Preparing for Examinations - Guide for Students

This is the time of the year when the broad category of students (irrespective whether he is studying in an International School or in a local Municipal School) have the most difficult time of the year – preparing for the exams.  The pressure is more on students who are appearing for Board and University examinations (SSC, HSC and Graduation examinations).
 

Parents too have a tough time and they shut themselves from all engagements – social functions like parties, marriages, television, travel and vacations.  Their concern is whether their child is preparing well enough for the ensuing examinations.  Parents are feel the pressure and become more jittery than their children.  We will address the parents in the latter part of this article.
 

So dear students, the reality is that your exams are approaching.  Maybe your examination schedule has been announced.  Maybe not.  But irrespective, you will have to face the examinations.  The examination schedule, either favourable or otherwise, will not change your world or the prospect of facing the examination much.  You have to get through to it in any case.
 

So here are some practical tips for you to follow which will lead to success in your examinations:
 

Fear Nothing: Disassociate with your friends who discuss examination fear, who scare you because they are scared. Negative thoughts will cast a very strong influence. No use trying to convince them otherwise. Exams are just a step towards your success so why worry? If your parents or relatives try to scare you, tell them, you have it all planned it out and under control.  Self belief is very important.
 

Whenever, such a discussion comes up, tell them exactly how your academic year has been, what you have already learnt.  Give a few examples.  Such an activity not only assures others but your own confidence will improve and fear will be miles away.
 

You must not only tell, but plan it to be in control.  As one famous quote goes “If you fail to plan, you have planned to fail” and it cannot be more relevant than this.
 

Plan your studies: Prepare a study plan with which you are comfortable. Share it with your parents.  This will have dual effects: You will have taken your parents into confidence and also get feedback.  Second, they will be reassured that you are in the right direction.  Post your study plan on a common wall.  Allow your family to do a status check on your plan.  Don’t get irritated.  The best thing to do is to discuss it over the dining table so that everyone is updated simultaneously.
 

What to Study: Generally, a student must not have any likings or disliking for any subject.  After all, students like you are the toppers so why shouldn’t you? You already know the subjects that you know that you have a lot to catch upon.  Allot more time for them.  Also, take up at least two subjects per day to avoid monotony.  If you find the momentum is going good and have built a good tempo, continue.  Plans should be flexible.
 

You will need more time for practical subjects like Mathematics and Sciences.  This is nothing but a component of planning.
 

Keep time for revisions.  Your studies should get over at least 10 days prior to your exami-nations.  During the last 10 days you must spend time for revisions only.
 

How to Study: There are arguments in favour of, and against studying in a group or in isolation.  There is no fixed formula.  For some, studying alone can be boring and result in loss of motivation. If others in your friend circles, or cousins or neighbours are serious about studies, there is no harm in getting together.  It provides good moral support.  Take time off to discuss questions but not get carried away and deviate from discussions.  What happened in the school classroom is over and should be left there.
 

If you find your study group is not serious and more time is being spent on having fun, discussion sports or television or mobile applications, find another place.  Better still, spend a very small portion of your time studying together and the rest of the time study alone.
 

Ensure that your studying room is free of external sounds, distractions and other disturbances.  Do not lock your room but keep it wide open so that your mother or brother/sister can walk in just to say “Hi!” to you and ensure that you are on track.  Keep the discussion short and ensure that they leave you alone quickly.
 

Depending on your biological clock, determine the best time to study.  It can be very early morning say, from 5.00 a.m. for some, while evening is a good time for some, while for some late nights are peaceful and good time to study.  You and your friends don’t necessarily have to sync because each one’s biological clock works differently.
 

Remember time is ticking, quickly, very quickly!
 

Find a comfortable and peaceful place to study: The study place has to be neat and clean.  It must have bright sunshine coming in throughout the day.  A dull day will make you feel drowsy.  Make sure that the sound of television is not coming very loudly from the adjoining hall.  Children playing outside can be a great temptation so avoid such places.  Make sure that the room does not have a bed else you will feel tempted to take a short nap which then goes on for hours.

It is recommended that you should go to a nearby library, be it your school, college or one managed by a local social group as it will lead to discipline.
 

Remember time is ticking, quickly, very quickly!
 

