A taste of the 'mocktale'

Preparation Stage

It is always believed that competitive exams are the real test of a student’s understanding of a subject.

In the wake of exams getting closer, a Mock CET (Common Entrance Test for students opting for engineering and medical seats) was conducted in the City recently at Jyoti Nivas College. Over 5500 students appeared for the exams.

The idea behind the Mock CET exams was to give the students a general idea on how a CET exam works and mentally prepare them for the D-day.  Ranks too were allotted to the students based on their performances.

The biggest challenge in a competitive exam is to be able to solve the problem in the least possible time and short cut methods come in handy. A seminar conducted on the same day as the mock exam had professionals teaching the students short cut methods for solving complex problems in no time. Metrolife asked the students in the City if a Mock CET aids in the preparation of the dreaded entrance test.

Gautam Dev from Deeksha College says, “I have never faced a CET paper in my life. Even in college, the focus is on IIT coaching only. The only reason I took it up was because I wanted to see if I will be able to face a CET exam without prior preparation. It was an excellent platform to judge where you stand as you are competing against people from all over Bangalore.

I benefited a lot from it and it really helped increase my confidence as I did well. The other highlight of the exam was the one-and-a-half hour seminar, where we were taught the tricks and techniques of CET. To me, the intention of the seminar came across as a marketing gimmick to lure people into a crash course for CET.”

While some like Gautam went for the mock exam to test their skills, there were others like Ashank A S from Jain College who took the test purely for the seminar. “I found the mock exam really tough. However, the seminar really helped me. My main intention was to see how different it is from the CET coaching centre I go to. I realised that my coaching centre is really horrible. But there is little I can do now as I have already joined that place,” he adds.

Fear is such a strong underlying factor when it comes to these exams that most students are too scared to face even the mock exams. Prarthana Seshadri from Kumaran’s College says, “I still haven’t started preparing for the CET exams. I didn’t see any point in going and attending a mock exam without preparation. Besides I knew for fact that if I did badly in them, it would affect my confidence.”