Studying Changes

Studying Changes.

This post is basically about how I studied for exams. Everyone has different ways of studying, so what you I tell you isn't necessarily the way you have to study, but it's a way you could study if it suits you. The reason I'm writing this part is because the way I studied after moving to India was different from the way I studied in US. If you find that you don't need to change the way you study then that's great, but most people find it a little difficult to adjust after their shift. You'll probably need to study more in India, and here's why.

Reason you have to self study more in India:

In the US, most of the content was easily understood, or the teacher helped you understand it easily, and there wasn't too much that was too complicated. The teachers I had taught in an intuitive way and so I learnt the concepts easily in class itself and I didn't need to study much at home. Once I came to India, because I was in a higher grade I had to study more, and the other part was because the contents and teaching were different. In some parts of some subjects, understanding the concept takes priority, and if you have a teacher that'll teach it in such a way that you can understand and not forget, then there really isn't a need to study much for that part. However, if that part isn't clearly taught, or you still don't understand after asking the teacher your doubts,  then self study is the only thing you can do. And the other parts, where the content itself was mostly memory based, the teacher can only dictate it in class and tell you to study it, and you'll have to study it at home on your own. For me, 50% came from class and listening to my teachers. 40% came from studying, and 10% from awareness during the exam. That extra push from a 70 to a 90 marks can only come from studying harder. 

Another reason for me to study more was my Board, ICSE and ISC, where marks are given out of hundred rather than A, B, C etc. If your school is ICSE and academically competitive, then studying harder can make a big difference. This is because, every mark counts. If you get an A, it could mean anywhere from a 100 to a low 90, but that doesn't matter, since they're both A's. However, If you get a 100 in ICSE it's much much much better than getting a low 90. So an extra bit of studying can go a long way in certain Boards.

I'll be explaining mainly how I studied, not for regular school exams, but for the Board Exams (at the end of 10th and 12th Grades). School exams are important, just not as important as the Boards. As long as your teachers are happy with the way you're performing during the regular school exams, you should be fine. Normally people don't study as much for the school exams as the Boards, because of its importance. Once you do start to seriously study for the Boards, then the following points will be more relevant. 

Since my results have been good, many of my classmates, other students and even parents frequently ask me the same question: "How do you study?" In my experience there are two ways of studying: the Extended way and the Focused way. The Extended method is what many people do, which basically studying for a long time, like 8 to 10 hours a day, right before the exams. The Focused way, is to do a little studying studying everyday, like an hour, then, before the exams, study 5 - 6 hours a day, with regular gaps in between. The Extended method works really well for people who can concentrate for extended periods of time. The Focused way is better for people who are willing to vigorously study and focus for brief periods (an hour) at a time. It's better if you try out both methods and see which one suits you. I tried the Extended method in 10th Grade and ended up with 96.2%. However I used the Focused method in 12th Grade and got 98.25%. I paid attention in class, rarely missed a school day, studied a bit after school, and before the Boards, studied a total of 5 - 6 hours a day, with regular 30 to 60 minute breaks in between to cool off. But when I studied, I studied seriously and I studied smart. I felt that studying smart rather than studying hard was more effective, considering the way the system is. To study smart, for each subject, is important and here's how I did it:

• Math: The main thing of course is practice. Find practice problems and try them on your own. If you can get it right on your own, then it will be easier to remember how to solve such problems during the exam. Following this, I got 98 in 12th.

• English: Literature - Make your own detailed answers about the theme and characterizations in the story. If you can, try and memorize the shorter poems, because that can help a lot. Try to remember cause and effects, in Shakespeare, so that you can answer questions like, "What caused Leonato to shout at Claudio?" and "Why did the heroine faint?" and so on.                                                                                          Language - you can find lots of grammar practice, in books or online,  and out of ten, try to get at least 8 or 9 right. Reports and letters are fairly easy, because most of the marks come from remembering the guidelines. Compositions are a little tricky, because examiners shy away from giving full marks. There are usually options, such as descriptive, argumentative, abstract compositions as well as story writing. I usually went for story writing and if you feel you're creative enough to think of  story on the spot, then story writing will be easy. Or you can write a story beforehand, and manipulate it during the exam to fit the question. To see an example of a story I wrote using that method click read more; it's after the physics definitions. The final English score in ISC isn't given separately as Literature and Language, but together, as English. Following this method I got 96 in 12th.