Recreation is Important too:  “All work and no play makes Jack a Dull Boy!” Well, that adage applies to studies as well.  Indulge in some physical sports activities which helps you to distract your mind from studies, pumps up your blood circulation and rushes oxygen to your brain, both good for stimulating the brain, further activating it and helps increase your concentration.  Take a shower. Preferably, take a nap.  When you’re fresh enough, resume your studies.  Indoor games like chess, carom and other board games are also useful.
 

But remember, everything in moderation and that time is ticking. Quickly, Very Quickly!
Keep Your Calm : Do not link your studies to how many marks you will get upon writing that answer.  Have the confidence.

This is not the time to re-write your notes, or draft your answers by copying from the text book or class notes.  Rather concentrate on answering your questions from whatever you have learnt.
 

Don’t ever say to yourself, “Hey yaar, I still don’t know this or so much remains to be studied”. This will induce unnecessary stress. Remember, you have all planned it out.  Make necessary adjustments as you go forward.  Stick to your Plan.
 

There are other studying techniques like associating your answers to some favourite event, story or anecdote which will help you remember.  We will cover this aspect some other time.
 

Finally, never plan to cheat in the examinations.  That should never be your plan “B” and not even your plan “Z”.  Remember, an examination is a tool to assess the knowledge that you have gained.   Without knowledge, your career prospects may get affected.  A mark sheet will not be useful it there is nothing to back it.
 

Trust yourself.  Visualise yourself as a Top Scorer whose photograph is flashed in the headlines of all Newspapers, on hoardings across the city and see the difference.   You will get energy, will have the motivation and will have a great impact. 

Best Wishes!
 

By : Sarfaraz Lakhani,
Editor, Calibre Creators Learning Letter
www.calibrecreators.com

India is Pregnant

Oh My God! This is such good news. 

India is more pregnant than ever before.  It is pregnant with 1.2 billion people.  Can it get any bigger than this?

And pregnancy always comes with expectations, like when is it due?; What will be the outcome? What trouble and labour pains will the mother go through during the three trimesters?

The entire attention shifts from the father and the rest of the family to the other like, Is the mother eating well? Is she having any kind of trouble? Are her health parameters in control?

In the recent economic scenario, India is pregnant with lots of hope.  Its children are looking forward with lots of hope to better life for themselves and their children in the future.  The current political situation is generating lots of expectations from the government about new policies that are being framed for doing business in India, for manufacturing in India under the “Make In India” initiative.  The world over business leaders and governments are looking forward to the unveiling of the various policy initiatives that will facilitate the ease of doing business in India and with India.

Indian’s have tasted prosperity and are hungry for more.  There is already a high imbalance between the rich and the poor as well as geographical imbalance between the various states, which is increasing with the passage of time.   All previous governments have raised the expectations of the common people and the new government has raised it to an all time high.  Everyday people are awaiting news of new foreign investments coming into India, new Industries being set up jobs being created, new products being made available.

The question is, when will all this happen? Indian’s have earlier suffered at the hands of the British and then during the licence raj.  Indians had a frustrating time when any kind of business growth was not possible at all. When will we see goldmine that we have all been looking forward to? When will India finally become the land of great hope, that promised land of prosperity?  What kind of success are we likely to see?  Will it be temporary or will it be permanent? Will this further lead to the already wide disparity between the rich and the poor?  Will it change with the change of the government?

India will need to provide the current generation with necessary skills to become entrepreneurs.  Banks and financial institutions will have to do their bit to support new entrepreneurs.  Governmental services will have to improve drastically.  The day every smallest of legal service, right from acquiring a driving licence to getting your sales tax number to banking to submission of your taxes to all other licences becomes online and one does not have to go to a government office will be the day of redemption for the Indians. 

In the current situation, acquiring a graduation degree or a post-graduation helps you to get a job but for any governmental documentation, you have to seek help of touts and agents who are illiterate and uneducated.  They charge you an unreasonable amount for saving your time, for helping you jump the queue (what this means that those who want to get their work done by following the due process suffer) for a process which is as simple as withdrawing money from an ATM.  The process is made difficult because of the connivance of the government officials and the touts.  Incidentally, all processes related to issue and renewal of passports has become easy.  However, uneducated people still have to approach agents because part of the process is done online like filling in the forms and taking appointments.  Each government must have a service centre to help uneducated people.  They may charge a proper fee for that service which will help eliminate agents.

The crux of all this is that the government must educate all citizens (Yes, I did say earlier that educated people need to take help from touts and all education is of no use) but when all citizens are educated, change will come.  With educated citizens, a lot in the country itself with change.  They way we live, the way we do business, the way we treat customers, the way treat our country, etc. etc. .

