An alternative way to prepare for competitive exams

Government jobs have always attracted the youth of India and whether after college, with a job, or after a job they make sure that they are preparing for government exams due to the special amenities that come along with the government job. The government exams are much popular and have many rumors around them. One of these rumors is that it is almost impossible to crack government exams without coaching.

So are you planning to prepare for a competitive exam? Are you looking for a government job? Are you confused about whether to join a coaching or not? Well, for the first two questions, you should be answerable and for the third one, we can help solve your problem in a very simple and easy way.

Coaching or no coaching is a never-ending topic to discuss, but we can surely draw a valid and simple conclusion for the same after looking at a series of facts and figures. After that, you can choose what suits you best and see if you want to join any coaching or not.

 

Why join coaching?

While coaching institutes are a great help in your preparation, here are some reasons that prove why one must join coaching.

• Guidance: The coaching institutes have experienced faculty, which can guide you through the exam and help you understand the insights of the exam.
• Classes: The experienced professionals who have qualified for the respective government exams offer their expertise and knowledge to the respective students. Therefore, it helps students and professionals prepare in the right direction.
• Competition: Several students study in these coaching institutes. With the help of the regular exams conducted in these institutes, the students become aware of the competition they will face in the main examination. It will motivate them to work harder to get a rank in the respective government exam. Thus, these coaching institutes help the students test the waters of the upcoming competition.
• Study Material: The coaching institutes have been running for years now. The experts at the coaching institutes have offered their expertise to create the required study material for various government exams. Apart from this, the experts study the best books available on the respective subject before creating the respective subject’s study material.

Thus, these are some solid reasons for a government exam aspirant to join any coaching institute. While these points are important from the exam preparation point of view, they are surely not exclusive to all coaching institutes. Without joining any institute too, you can get the right guidance, and study material and test your competition for the final exam.

 

Crack exam without coaching

While coaching is a great option, you can crack any government exam without coaching as well. Stats have shown that most of the students who crack the government exams do it on their own and do not join any coaching. Most students travel to different cities to take coaching; however, in the era of technology, coaching is not necessary to crack government exams in the country. The basic benefits of preparing for government exams without coaching include the following:

• You can stay in the comfort of your home.
• No worries about food or shelter.
• No financial tension.
• You have your family as your support system.
• Coping up rough days becomes easy.
• You do not have to look out for ways to rejuvenate yourself.

With so many basic benefits, one can easily prepare for any government exam without joining any coaching with the required efficiency.

Now, we shall discuss how to crack the government exam without coaching. The preparation phase without coaching consists of three stages, namely, primary, secondary, and tertiary stage. Today, we will discuss each phase in complete detail and break the myth that aspirants need coaching for successful preparation for a government job.

 

1. Primary Stage

It is the first and foremost stage of the exam when you make up your mind that you want to prepare for the specific government jobs examination. You go around asking your friends, seniors, and family about the exam and spend the required time searching about the exam across the internet and the inside out of the exam procedure and pattern. Therefore, the primary stage is quite crucial to prepare for government exams. The steps that you must take at this stage include the following:

1. Know the exam: Whether it is the GATE exam, ESE exam, or any other government exam, it is necessary to know the exam before you pounce on it. Therefore, the first important step is to find and understand the basics of the government exam. While in coaching, you will get an introductory class for the same. On the other hand, when preparing from home or college, the internet, especially the search engine is your go-to guide. You can find the official notification on the organizing committee’s official website. Therefore, make it a priority to search about the respective government exam and get to know it well. Some points you must search and make notes about the exam include the following:

• The exam syllabus and subjects asked in the exam.
• The pattern of the exam includes the type of questions, exam duration, the previous years’ cut-off, the number of questions, and the stages in which the exam is conducted.
• The future prospects after clearing the exam.
• If there are optional subjects, then the posts are associated with each optional subject. Therefore, you must prepare your study plan for the government exams preparation accordingly.

2. Read and watch about the topper: Every year, some particular students score well in the government exams. Once you have chosen the exam that you want to appear for, search for the toppers-talk of the students who have cleared and topped in the respective government exams. Watch such videos and read their interviews to know what it takes to clear and secure a top rank in the exam. You can find these videos on YouTube or on the website of the respective coaching institute, where the respective topper might have enrolled in an online or offline full-fledged course or online test series.
3. Get an idea of the type of questions asked: Before you start your preparation, you must know the type of questions whether conceal or application-based questions asked in the examination. With this, you will get to know after scanning through the previous year questions’ associated with the subjects. The previous years’ questions will be highly useful for you in each step to know where your preparation is going and how much more effort one must put into the government jobs preparation. You must do this exercise even for the easiest exam in India, as it is important to take every government exam seriously. Therefore, download the previous years’ questions for the government exam. Read and attempt the questions properly. You need to make sure that you choose trusted sources for finding out the answers.