• Physics, Chemistry: The textbook was over a 1000 pages, but actually there were basically 3 things to learn, formulas, definitions and derivations. I made a list of the 3 and studied from that rather than textbook. Since I regularly practiced numerical problems in class, I was familiar with solving problems of that type. I studied from the lists as well as the textbook, and I felt that it really helped. If you scrutinize the previous years' Board Papers, then you realize that they usually only ask questions from a set of around 300 - 400 questions. If you practice these questions, and eventually get all of them right, then a 100 in these subjects isn't too difficult. Using this method I got 96 in Chemistry and 99 in Physics in 12th Grade. For example, here's a list of all the definitions I learnt for 12th Grade ISC Physics.
Quantization of Charge: Charge on a body is an integral multiple of the elementary charge (q=+-ne).
Coulomb’s law: Two stationary point charges repel or attract each other with a force which is directly proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The force is along the line joining the charges.
Electric lines of force: imaginary smooth curve drawn in an electric field along which a free, isolated positive charge moves. Tangent at any point gives direction of electric field at that point.
Electric flux: measure of number of lines of force passing through some surface held in an electric field.
Gauss theorem: The electric flux through any closed surface is equal to 1 by epsilon times the net charge q enclosed by the surface.
Electric potential: work done by an external agent in carrying a unit positive test charge from infinity to a point in the electric field.
Electric potential energy: work done in bringing the charges from infinity to near each other to form the system.
Mean free path: average distance moved by a free electron between two successive collisions.
Relaxation time: average time interval between two successive collisions of free electrons.
Drift velocity: the average velocity acquired by the free electrons in a conductor when an electric field is applied across the ends of the conductor.
Amperes circuital law: line integral of the magnetic field around any closed path is equal to µ0 times the net current threading through the area enclosed by the path.
Ampere: the current which when lowing in each of two infinitely long parallel conductors placed 1m apart in vacuum produces a force of exactly 2*10^-7 N per meter of length between them.
Angle of declination: acute angle between the magnetic meridian and the geographical meridian.
Angle of dip: angle between the direction of earth’s magnetic field and the horizontal in the magnetic meridian.
Horizontal component of earth’s magnetic field: Horizontal direction in the magnetic meridian.
Magnetic induction: number of magnetic field lines of induction inside a magnetized substance crossing unit area normal to their direction.
Intensity of magnetization: magnetic moment per unit volume of the magnetized substance.
Magnetic intensity: capability of the magnetizing field to magnetize the substance.
Magnetic permeability: ratio of the magnetic induction inside the magnetized substance to the magnetic intensity of the magnetic field.
Magnetic susceptibility: ratio of intensity of magnetization to magnetic intensity of the magnetic field.
Curie temperature: temperature above which a ferromagnetic substance becomes paramagnetic.
Hysteresis: lagging of M (or of B) behind H.
Faradays first law: when magnetic flux through a circuit is changing, an induced EMF is set up in the circuit whose magnitude is equal to the negative rate of change of magnetic flux.
Second law: the direction of induced EMF, or the current, in any circuit is such as to oppose the cause that produces it.
Self induction: phenomenon of electromagnetic induction in which, on changing the current in a coil, an opposing induced EMF is set up in that very coil.
Mutual induction: when two coils are placed near each other and electric current is passed through one of them, or current through one of them is changed or stopped, an EMF is induced in the second coil.
Displacement current: in Maxwell’s equation, which relates line integral of B with current and electric flux, the term epsilon d phi/d t. The current caused by a time varying electric field.
Dispersive power: ability of transparent medium to separate different colors of incident light. When white light passes through a thin prism, the ratio of the angular dispersion between the violet and the red emergent rays and the deviation suffered by a mean (yellow) ray.
Rayleigh’s scattering law: the intensity of scatted light is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength, provided the scatterer is smaller in size than the wavelength of light.
Magnifying power: ratio of the visual angle subtended by the image formed by the instrument at the eye to the visual angle subtended by the object at the unaided eye.
Resolving power: power of an optical instrument to produce distinctly separate images of two close objects.
Huygens: i) Every particle of the medium situated on the wavefront acts as a new wave source from which fresh waves originate. These waves are called “secondary wavelets”.
                   ii) The secondary wavelets travel in the medium in all directions with the speed of the original wave in the medium.
                   iii) The envelope of the secondary wavelets in the forward direction at any instant gives the new wavefront at that instant.
Interference: redistribution of light intensity due to the superposition of the two light waves.
Coherent sources: if they emit light waves having sharply defined phase difference that remains constant with time.
Diffraction: bending of light round the corners of obstacles or apertures.
Unpolarized: vibrations of electric vector occur symmetrically in all possible directions in a plane perpendicular to the direction of propagation of light.
Polarized: vibrations of the electric vector in a plane perpendicular to the direction of propagation of light, and are confined to a single direction in the plane.
Brewster’s law: for a particular angle of incidence, the reflected light is completely plane polarized with vibrations perpendicular to the plane of incidence.
Law of Malus: When a completely plane polarized light beam from a polarizer is incident on an analyzer, the intensity of light emerging from the analyzer varies as the square of the cosine of the angle between the planes of transmission of the analyzer and of the polarizer.
Photo electric effect: phenomenon of emission of electrons from metals under the effect of light.
Stopping potential: the negative potential at which the photoelectric current becomes zero.
De Broglie hypothesis: all material particles in motion have a wave nature.
Moseley’s law: square root of frequency of characteristic X ray is proportional to the atomic number of the emitting element.
Rutherford Soddy law: rate of decay of radioactive atoms at any instant is proportional to the number of atoms present at that instant.
Half life: time interval in which the mass of a radioactive substance or the number of its atoms is reduced to half its initial value.
Mass defect: difference between the sum of the masses of the nucleons constituting a nucleus and the rest mass.
Binding energy: minimum energy required to separate its nucleons and place them at rest at infinite distance apart.
Fission: heavy nucleus after capturing a neutron splits up into two lighter nuclei of comparable masses.
Fusion: two or more light nuclei moving at very high speeds are fused together to form a single nucleus.
Energy bands: groups of closely spaced energy levels separated by band gaps called forbidden bands.
Doping: adding impurity to an intrinsic semiconductor in a controlled manner.
Depletion region: narrow region between p and n regions of a diode devoid of any mobile charge carriers.
Potential barrier: Potential difference developed across the depletion region due to diffusion of mobile charge carriers.
Rectifier: device which converts AC into DC (unidirectional).
Transistor: 3 element semiconductor device consisting of two p-n junctions formed by sandwiching a thin layer of doped semiconductor between two thick similar layers of opposite type.
Discreet circuits: circuits consisting of separately manufactured components, externally interconnected by wires.
Integrated circuits: components are fabricated onto a monolithic semiconductor chip.
Logic gates: digital circuits which work according to some logical relationship between input and output.
Modulation: Audio frequency modulating signal is superimposed on a high radio frequency carrier wave to increase range of communication.
Amplitude modulation: A.F. modulating wave is superimposed on an R.F. carrier wave such that frequency of modulated wave is the same as carrier wave but its amplitude varies in accordance with the instantaneous amplitude of the modulating wave.
Frequency modulation: frequency of the carrier wave is changed in accordance with the amplitude of the modulating wave. 