And that day does not have to be very far.  It cannot be a mirage that keeps going further and further with every step.  It has to have an end line.  The pregnancy has to end.  It has to have a result.   It has to “deliver” else it is bad for the mother.

Best wishes.

Sarfaraz Lakhani

Calibre Creators

www.calibrecreators.com

Education <> Business Management Consultancy

Do People Buy Your Discounting Strategy?

During good economic times when business is booming, you hardly see large hoardings, posters or banners atop stores shouting loudly about discounts being offered.  During recessionary or lean times, you will see a lot of announcements about huge Discount Sales in newspapers, malls, leaflets, advertorials, social and mass media like Internet and Television.

Festival discounts are a way to lure customers in to the store so that stocks piled up in anticipation of the huge seasonal demand is sold off and does not become a liability at the end of the season.

Clearance sale is an attempt to clear existing stock in sales as the store is being closed down, be it for renovation, change of management or complete exit from the business.

I sometimes find it funny when stores offering discount sale put up banners like “Fresh Stock Arrival”.  Now what on earth do you mean by infusion fresh stock for Discount sale?  Is the Discount sale so popular that people are demanding fresh stock?

• Do customers really get fooled by such strategies?
• Are customers really dumb so as to get convinced about discount sales?
• Is the vendor so generous so as to take a cut from his profits and help people to buy his goods at a discount?
• Does the vendor have so deep pockets (high financial capacity) and can afford to make financial loss in business through a Discount Sale strategy?
• Is the vendor able to increase his sales using discounting as a strategy?
• Do customer’s really make substantial savings or benefit from such discounting strategy?

The interesting thing is that people do get lured by such strategies and end up buying large quantities.  I have observed at first hand that women get tempted, much more than men, to be attracted to discounting sales.   While women get attracted to commodities such as garments, fashion accessories, shoes, men will get attracted to big ticket Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) like Washing Machines, Refrigerators, Televisions, Audio Systems, Communication Gadgets (mobiles, tablets, etc.), shoes and wrist watches.

Can business be done more honestly?  Is there an effective way of doing business where you sell and customers buy but not end up as looking as fools while the vendor laughs all the way to the Bank?

Best Wishes.

Sarfaraz Lakhani

Calibre Creators

www.calibrecreators.com

What if the World dealt in Cash Only

Speak to any businessman and his only grouse will be that markets are down and that payments are not coming in time and therefore business is suffering.

Now consider the impact of this situation.  The businessman has sold most of his goods on credit to his customers.  The customers, probably retailers, have sold the goods in c5ash but have diverted the sales proceeds to either buy more stock or for buying property, investing in shares, children’s education, health and medical expenses, house renovation, investment in equity, mutual funds or to buy insurance. 

While the money has changed hands and has moved ahead, the people in the chain behind have got stuck.  The wholesaler who sold his goods is not able to buy more stock because he himself does not have enough capital for that purpose.  Despite repeated follow-ups, he is not able to recover his money. 

Again there are two possible scenarios – either he will buy more goods on additional credit (he will avail credit because he has been a good customer but has not utilised his credit goodwill so far) and then when the credit period is over, he defaults on payment.  Or he will draw upon his personal or business savings which can cause uncertainty of the family’s future financial security.  The other option with him is to utilise additional credit facilities from Banks or Financial Institutions.  The second option will be the last resort but it

comes with an additional cost of credit.  This additional cost of doing business will be passed on to his customer as cost of goods, thereby increasing the selling price leading to further inflationary trends.

What is happening here is that the cycle is getting disrupted somewhere and the chain is not moving further.

On the contrary, if the world only dealt in cash, the world would be a better place.  Yes, this is wishful but realistic and positive thinking approach to doing business.

Possible scenarios if the world dealt in cash basis only:

• there would be no defaults; no successful businessmen would be reduced from riches to rags;
• lesser amount of time spent by businessmen/entrepreneurs on pursuing defaults to recover their funds;
• cost of credit would drastically go down;
• trade and commerce would flourish; also new entrepreneurs would easily enter into business and entry barriers would be reduced;
• businessmen would buy and sell with confidence;
• Businessmen/entrepreneurs, business sectors, corporates and industries, states, countries would never ever witness a recessionary period;
• Banks and Financial institutions would have lower rate of defaulters (the wilful defaulters would in any case default on payments) because the chain would continue;
• Even in the event of a global crisis situation (wars, regional conflicts, draughts, famines and other unforeseen situations, no party in the trade cycle would be affected.  There would be no problems with “balance of payment situations”.

