 Friends, welcome to my channel. I am Arpita Karwa and in this video, I am going to talk about how you can secure maximum marks by writing fantastic answers on the day of your graduation or post-graduation exams. I know that all of you must be worried because exams are right around the corner. In most of the universities across India, the exam time is somewhere between April and May and you all must be struggling with your preparation. So I thought of making a YouTube video wherein I can discuss my technique with you guys so that you can also become a topper of your university. When I stepped in my graduation, I also faced all these challenging questions. I was unaware of the fact how to write a perfect 20 marker answer, what all points should I include, how should I make notes, how should I learn so many information and keep it in my mind and then write a perfect answer in just 15 minutes on the day of the exam. And then by experimenting with a lot of techniques, I was finally able to devise a perfect method to write answers on the day of the exam. And guess what? That was the method which made me a topper. Yes guys, I was a topper in my graduation and post-graduation. I did my graduation from IS University Jepper and I did my post-graduation from San Xavier College which is affiliated to Rajasthani University. And in this entire period, academic period of five years, I was a topper and all the techniques which I'm going to share in my videos helped me to become a topper. So watch this video till the end if you want to write excellent answers with least hard work on the day of the exam. So let's divide this entire process in few simple steps. The first step is to know what you need to study. So the first step is to choose the units that you're going to attempt on the day of the exam. You must be having five, six papers in your final exams and five, six papers would be based on the age, on different ages or on literature of different countries. For example, there might be a paper on American literature or a paper on Victorian age literature. So in every paper you would be given about eight to ten units that you need to study. Units in the sense plays, poems or novels or even essays at times. Now you don't need to study all those units. Most of the time on the day of the exam you will find out that you would be asked to attempt any five of the ten questions. So you would have options. So it's always better to know which five units you are going to answer on the day of the exam. Rather than preparing for all the ten units and not preparing anything properly, it's always better to cut short your list and only prepare for five units and that too thoroughly so that if you get a question from any of these five units you are able to write a perfect answer. So the first point is to make a list of the units that you would be studying for this particular exam. So after making a note of important units that you would be taking up and studying for this particular paper it is important to begin analysing previous year papers. I have always told you that whether you are preparing for a competitive exam or for a university exam you should always look at the previous year papers. All these previous year papers help us to analyse the trend, help us to understand what kind of questions should we expect in the paper on the day of the exam. So a very smart student would always first look at the previous year paper and then start his preparation for that particular paper. So once you go through all the previous year papers and jot down the questions which have been asked from the unit you have selected you will notice a pattern. You will notice that all these questions would either be of 15 marks or 20 marks and the examiner is going to expect you to write about 6 to 8 pages for these answers. Now it is important for you to understand the fact that it is not always easy to write an answer in 8 pages because if a question comes comment on the symbols used in Virginia worlds to the lighthouse you might write about 2 to 3 pages but then 8 pages it's a big deal. So what to do in such cases? Also you need to make a note of the time. You would be given about 20 to 25 minutes answering a question where you need to write 8 pages. So you need to be very smart. You need to actually remember the data you're going to write because you cannot generate an answer right there during your exam. So a smart student would always know ways in order to elongate the answer. When I used to prepare for my exam I used to always keep certain things handy and I used to use that material everywhere in my answer sheet. For example, if I'm preparing a play like Hamlet I would always have some points about a renaissance. I would always write something about William Shakespeare. I would always talk about the literary movement Hamlet was a part of. I would also talk about some intertextual references. I would also write certain quotations here and there in the paper and there would be a lot of other things that I would include in spite of the fact what question is being asked from that particular unit. So all these things you will be able to understand once you analyze the previous year papers because sometimes students read the entire play and go and attempt the paper and on the day of the exam they figure out that in spite of reading the entire play they would not able to write a proper answer because they have not prepared themselves well. So by understanding the previous year papers you would exactly know what kind of questions you can expect and what the examiner expects you to write in that particular question. Finally we land to the third important step which is to prepare notes. Now I have seen that a lot of students would never prepare their own notes. They would go to the market and buy some guide books. The most popular ones are by a publishing house Ramji Lal. So the author of the book is Ramji Lal and you'll find a lot of guide books available on different novels plays and poems. Now the problem with these guide books are that almost every student is going to prepare their answer from these guide books. So how are you going to stand out and how your answer is going to be written in a different manner if compared to the other students answer in your university. So it's important for you to get away from this traditional practice of mugging up answers from a guide book and start preparing your own notes. I'll give you a detailed video in which I will explore what all things you should include in your notes and how quickly you can make your notes. But in this video I would like you to note the fact that guide books are not appropriate for a university exam. The fact is that the guide book contains about hundred hundred and twenty pages. Now if you want to prepare a unit like Mansfield Park for your university exam and you start reading all hundred pages it is going to take a lot of your time. So you need to know a pattern where you can quickly make notes. I used to make notes within two hours for every particular unit. Also to mug up so much information which is given in the guide book is nearly impossible because you need to read guide books for each and every unit. So if you have four papers and in every paper you need to prepare for five units then in twenty units you would not be able to feed so much data in your brain. Also the problem with guide books is that you will not find the most boring part in the guide book. The guide book is not going to talk about intertextual references. Guide books generally don't give you a list of quotations which you can use. Also guide book doesn't talk about the introduction to the age. So Mansfield Park was written during the Victorian period and the guide book is not going to give you information about Victorian age which you can use in your exam paper to show how well read you are to the examiner. So these are some demerits of guide books because of which I always ask my students to stay away from guide books. The most perfect way to write a proper answer or to prepare notes is to use computerized notes. Open an MS Word document and start reading from different websites like Cliff Notes, Park Notes, GreatSaver and just copy material which you like in points and put them in your Word document. Categorize it under different heading, themes, symbols, characters then you can talk about introduction to age, introduction to writer and your notes are ready. So when I used to make notes I used to hardly make notes for six to seven pages long. You can get a sample of my notes so that you understand my note making process better if you can just drop a message on the WhatsApp number given above. Once you drop us a message on WhatsApp number, my team is going to forward you notes which were made by me and you can analyze those notes to figure out how well you can make your own notes. I used to make my notes under different headings. For example, if I'm making notes on pride and prejudice, I would first include introduction to the writer then I would include certain points on introduction to the age that is the Victorian age then I would talk about introduction to pride and prejudice then I would also include certain critical comments on Jane Austen. I would next include certain intertextual references, certain quotations and finally I would also jot down points analyzing major characters talking about theme, symbols, motives and this is how I used to make my notes within six and seven word pages and I used to learn them and write it on the day of the exam. So my notes would include general topics as well as specific topics. For example, if a question comes on discuss the themes in pride and prejudice I would talk about certain general things that is introduction to the age to the writer, critical comments quotations, intertextual references all these things would be included even in that question and then a significant portion of the answer would deal with themes in Jane Austen's pride and prejudice. So this is how I used to make my answers special and scoring. I'm going to discuss this technique in detail in my next video where I'm going to highlight upon how you can make notes in different headings and how you can write fabulous answers on the day of the exam. Apart from that we are running a special go-net quiz on our social media pages so if you have not yet subscribed to the pages then go and check the links in the description box. Also subscribe to this YouTube channel because the next few videos would be really special for all the students appearing for university exams. Also I would like to recommend you to go and visit my website where I have given a list of writers which you must study and you are preparing for UGC Net English Literature and you can even join the online course if you find the list worth bookmarking. So that's it for this video lecture. We'll meet soon in the next video lecture till the time we meet next. Happy learning, keep loving literature and stay tuned to arpathakarwa.com