Students are capable of learning and increasing their intellect more than anyone else. The whole purpose of Olympiads is to increase the intellect of the students. The Olympiads are structured in a way that allows the personality development and creative skills development of the students which makes a more confident and opinionated student and later a human for the country. Even though the entire purpose of the Olympiads is to affect students positively, allowing them to focus on their areas of interest, and at times lack of confidence and preparation can affect them negatively.
These Olympiads, however, are made and planned in a way to allow maximum exposure and flight to students at least intellectually. But at times due to their increasing importance and value, it can create pressure on students which makes them doubtful about the preparation and beginnings of the process of preparation. Therefore, this article precisely covers this area of Olympiads. Go through each and every point carefully and along with that read, understand and implement each of them to your regular practice and try sticking to them throughout.
Table of Contents
HOW CAN ONE CLEAR THESE OLYMPIADS?
Check the syllabus
These Olympiads have a structure and syllabus similar to what the students learn in their classrooms. Therefore, start by marking the chapters from your class book that are similar to the syllabus of the Olympiad. Go through each of them and prepare them as per your level of understanding them. Revise them as long as you are not confident with that chapter or concept.
Prepare from the start
Prepare from the basics. One should keep one step at a time. Follow a staircase of the level of problem-solving questions. Increase the number of questions that the students are supposed to solve each day per chapter. Let the questions be more from the HOTS section. The HOTS section challenges the performance capacity of the students and forces them to think beyond their comfort zone. It allows them to make mistakes, learn and then implement the learned mistakes to avoid future mistakes especially in questions difficult than the last one.
Practise makes a man perfect
Practice makes a man perfect; this phrase goes well for the Olympiads of Maths. The students need to give regular practice to all the chapters. Consistency is a must. Everyday practice of the sums will help build the confidence of the students and while giving the exams if the students get similar questions, it will increase their speed and self-esteem.
Practice sample workbook
Buy the Math sample practice workbook from the Olympiad conducting organization or from outside. The workbook has almost everything that you will need to give a thorough practice including sample question papers and previous year question papers. The students can also refer to the question papers from Class 6 IMO Question Paper 2014.
Study targeted
Make sure that the students start from their favorite chapter or the chapter that they at least understand or enjoy. This would ensure long-term commitment to the target and would be an enjoyable experience. It also helps build confidence in the subject and can also clear the student of their future preferences in terms of field and career selection.
Maintain your accuracy
Math exams require both accuracy and speed more than any other subject. Therefore, the students must work on their speed by setting time limits. The accuracy is of utmost importance as it is what will help fetch marks and would be beneficial in the long term as well. Usually, to build accuracy students should solve questions similar to the ones they made mistakes in the last time they solved it.
Challenge yourself and compete
Another very important tip that would help the students clear their exams tests with their peers. Students should find other students giving the exams and perform tests with them. This will make the process fun and would help them be consistent. It will also help them know their lack points and motivate them to work on them till they achieve clearance. This practice once or even twice a week helps maintain healthy competition and allows students to perform better than what they performed the last time.
Make note of the formulas
Students should make notes of all the formulas, theories, and rules for every chapter and keep revising them every day. This is because it is with the help of these formulas, theories, and rules that the students would be able to solve these questions and if these concepts lack clarity or are not well informed with them, then it can decrease the capability of the students to solve the questions and they might be stuck and this can create panic.
Solve MCQ based questions
Most students have a step-by-step way of solving problems because of the steps-based marking in many schools. This can cause trouble during Olympiads because Olympiads are MCQs based and if students would keep solving each question step by step then they would lose a lot of time and they would not be able to complete their exams. To avoid such situations, students should have a practice of reaching answers without writing each step i.e. they should be able to reach the right answer in their mind itself and that also very quickly. Prepare and share these tips with all.
Conclusion
All these tips can help students clear their Maths Olympiad with great performance. They should keep referring to various books as guided by their mentors. The quality and quantity of the practice should be considered while preparing for the exam. Practicing four questions for four hours does not count as a qualitative study and would not help clear such competitive exams. It is okay to have days where you would not be able to perform better than yesterday or perform poorly than yesterday, what matters is that you come back with more power and determination after a setback. The continuous preparation with different question papers will have a great impact on the student’s performance. Throughout the preparation period, keep your goals set and clear.