It is therefore advisable in the interest of the economy to switch to “cash basis” and the world can be saved from doom.

With best regards,

Sarfaraz Lakhani

Calibre Creators

www.calibrecreators.com

CONNECT THE DOTS TO PLOT THE DOTS AHEAD

You will vividly remember having skidded on a Banana Peel (this is more popular in India) or having stumbled upon something while walking on a road or walkway.  You do get up and collect yourself but what everyone does (without having been trained to do so) is to look behind to see what happened, where it happened and why it happened.  You also take cognizance of the consequences, had not not managed to control the fall in time and limit the impact of the incident. You make mental notes of it and store it in your long term memory.  The next time, when you see a Banana peel lying in your path or an uneven surface or a stumbling block, you will automatically recall that event and put it to good use.

The words “Connect the Dots” has been made popular by two famous personalities, viz. Steve Jobs and Rashmi Bansal and there is abundance of truth in it.  We cannot repair the past but we can certainly look back to introspect, learn and move forward and be wiser than before.

The rules that are applied for performance appraisal of Human Resources in corporates apply here too.  Performance appraisal of employees in an organisation is an effective tool to review the past performance, give constructive and developmental feedback, undertake course correction, and then plan the objectives for the next performance period.

In life too, it is important to look at the trail that we have left behind, map the various points which have led to success, which have resulted in failures, which only gave lessons, identify the lowest as well as the peak periods.  When these are reviewed in totality, you get a picture which will reflect the journey you have covered so far. 

Man has been gifted with this unique ability to plan ahead.  Only when you have complete information about your professional and personal accomplishments, your portfolio of qualities, skills, attitude, behaviour, your knowledge, your good and bad experiences, what has worked for you and what has not, you are fully equipped to plan for the next stage in life – whether you want to leapfrog to your next objective or you want to take each step cautiously, whether you want to gain more experience and knowledge or whether you want to take a different route altogether. 

Animals too have been gifted with this strong instinct and they also use their memory to connect the dots.  I have seen on  umpteen documentaries on Discovery and Animal Planet channels how a young mother teachers her cubs to pounce upon their prey and how they keep on continuously learning from all their previous experiences to achieve that flawless performance in attacking their target and making it their next meal.

It is, therefore, very important to connect the dots to plot the dots ahead.  Plotting the dots becomes easier only when you have data about their past experiences.  For this you can depend on your memory or you can maintain a diary, a log or use some tool to record the events in life.  They also can be in pictorial form where you have photographs of each and every event which brings back fresh memories of all those milestones you have covered in life.

Plotting the dots ahead is relevant in all aspects of a person’s life – right from acquiring higher education, to finding the life partner, right job, family life, family events like birthdays, marriages, grand children, professional life, social life, retirement, sports, holidays and recreation, fitness, investments, property, and so on.  The journey then becomes easy because you know very well where you are going.  There are no blind spots, no half-baked measures, no doubts, no ambiguity.  You don't have to stop at each milestone to plan to reach the next one.  The journey is smooth.  You know fully well what distance you have to cover, how it is to be covered, what resources will be required, how much time will be required and what kind of terrain would you come across.  Once you know that you will be travelling on smooth roads, you will be less concerned and your mind will enjoy the journey.  But assume for a moment that you have set out for a smooth journey and not anticipated a river crossing, a gorge, or a mountainous region.  You will have to slow down, halt, go back halfway to take another route which will result in loss of time and delay in the achievement of your goals.

However, if you know that your journey will cover various landscapes (it is like travelling across India where there are desserts, mountainous regions, dense forests, backwaters as in Kerala, rain forests, hot and humid zones, icy mountains, etc. etc.) you will certainly equip yourself with all the tools, resources that may be required to continue your journey should there be surprises, short diversions, breakdowns, delays.  Plotting the dots helps you to plan for every thing and the picture becomes very clear in your mind.  When you see a picture of your goal, you start living it day in and day out and that becomes your mission in life.  Having a Mission in life is what drives you to the achievement of your goals.

One of the quotes which aptly sums up is “If you fail to plan, you have planned to fail”.

Best wishes.

Sarfaraz Lakhani

Calibre Creators

www.calibrecreators.com