per question.

Olympiads are all about how quick and correct you and your answers are. While solving questions, categorize them into easy, medium, and difficult. Then decide the time to be devoted to each question. Make sure that when you start preparing time when you are done with your preparation, the time spent over questions of each category should be reduced by at least 60%. Then only you will have an ace over other candidates competing you for the competition. You can also test your timing by checking IMO Class 7 Previous Year Paper 2013.

 

Closing Remarks! 

Olympiads has become a juggler these days for students. There is no significant golden rule to crack exams. All that is needed is consistency and self-confidence (not overconfidence). Thoughtful preparation will definitely show results.