Strategy for Multiple Choice Certification Exams

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Strategy for Multiple Choice Certification Exams

Basics

Take the list of exam objective and study carefully its scope
Organize your study keeping these objectives in mind.

You may be knowing theoretical or practical much and is confident but still you need to check up the objectives carefully so that you do not miss anything in your study. This will narrow down your focus area to individual topic or subtopic.

Study material

Once you know the topics look around you for the study material. Generally the official web sites will have most of the documentations and some commercially available books specifically written for the purpose of exams are also available . But always try to refer to two – three different sources as this gives a more clear view of a topic and makes understanding clear.

How to study

We have been taking the exams since the school days and people have developed their own style of study .some like to study in the day time others in the night still others like a background music while studying . Whatever may be your style stick to it but keep in mind that in multiple choice questions you have to be exact and should be able to differentiate between very similar answers.

You must have a peaceful place of study without any distraction so that you can read between the lines . A distracted study results in surfing the text - missing the key points.
Understand and visualize the process as whole – this will help in addressing to practical problems in real environment as well as some unsuspecting questions .
Note down important point - note down important point while reading look for something which is not obvious and different from the rest .
Try to recollect these point later - This will give an idea of your preparation and helpful in revising later on .

In the exam

In multiple choice type questions there is one advantage - answers are already there and one has to simply choose the correct one but the problem is each answer looks like correct one .So until your concepts are very clear it is very likely that wrong answer is selected .But no one is perfect so you will have to think a bit if you don’t know the answer to a question . Since the answers are already there you can start eliminating the incorrect answers by using your knowledge and some logical thinking .

One common mistake is to select the first obvious looking answers without checking the other options so always examine all the options , think & choose the right answer .

It is always better to pass the questions ,of which your are not sure, & come back there are few advantages for this

You avoid the tension and frustration of a suspected answer which could affect the rest of answers.
You are able to use the time thus saved to answer the questions you know
The solution may come to your mind till the time you come back again
The later part of the questions may contains some clues to the answers .

Time management in the exam

Generally the time is sufficient to answer all the questions but if too much time is wasted on a few questions then it becomes difficult . The best strategy would be to pass the difficult question after carefully reading and attempt to them later.

Making it second time

If you can’t make it in first attempt - Prepare for the second attempt , stay calm and focused . Don’t feel over confident that it will be a piece of cake next time .If you can recollect and write down the questions asked in the exam it will help you in providing a focused area of study .