These tips for studying for exams will help you improve your ability to concentrate, your memory, and the way you study so you can do well on any test, including GK and current events tests.
Most government and competitive exams in India have a section on general knowledge and current events that people who want to work for the government in India have to answer.
UPSC, Banking, Railways, and other competitive exams in India put a lot of weight on general knowledge and current events. This is because this is seen as an important part of a student's education, especially if they want to work in public service.
10 Tips for studying for the GK and current events exams
In this article, you'll find a list of tips for preparing for exams and studying for exams that will help you improve your focus, memory, concentration, and study habits and do well on the GK and current affairs exams.
1. Read the newspapers to find out what's going on every day.
The most important thing you can do to prepare for the current events section of the exam is to read about what's going on in the news every day in the newspaper or online, as many UPSC toppers recommend.
To learn more about the news and what's going on in the world, write down the most important news of the day in a notebook and add something interesting about it to help you remember it.
Before the test, look over these study notes to review and remember the facts and information you have written down.
Some people say that the best way to learn about what's going on in the world today is to watch news channels. But this can be very distracting because of all the ads and because news channels tend to repeat the same stories over and over again.
2. Use study guides with answers to GK questions
There is a lot of study material that can help you remember the answers to general knowledge questions. Here are some of the most popular UPSC materials and books for learning how to answer GK questions:
The 2022 Manorama English Yearbook
What Everyone Knows in 2022
The magazine General Knowledge Today
Yojana Magazine
Kurukshetra Magazine
NCERT books
Students can find a long list of GK questions in these study guides. Memorizing them will help you learn everything you need to know to do well on general knowledge questions on competitive exams.
3. Don't be afraid you'll forget.
Remembering questions and answers about current events and general knowledge is all about remembering facts. When you try to remember facts, you usually work hard at it and might use tools like organisers to help you remember them better.
But if you worry that you'll forget what you've learned, the act of worrying itself will give people a bad impression of what you can do.
In the end, you won't remember anything because you won't have learned anything. This is because your tendency to worry is making it hard for you to remember what you need to.
4. Use your mind's power to remember.
Your willingness to remember answers to common questions about general knowledge matters a lot. Putting your mind to remembering what you've learned will work wonders and improve your ability to remember.
Setting an intention to remember will give you the confidence that you can and will remember what you just studied.
5. Use the ability to remember only some things
The most interesting thing about learning facts is that students who are studying for an exam need to choose which facts to learn.
Just by picking out the most important or important details, the learner can skip over words that aren't important and focus on the main points.
6. Reviewing is necessary to remember
You shouldn't learn something completely new when you study for a test. Learning something new is harder and takes more time than remembering something you already know. This is why going over your study notes is so important.
The Curve of Forgetting says that if you don't review what you've learned, you'll probably forget between 50 and 80% of it in the next 24 hours. Reprocessing the same piece of information tells your brain in a big way to keep that information.
The best way to do this is to read or study the whole thing and then go through it again, picking up important and big ideas as you go.
It's important to read through the whole thing before picking out important parts to remember because you can't remember things if you don't fully understand the situation in which you're learning them.
7. Try out GK and current events tests online.
One of the best ways to study for exams, and one that many UPSC toppers have suggested, is to take practice tests or online mock tests with GK quiz questions. This will help you remember more.
On the Glow & Lovely Careers portal, you can find free GK quizzes and mock tests on current events that will help you answer even the hardest exam questions.
You can take the general knowledge quiz with answers, GK in Hindi, general science questions in Hindi and free online practice tests for a variety of competitive exams to find out what mistakes to avoid as you study.
8. It matters where you go to school.
Finding a place with few distractions is the best way to study for exams. Most students like to do their homework at home. But for some people, home can be too distracting, since it's easy to get sidetracked by TV, family, and social media.
You might do better if you study in a place that's similar to where the test will be given. You might think of the environment when you study certain things.
So, if you take the test in a similar setting, it will be easier for you to remember these connections. For instance, if your test is in a lecture hall, you might find it helpful to study in a college lecture hall or a library.
9. Figure out if you learn best alone or with a group.
Some people do better when they study in a group because they can get help from others in areas where they need it. They might also learn from others what they missed and where they need to pay the most attention for the test.
On the other hand, some people can study best by themselves. They already know what they need to learn. Some people in a group may talk about things that aren't related to the subject at hand or try to do anything but study.
10. Try different ways to study and see what works for you.
When you study, you can do things in different ways. You can use mnemonics, visualisation, and association to help you remember things.
You can also try different things, such as reading your textbook, reading your course notes, answering textbook questions, redoing old assignments, reviewing old tests, doing research online, talking with others, and more.