2. Secondary stage: While the primary stage is mainly to know about the exam and get prepared for what you will be going through ahead, the secondary stage is for you to make a plan based on what you read in the primary stage and start with your preparation without relying on the coaching. The pointers to be taken care of in the secondary stage include the following:

1. Make a Plan: Based on the exam syllabus and the type of questions asked in the exam (which you have seen in the primary stage), prepare a study plan. This study plan will act as your guide during the preparation and will help you keep focused and complete your syllabus on time. So write down your syllabus somewhere on a topic basis, and then make a study plan about how you want to go about reading each topic and thus completing the syllabus before the exam. Get insights into making the perfect study plan.
2. Finalize your resources: After you finalize your strategy for government job preparation, you need to finalize the resources that you will use during the preparation. These resources can include the various books that are available for each subject, online videos that you may watch, or the study material of various coaching institutes. Therefore, while you can avoid joining a coaching institute to study for the government exam, you can always refer to their experts’ created study material after understanding the exam syllabus and pattern.
3. Notes: When following your study plan, do not forget to make notes of what you are reading. Although these notes may seem very tedious and extra work will come in handy in the tertiary stage, where you will have to revise the entire syllabus before the exam. Therefore, do not forget to make notes, whether you are reading a book, taking online classes, or using study material. Learn and practice the art of making notes in the right way.
4. Prepare for all stages: In the primary stage, you made a note of all the stages to crack that particular exam. The period available between different stages of the government exams is rather less. Therefore, keep yourself prepared beforehand for all the stages, instead of doing last-minute studies.

 

Stay away from distractions:

With time there will come some distractions that one has to avoid. During your preparation stay away from distractions that will hamper your studies. Some of the distractions include:

• Scrolling through social media repeatedly.
• Chat with friends for hours.
• Video streaming apps like Netflix, YouTube, and Hotstar, to name a few.
• Going out with friends daily.

If you are indulging in any such activity daily, you need to stay away from them. However, practicing them once a blue moon will help you resent up and rejuvenate. Instead, you can positively use certain distractions.

Use social media for connecting with students who are focusing on government job preparation. Discuss the important topics in the news with friends, as it will help you prepare for the general studies and interview.

Government exam aspirants can also use several YouTube channels that provide guidance for the respective exam and help clear doubts regarding the respective topics.

Instead of daydreaming, utilize the time to read the newspaper, solve quant questions, reading novels, which will help you in the preparation for a government job. If required, you can set time aside to daydream every day to avoid unnecessary distractions during the process.

Thus, the secondary stage is crucial and determines your study pattern. It will help you whether you will be able to crack the exam or not. Government exam aspirants who keep themselves inspired at this stage excel in the exam and those who take it casually are unable to clear the exam. Therefore, you must make it a priority to prepare well for the government exams.

 

3. Tertiary stage

The tertiary stage is the last and final stage of preparation for government jobs. It is the period just before the respective government exams and determines your final dedication. This stage is as important as you have to ensure that all you read and studied in phase 2 is revised and practiced properly. Therefore, some important practices for stage 3 of government jobs preparation include the following:

• Revise: In the secondary stage, we discussed the importance of notes. Exam aspirants must utilize the prepared notes during this stage of government job preparation. Before you sit for the exam, you have to revise all that you have read and only then, the mind will be able to recall everything. Revising directly with the respective books again is a tedious task for each exam aspirant. Here is where the notes come in handy. Revise your notes regularly and if there is anything you want to add do so.

• Practice: Apart from revision, another important thing is to practice consistently. This practice can include previous years’ papers and the test papers of the exams that are available online. In addition, you can join the online test series of any coaching institute catering to your government exams. However, you may not join any coaching but joining the test series can help you know where you stand in the competition and find the parts of the syllabus you still need to work on.

• Stay motivated: While all the points mentioned above are important, what is of utmost importance is to stay focussed and motivated even during the preparation of the easiest exam in India. At any point of the preparation, if you lose your confidence it may take a toll on your exam, so stay motivated and stay focused for your exam. If you feel low, you can read a motivational book or watch a video.

• Take rest: It is not specific to stage 3 but overall. You need to ensure that amidst the preparation, you do not sacrifice your sleep and health. While in the short term, it may look like a great idea, in the long term it will hamper your studies.

While there are many benefits of government exams through coaching, online classes have given an easy solution to it.  Still, if you do not want to join any coaching, you can always study from home and crack any exam as it is not the place that matters but your dedication towards the exam, which will help.

Every competitive exam including government exams is about a strategy and its execution if you can formulate your strategy and bring it into action then yes, you can crack the exam without any coaching. So, believe in yourself and the power of self-study. Before you know it, you will ace the examination that you dreamt of for the past few years.

We hope this blog post will help you and keep you motivated throughout the preparation journey.

We wish you all the very best for your exam.

Let us know if you have any more queries in the comments section below.

 

 

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