In a competitive exam it is important that whether
you know the question or not or whether you can solve the questions or not but
it is more important to solve the questions in shortest possible time or not.
And for you to develop that ability you need to sharpen your problem solving
skills. So the key issue is
“HOW TO SHARPEN PROBLEM
SOLVING SKILLS”
“HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN
SHORTCUTS AND TRICKS”
After interaction with lot of students I observed
that most of us do not have correct approach towards our studies. Some the
common made mistakes which student commit are
- Many students read the question & the solution and then satisfy themselves that they could have attempted the question in the same manner.
- Many student lay too much emphasis on solving higher number of questions.
After interviewing topper of different
competitive examinations I found out that the best way to sharpen
problem-solving skill is to develop the ability to solve carefully selected
quality questions on your own.
While solving the problems remember that there is no
dearth of books and problems available. One has to draw boundaries and
concentrate on quality rather than quantity. Doing 100 quality & concepts
based questions are more important than doing 1000 questions which have not
been selected carefully. Remember that the purpose is to sharpen problem-solving
skills. It is possible to prepare a topic by doing 30-40 problems only, if you
try to solve them completely by yourself. This may involve devoting half an
hour or one hour or even more on an occasional problem.
On the other hand, your
preparation can be very weak and hollow even if you have attempted more than
200 problems on the same topic at the same time, thereby devoting much less
time on difficult problems and leaving them as doubts to be cleared by your
teachers. The key to success in sharpening problem solving skills is to
practice quality problems without seeing the solution. So if you want to
sharpen our problem solving skills you have to take a resolution that come what
may you would not see the solution. The moment you take the resolution, the
following questions come immediately to your mind.
What should I do if I
am not able to solve a question?
I will suggest you a simple and effective approach
to solve questions.
Step 1 : Approach an exercise only when you have thoroughly
mastered the fundamentals.
If you are unable to solve a problem at first attempt
come back to that question after some time say half an hour or 1 hour. While
making the second attempt start on a fresh page. Try to think independently of
the first attempt and never get driven by the approach in the first attempt.
Step 2 : If you are not able to solve the problem even in the
second attempt than the next step is to identify the basic concept involved in
the question. For e.g. if the basic concept is E = MC2 .
Step 3 : The next step is to open your Subject Book. Open
that unit, that chapter and that page where this concept is being discussed.
Read that page with half the pace with which your normally read Physics. So
study the relevant theory again, paying attention to the finer points and
keeping the problem in mind.
Research shows that
if a student follows his method seriously than there is 7% chance that he would
be able to solve that problem and last but not the least it also sharpens your
problem solving skills.
Step 4 : If you are not able to solve the question even by
step 3 then the last step would be to consult the teacher or refer to the
solution. But here also the key is not only to understand the solution but also
to find out what was the clue / step / trick you missed because of which you
could not solve the question. So the idea is to analyze the problem’s internal
network so as to find out the steps you missed and then practice more similar
kind of problems so that you can master the tricks involved.
Adopt this approach for some time and continue if
you find it useful. Another frequently asked question by students is “How
can we develop our own shortcuts and tricks”.
I will answer this question with the help of an
incident with which I was involved.
One day in Mathematics class our Mathematics teacher
asked,
“What
is the sum of first hundred digits”?
While
all of us were calculating, one of Students immediately raised his hand and
said 5050. We all were surprised by his quick response.
Some of the students were trying n (n + 2) / 2 (well known
formulae).
Some of them were directly adding the numbers.
When asked to the Student as to what method had he
adopted to calculate it so fast?
He said take one digit from beginning and one from
end i.e., 1 + 99 = 100, 2 + 98 = 100 similarly you can make 49 pairs of 100 so
that makes it 4900 + 100 + 50 = 5050
Just 2 Years later that Student cleared IIT-JEE
with an AIR of 6.
That
is thinking out of the box. The message is to think beyond the boundaries,
cross them and try to explore if you can find something new. What is important
is what comes to your mind when you see the problem, how and in what direction
you attack it. remember this is the only way to develop your own shortcuts for
solving problems. So do not give up solving a problem after one or two attempts
and always remember that it is only by doing and trying to do difficult
problems you can improve your analytical skills.
You must develop enough discipline to try
and work out each exercise without looking at the solution. Start with
conventional methods of solving problems and improve constantly and build up
your shortcuts and ways of attacking a problem. Remember the process of
learning new things can be an exciting adventure.
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