TECHNIQUES OF TEST TAKING:
Perhaps the most important requirements for success in these tests is getting to know the right technique for attacking them.. FoIlowing are the three most important points which everyone who wants to excel in an objective test has to remember.

Almighty Instructions :
Regard these tests as the tests of your capacity to follow instructions. When there are several sections in the test each one of them will have different instructions the misreading of which is bound to result in disaster. The wording of each individual question is important.Just consider what would happen if you overlook the word EXCEPT in a question .This appears to be too elementary a precaution to be stressed. Yet you would be surprised to know that a large number of students misread instructions and the questions too. See the following example of a question which an able chemistry student might choose a wrong answer because of misunderstanding some terms in the question.

Alpha particle emission with long half-lives is a property peculiar to (a) compounds (b) hererogenous matter (c) the heavier elements (d) the lighter elements Those who take the term 'peculiar to' to mean strange or unusual will, if they know their chemistry, choose answer (d) which is wrong. Knowing less chemistry but understanding the term 'peculiar to', in the right light (found only in), they might choose (c) the right answer.



lntelligent Selection of Items :
Let us consider one more aspect of these tests which accounts for a large scale massacre of unwary test-takers. Often there are parts of tests, mostly either in the beginning or at the end, where the test setter seeks to manipulate you psychologically. One of the familiar tricks seeking to' unsettle the test-takers is to give an impossible number of questions and about 1/4 of the time even a genius would require if he is to solve all the questions given. What does an intelligent test-taker do when confronted with such a state of affairs? The first thing he does is to keep his calm and then to make a quick calculation to find out how much of the total time is allow for the section, he could afford to spend on each problem. Then he moves swiftly through the questions spending exactly the amount of time he has decided to spend on each of them and no more. He doesn't waste his time on questions which seem too difficult, vague or confusing to him. Marking in the margin, so that he could come back to such questions, he goes ahead at his top pace. It is indeed a very incept test taker who wastes time on questions which he cannot solve. By doing this he loses the opportunity of solving further questions in the section which may be easy for all one knows. Frequently, this frustration with the first section chases him on so that he messes up the whole test.

Sometimes such a difficult section is reserved for the end of the test , when the majority of test-takers are slogging under mental fatigue. In either case, you would do well to remember that a really good test is so set that it is impossible for one to complete it. At the same time it requires you to keep working at your top pace strivinq your utmost to be accurate till the end . And no hard feelings against the test-setters. After all their objective is to identify young people who are capable of sound commonsense, and who do not give in easily.


Should one guess?
In most objective tests, for every wrong answer, the test taker loses 1/4 of a point he has scored on his right answers. However, for tackling items that you partly know, you cannot do without guessing intelligently. The art of intelligent guessing which you have to master consists first of eliminating the obviously wrong alternatives and of narrowing down your choice, so that you increase your chances of hitting the right answer.

Knowledge is the prime requisite, but it seems, no one can have an over abundance of it. Whatever, one has learnt, one tends to forget with the passage of-time. The result is, at a given time, there exist in our thinking process, areas of uncertainty varying from partial understanding to total ignorance of facts. What do we do when confronted with one of these? Guess, of course.
Intelligent guessing is possible and according to the irrepressible Mr. Huff, goes to prove the efficacy of guessing theory in action. Consider the question: The burning of petrol in an automobile cylinder involves all of the following except:(a) reduction(b) decomposition(c) an exothermic reaction(d) oxidation(e) conversion of matter to energy. If you know quite a bit of chemistry, you will have no trouble marking the right choice. But what if you don't know any of those terms there? Skip all the first four (a) (b) (c) (d) and concentrate on the last one. To begin with, it is somewhat longer than others and has no difficult technical terms. A suspicious fact in itself. Some more concentration will tell you that it describes a nuclear reaction. Since Henry Ford started earlier than Albert Einstien, we had automobiles long before the atom bomb. Therefore (e) must be the thing that doesn't happen in a car engine.

Wild guessing can be risky, but cultivating the habit of guessing intelligently is the only alternative to total surrender. So guessing -- guessing intelligently is your bounden duty. The moment you accept this, the question whether the test has negative marking or not will cease bothering you.


PREPARING FOR THE TEST -- THE PRE-REOUISITES:
Three years of studying in classes and by correspondence, has given us a fair idea about the makings of a successful test taker. It is on the basis of our discussions with our friends, that we would venture to offer the following professional advice.

SHOULD YOU TRAIN YOURSELF FOR THE TEST? :
First of all, let us discuss whether at all, one should train oneself for the test. Since most of these tests are aptitude tests, there is some controversy over the question whether people can improve their test performance by means of training. Should one train oneself for the tests? The answer appears to be a clear 'yes' except for the views of some people who contend that training can never improve one's aptitude, and hence, one's test score. The Educational Testing Service, which held to this view for long, appears to have altered its stand. In a recent statement they confess, "It is quite possibie that sometimes some students may have added some points to their score", by undergoing training. Some statement, this!

The fact is, concerted effort does lead to improvement in test scores, sometimes dramatically. Among the students we have seen, almost about 80 percent start at a low test score. After about 3 months of studying, a majority of these students easily cross the upper mark , on a test of the difficulty level as the one they had taken earlier.

You would do well not to believe in the nonsense that the test measures your aptitude and that the alleged aptitude cannot be improved. It amounts to believing that mathematics can't be learned and that you cannot even put your grammar right. This is simply bad logic. A test measures the aptitude level which you are at.

It pays to be test conscious. One is rarely equally good in all test areas. Students with a strong quantitative background are often weak in chemistry.The point of training should be to prepare yourself so well in your strong areas that you do not lose a single point there; in your weak areas you have to work the hardest to gain as many points as possible. Constant practice is important. Working by fits and starts is a wasteful way of preparing for these tests.

CAN 'APTITUDE' IMPROVE? :
Beyond a certain point, perhaps a person's aptitude cannot improve, but in competitive tests, such as these, the practice you put in, does count beyond a shadow of doubt. All our friends agree that the practising helped them to improve their performance by 20 and 30 percent. This is a good lot at a test where 2,000,000 compete for about 3000 seats . By the way, don't be scared of those thousands taking the test. To our reckoning, for well prepared test taker, there are approximately 50 innocent students going through the motions of taking a test, the A,B,C of which they don't know. Exaggerations apart, it is a fact that surprisingly few students show test-consciousness; or determinedly prepare themselves to be test-wise. We want you to be as test-conscious as possible.

A SENSIBLE STRATEGY:
Make a sensible action plan and follow it scrupulously. From what you have read note already, it would be easy for you to guess realistically, in what areas you would need to put in extra effort. If those areas happen to be mathematical, start off now with the lOth, llth, 12th standard books on the subjects and revise your basics.

A CERTAIN DETERMINATION:
Be determined. This should be easy enough for you to understand but the fact is, unless you consciously cultivate that drive and that push, you won't make it. The test will demand the best in you, so sharpen your abilities to the keenest point and attain the maximum speed you can work at. A luke-warm attitude just won't do.

These tests are not for those who tend to take things easy. Success in them depends on a concerted effort to discipline oneself, a will to work in an orderly manner for over a period of time, to develop what sports writers call one's "killer instinct'; and a passion to win. Assuming that you have the determination and some potential, your effort should be directed towards making yourself a ready, confident, no-nonsense test-taker.