Improving Scores in English Language from 12 to 28
Dear Sehpaathians,
On demand of all of you today We Team Sehpaathi will be going to share a story with the experience of one of our followers who completed B.tech from Kanpur in the year 2012. Only 2–3 companies came for placements in his college. So, he couldn’t clear the interviews. On recommendation of one of his mentor he started preparing for banking exams. And, he appeared for IBPS-PO casually in 2013 and scored just 9.25 marks in the English section and could’t clear the written exam. The pressure of finding a job was building up. So, he started to seriously prepare for IBPS PO again.
And out of all the sections, he started to focus on English as it was his weakest area. He also had problems in verbal English while appearing for interviews previously. He was pretty good in Quant and Reasoning section and so he felt that he do not need much practice in these sections. English was a hard nut to crack for him. Hence, he built a well planned strategy to crack English section.
English does not have a fixed syllabus. It don’t have formulae to memorize like quants. Maybe this is why many of you always ignored it.
- Focus on improving RC skills and basic grammar
- Consulting and reading from English newspapers and magazines thoroughly
- Practice and solve previous year’s papers.
Strategy to improve English score:
Get your basics Right in English –To be grammatically sound, brushed up basic grammar like basics of nouns, prepositions, tenses, sentence construction, etc. Once you had a good hold on basics of English section it seemed to look relatively easier to me. Spotting the errors questions are based on basic grammar. It helped you to solve sentence completion problems as well. For English section one needs to get the basics right.
Set aside 2 hours daily exclusively for English – Completely dedicate these two hours focusing on every bit of English language. Do not consult too many books for studying English as it would get confusing.
Extensive reading helped you to crack Reading Comprehension questions with ease – Try minimum 1 passage everyday and answer the questions in a regulated time frame. First read the questions to get an idea about the passage. Then read the passage as a whole and try to understand the theme. Prepare notes in the margins and underlined important points while reading the passage. Finally review the questions below the passage and started answering.
No use of Mugging up the vocabulary- For vocabulary, antonyms and synonyms – it is of no use mugging up different words from books rather one should focus on reading from different sources, especially newspapers, the editorial and different articles sections in a newspaper to get acquainted with commonly used words. You may found many commonly used words here. Keep searching meanings of works on your phone while reading. can also installed some news apps in your phone to stay updated for General Awareness section.
This helped you in not only learning the meaning but also the context in which the word is used. Try using these words actively and appropriately (sometimes incorrectly) in your conversations with others. This way you all were able to memorize the word along with its meaning.
Practice to be perfect – To be able to crack any exam, you need consistent practice. Solve at least 2 papers in a week, specifically concentrated and worked on your weak areas. Solving test papers help you to get comfortable with the pattern of the exam.
Taking Online tests is beneficial- Not to forget mentioning an important aspect of preparation is, taking numerous online tests to improve your speed and check accuracy. Take both full length tests and subject wise tests (when time was less). Check how you solve questions and try to see how you are wasting time with long calculations that were not required. You MUST do that too!
Completely log out from all sorts of social media like facebook, whatsapp to better concentrate while studying. Well in time you realized how distracting it can prove to be.
Message for all the competitive exam aspirants from our follower
Clearing English section is not a big deal. My score did not improve from 12 to 28 in 1 week; it took me 2 months! A lot of reading along with clearing Grammar basics will help you in a big way to score high marks. Make use of online tests, online communities, read newspapers, solve previous years question papers and practice hard and get good marks in English section.
I am now working at Indian Overseas Bank and all the hardwork seems worth it 🙂
