Theorem questions, calculus should be focus areas

With less than a month left for the board examinations, does your maths textbook look like Greek to you? All may not be lost, assure teachers. Carefully utilised, this final leg of preparation can make a very crucial difference to the result. Here are a few last-minute tips. The first and foremost, says P P Vermani, who teaches at Modern School, Barakhamba Road, is to go through the syllabus. Very often, students only rely on textbooks which tend to cover topics beyond the syllabus and end up wasting time on those, he says. Sample papers are also a must. Even more important is to get them corrected. Very often, students keep solving sample papers but still end up doing badly this happens because they havent got these papers corrected and keep repeating their mistakes, adds Vermani. Sushma Suneja of DPS RK Puram, says: Ideally, 2-3 hours every day should be devoted to Maths, instead of studying it for a long time in one day. Remember, maths is all about practice. Simple areas are where most students lose marks, so they should not be ignored, adds Suneja. The students must read the questions carefully they will be getting 15 minutes extra to go through the question paper carefully. They should also attempt the questions they are confident of, first. And always give corresponding formulae. Professor Dinesh Singh of Delhi University says: Students should identify their strengths and make them even more stronger. They should run their mind through what all they have done. There is no point doing something absolutely new at this point because the law of diminishing returns will apply. The most important thing students should remember is to be calm. As far as specific areas are concerned, teachers say that Class X students should capitalise on the theorem questions. These are usually six-mark questions where four marks is for the theorem and two for the application, says Mohd Sabir Hussain of Gyan Bharti School. Statistics, algebra, construe-. tion and the pie diagram are also areas where they can score well, he adds. For Class XII, says Hussain, calculus, which forms a major chunk of the paper, should be handled carefully. Some of the scoring areas here are differentiation from first principle, application of maxima-minima and area under the curve using integration. Matrix is a simple topic and there is always a six-mark question on it. And last but certainly not the least, get enough sleep. In order to make optimum use of all the hardwork youve put in, make sure to get 6-7 hours of sleep before the paper and be confident of yourself, says Suneja.

Date: 6th Feb 2006.

Source: The Times of India

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