Sample English composition that I wrote right before the 12th Grade Boards:

The Better Path

At first glance he seemed to be a friendly sort of a person, but there was something peculiar about that man which intrigued Amit. Amit was among a group of tourists who had decided to go for an excursion to the town of Hasanbad, situated by the Ichamani River. The strange man, named Manohar, resided in a small hut by the river, alone. They had met Manohar while they were trekking through the jungle surrounding the area. Amit, who was always known for his keen observations, took an interest to this man, as he felt Manohar had an interesting story.

Manohar was unkempt, his shaggy hair was littered with twigs, his clothes were falling apart and his beard seemed to be infested with parasites. Amit and his friends were being led through the forest, close to the river by a tour guide, named Sai.

“This part of the forest is something of a legend,” said Sai, “The villagers often tell eerie stories about a young boy and his friends who visited this part of the river.”

“Well then,” said Amit, “tell us the story!”

Sai then said, “Years ago, this region in the forest had never been traversed. A young lad from the village, boldly decided to lead a group of his friends down this very trail, but he could not have anticipated the flash flood that would bring terror upon them. Unfortunately, most of his friends were swept away by the torrent, and they had to be hospitalized. The young boy was lucky enough to escape.”

“What type of friend leads his own friends into disaster? It would ruin my life to think that I was the cause of my friends’ pain.”

Amit then suddenly realized. That man, Manohar, he must have been the young lad! Amit was sure that Manohar he was so distraught because of the pain, he lost his will to live and that was why he lived by the river, mourning that unforgettable day. Amit then decided to ask Manohar.

“I’m going to be direct with you Manohar,” said Amit, “Many years ago, did you lead your friends down this dreadful path, only to have them swept away by the river?”

Amit was positive Manohar’s answer would be affirmative, but he was wrong. “You are looking at the wrong man,” said Manohar, “The man you wish to seek, is your tour guide, Sai.”

Amit was taken aback. “Sai?” he thought to himself, “It’s just not possible.” So Amit asked Sai for the truth.

“Yes, I was that young boy,” said Sai, “and you are probably confused. You think that I almost lost my good friends in this place, so how can I possibly guide people down the same path every day? I could have succumbed to my failure and lost my will to live. I chose a better path. I learnt from my mistake and now, I take great pride in guiding people every day, because now I do so successfully.” From that day forward, Amit realized that, in the face of adversity, one can only succeed or learn, because there was no such thing as a failure.

The question given in the exam was : "Write a short story that ends with the words " ...... I really doubt if things could have turned out any better." Therefore I manipulated the story to match the question and in the end I scored 96 in English. 

In the next post I''l be talking about which Board is most suitable for NRI returnees. I'll also explain why I chose ICSE and ISC Boards.