It is that time of the year when students after finishing their board exams begin to seriously prepare for competitive entrance examinations. And all they have at their disposal for giving these entrance exams their best shot is a short time period of seven to eight weeks.
Let us focus on entrance exams which a (10+2) or 12th standard students has to give in order to enter the portals of leading institutes of professional education in our country.
For medicine and dentistry, for instance, besides the common Entrance test (CET) in each state there are entrance exams of the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) and AFMC (Armed Forces Medical Test) for recruitment of doctors to the armed forces. As the seats in these institutes are limited, there is cut-throat competition.
The technology based courses are conducted at All India levels like the ones conducted by Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT’s) which have limited mains and later advanced exams.
Admission is also given on the performance of mains exam to various NIT’s (National Institute of Technology) and some of the leading engineering colleges in the country. For venturing into the law domain in top law institutes, one needs to answer the CLET (Common Law Entrance Test) for top law colleges like the National Law School of Bangalore and NALSAR “ Hyderabad.
For a glorious career in the hotel management institutions run by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture of the Government of India, there is an All India exam which students belonging to any of the four streams (10+2) can compete in. This exam is conducted by National Institute of Hotel Management based at PUSA “ New Delhi.
In a career leading to fine arts there is an aptitude test conducted at state and All India levels for a professional course in painting and applied arts. For a career as a Charted Accountant, students can take up the CPT (Common Proficiency Test) conducted by the Institute of Charted Accountants of India which enables a students to purse the course simultaneously with his B.Com degree.
Besides this, one can opt for the armed forces. For this, there are two exams “ one is the National Defence Academy examination for a three year course at NDA Khadakwasla Pune, and the other is at Naval Academy, Ezhimala (Kerala) at INS Zamorin.
For B.Sc. (Agriculture) programme too there are some institutes which have entrance examinations for India Council Agricultural Research (ICAR) fellowships. To get into reputed business schools, there is an entrance exam conducted by All India Management Association (AIMA) called UGAT (University Graduation Aptitude Test).
Thus there are a plethora of exams one can undertake at the 10+2 stage in our country. In order to successfully crack these examinations, however, one needs to prepare thoroughly as per the NCERT syllabus in their respective domains. A number of these competitive examinations have questions pertaining to current affairs, logical reasoning, English language and grammar aptitude tests along with content related to the respective subject. Study the many books available in the market, browse the internet for question papers, etc. See that you solve several past question papers in order to understand the techniques and type of questions, and to be able to optimise your time while answering the exam because the most important attribute of these competitive entrance examinations is effective time management. Some also have negative marking schemes. The principal thumb rule thus is to focus more on accuracy rather than maximum number of questions.
Finally, one needs to maintain a high level of concentration and patience while in the exam hall. Read every question very carefully and avoid blind guesses. It is said that competitive exams bring out real determination and gumption of the candidate. So get cracking and prepare effectively for a glorious competitive career ahead.
