In grade 9, One has a better presence of mind and command over one’s actions. This is the age when you can start your independent journey towards academic excellence. Focusing on critical and analytical exams like Maths Olympiad in class 9 sets the tone for the future of your career. Directly coming to the point, sharing a few useful tips to help you in your maths olympiad preparation journey.
- Self-assessment
To start right, do an assessment of your grasp on the subject. Judge your skills in a non-biased way. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses, before committing to an aim. For instance, a S.W.O.T analysis can be done to properly analyse oneself. (S- Strengths, W-Weakness, O- Opportunity, T-Threats)After this, work on your weaknesses to convert them into your strengths and to resolve your threats. To make further more progress, embolden your strengths and utilise every opportunity to turn it into a successful event. Do this assessment with a calm and composed mind and work on it to benefit enormously.
2.Practice HOTS Questions On A Fixed Day, Weekly
This tip is of immense value as High order thinking(HOTS) questions can interrupt the uniformity of regular practice. Once you fix a day for solving the HOT’s your mind gets an organised plan and structure to work on. Your daily practice of easy and medium-range concepts can be done without interruption or pressure of HOT’s. This will improve the quality of your preparation. As HOT’s need extra time, thinking and reasoning so allotting a day for these questions sets a certain regularity and rhythm for the mind to follow. It suggested improving your performance to a great extent.
3.Assess Progress
After the SWOT analysis, you should rely on the parameters like routine practice, punctuality and a variety of questions you are doing in a day. For example, attempting the Previous Year Paper for IMO Class 9 Maths 2013 would describe the status of your preparation in a quantitative manner. Maintain a chart of your performance and performance marks on a weekly basis. This would help you decide if you need to make any amends to your preparation strategy or not. Keep the performance chart around your place of study. It would be a constant reminder to do better in the future and keep you motivated during this phase.
4. Join Study Groups or Clubs
Accompanying the right candidates, mentors and guides would pace your preparation many folds. You can join offline or online as well. These days many online study clubs or groups etc. are available to keep you posted with the latest tricks and tips. If you don’t prefer a virtual connection, you can opt for an offline class or club. When you are surrounded by like-minded people your confidence and thinking capacity improve. This is one of the top tips to keep yourself motivated throughout.
5.Balance Other Subjects
It’s right you are focussing on mastering one subject. But, don’t ignore other subjects for the same. When your mind would be tired of one subject the other subjects would come to your rescue. Other subjects like languages would feel light and freshen up your mind. Boredom can take you off the plan. So, utilise the potential of other subjects to keep you fresh and active. Have a holistic approach.
6.Organise Preparational Aspects
Preparation aspects refer to your time, books, physical health, state of mind and surroundings. These factors have the ability to directly or indirectly affect the course of your preparation. Be judicious with your time. Read-only quality and standard books or material. Don’t refer to a lot of material keep it limited. Your physical well being will dominate your preparation most. So, maintain good health and nutrition. Keep yourself elated and focused and learn from challenges in the journey. keep a positive attitude. Try to study in peaceful and calm surroundings for better retention of concepts.
7.Customise Your Test Series
To customise test series means to segregate the sections amongst various mock test papers based on level of difficulty. And attempt them in relation to your stage of preparation. Doing this will help your mind to register the data in an organised and efficient manner. The sync between various concepts would be easier to recognise and understand. This process is very useful in breaking down very tough sections into smaller interpretable portions. One manages to fetch more information from the same test series with a slightly different approach.
8.Seek Family’s Support
Your family members are your biggest support system and cheerleaders. It is obvious one is likely to feel exhausted, sad or frustrated during the whole journey. You can confide safely in your family members seek support or hope from them. Don’t put undue pressure on yourself. The family will guide you and help you to do the right thing whenever you need it. Your family is your biggest resource. Rely on them.
They will contribute quality feedback to your preparation journey.
9.Redressal Of Fears/Issues
Once you have started you might feel doubtful, scared or wary about a few things. It’s very normal. But, make sure you address them, You must share your fears, stress or doubts with best friends, family or teachers. In subject matter concerns your teachers or mentor would guide you perfectly and even suggest solutions. Your best friend may also be feeling the same stress or pressure to perform. You can both relate to the feeling and work on it together as a team. Your family would also provide you with the best amenities and comfort to help you grow and do well.
10. Learn From Experience
You would have kept a close eye on your growth during this phase. Thus, now it’s time to learn from your own experience. You can suggest creative ways to improve or polish certain skills or concepts. These suggestions would be easy to adapt to as well (as coming from you). Reaching a point where you are your judge is a very comfortable position in the preparation phase. This indicates clarity of thought and independence you would have developed by now.