Analyse your performance

During the exam season, it is important for students to allocate some time to self analyse and reflect on their performance, writes Partha Halder

The exam season is about to begin. The next 100 days will see students going in for various scholastic and competitive exams.

This is also that part of the year when all serious aspirants get into revision mode and simultaneously attempt mock test to optimise their performance. Amidst all of these a point which is largely ignored by a student is “self analysis”. You may be curious to know “What is self analysis?” or “How does one do it?” or “Is it really that important?”

Many times, when we write an exam we commit mistakes that often goes unnoticed or it happens so fast that we fail to recognise it later. As it does not get registered in our mind, we run the potential of repeating it again in future. Hence, it proves to be detrimental towards our career objectives. A good “self analysis” is rather the way forward. Self analysis must enable you to discover:

Concept-wise tracking: Enables you to understand how well have you mastered a concept.

Topic-wise tracking: Percentage of completion without any loose ends
n Subject wise competency: Areas within a subject which has been consistent over a period of time.

Marks earned: This is the areas in a subject from where have you earned marks.
n Marks lost: Areas within a subject from where you have lost marks. To find out why, one must find out the root cause in a practical manner. The most probable reasons are:

a. Calculation mistakes
b. Could not apply the right concept
c. Rushed through while reading the question and missed an important keyword.
d. Confused between two closely linked concepts.
e. Did not scan the question paper completely and missed attempting a few easy questions
f. Did not know how to go about a question and made a vague attempt thinking that you will probably get it right at the end. In the process, time, effort and marks is lost.

Average time taken to solve a question – High speed with less accuracy is pointless. Lower speed with high accuracy will dampen the total attempts and thus, impacting total marks. Hence, one has to find a middle path to be able to do well and optimise their performance.

Performance rating: Rate your overall performance in a mock test on a scale of 10 based on your level of satisfaction achieved after the test.

By systematically following the above mentioned points you will start approaching mock tests with a whole new perspective. Your focus will gradually shift to “Learning Approach” addressing mostly the key learning’s from “mistakes committed” and the same will get automatically factored within your revision plan thus firming up your performance meter in the next mock test.

Action Plan

Once you have analysed your performance, here’s what you need to focus on:

Remedial measures: Once you have tracked your concept-wise/topic-wise status and have identified the loose ends its time to revisit them. By doing this, you will be improving your chances to getting answers in these concepts correct. On a broader scale, you will remember the kind of mistakes committed and will be cautious in your future attempts.

Marks earned: Analysing the topics where you have earned marks allows you to discover the marks distribution across topics within a subject. If you find that you have scored more from a specific topic or you have scored more on specific type of questions, then you have to be cautious and devise a plan to distribute your dependency (attempt based risk) across topics. So on any given day, irrespective of the questions, you will end up doing well across topics.

Marks lost: This will clearly tell you the topics or type of questions that you need to focus on. Analyse the reason for marks lost and practice accordingly to prevent future marks leakage.

Practice makes you perfect: Attempt as many mock test as possible and synchronise your mock paper attempts such that your penultimate mock paper attempt is at its peak. The actual exam should appear to you as just another mock drill insulating you from exam related stress and thus, helping you to maintain your peak performance level.

Rate your performance: Verify whether your fresh attempt has improved from your last mock test. An upward swing will give you the much needed confidence for optimised performances in future attempts.

Whatever exam you may be appearing for, its important to eradicate your weaknesses. Always remember, every weakness that is addressed will translate in to positive outcome and will enable you to move ahead of the competition.

(The author is Centre Head of FIITJEE, Punjabi Bagh Centre)