How To Get Good Marks In English Exam

The English language is used as a convenient language for international communication. One should learn it well if he\she wants to be in a competitive position in the workforce environment. That is the reason why English is placed as a significant curriculum in schools. This language is one of the compulsory subjects in board examinations. 

In this article, we are going to see about scoring good marks and how you can do it with prolonging practice. Let’s start! 

CBSE Class 12 English examination is conducted for 3 hours. This consists of a written test and an internal assessment. Written test carries 80 marks. Whereas, internal assessment for 20 marks. The exam is divided into three sections. They are, 

Reading comprehension

Writing skills

Literature

Here are some tips that you can follow while studying for the English examination. This will surely help you not only to score high but also fortify you in a competitive workforce in the future. 

Upgrade your reading habit:-

For improving and scoring well in the English examination, you must know how to comprehend and read the given passages in a very short time. First off, you need abundant practice. For an ample amount of practice, you can skim newspapers, read storybooks for half an hour.

This should be done three days a week at least. This practice not only improves your reading pace but also helps you to tackle the skill of getting and collating the information on a quick note.

Always remember to read the whole question very well and understand it and read the paragraph given. This helps you to hunt for the answers you are looking for to the question you understood previously. 

Amplify your writing skills:-

For scoring well in the Class 12 examination, you should compose various types of essays, formal and informal letters, reports, advertisements, notices. Also, you should revise the format you should be following in the exam hall.

Practice essay and letter writing every 15 days to enhance your writing capacity. While writing, make sure you follow the time limit and word limit they give in the actual exam. 

Strengthen your critical thinking skill:-

Improve your cognitive skill, the most significant skill for not only excelling in the literary section of the Class 12 English exam but also in life. This is because critical thinking is a constant asset that everyone should harness.

For example, while reading a poem, try to invent a parallel text. Push yourself and look at the text through a wide range of thoughts. Talk about that topic with your friends and teachers. You will get a new perspective and ideas about the topic. This is how you should imagine and write. 

Solve sample papers:-

This rule should be followed very strictly. Fix the time limit to 3 hours and start working out the questions. This system not only helps you to control and curate your timings but also enables you to write with accuracy. This enables you to identify your weak areas and you will work on them once the exam gets over. This should improve your weak areas into the strong area. 

Here are some key rules you should follow when it comes to a particular section. First, 

Reading section:-

You can go through sample papers, or buy BBC or Oxford. You will be required to solve the entire section in 35 minutes. You must finish 15 papers at least before the board examination. Don’t depend on the easy ones. Try moderate and difficult ones. 

1. Read the question before you begin to read the passage\paragraph. This will save you a potential amount of time. 
2. Practice reading comprehension every 10 days before the examination. 
3. Pace up your accuracy on note-making and summary writing. 

Writing Section:-

Moving on to writing, this section requires you to write a lot, doesn’t matter how bad or how good it is. You should always practice writing. When you focus on 10 marks, you should put a small notebook for that. Be in touch with current affairs, research on different genres of topics. When you take the news, you hold a stance on that issue with your opinion. For short compositions, you should articulate words using simple words yet you should say more things with those simple words. With constant practice, you can easily get through it. 

1. Recall formats at least three times before appearing for the examination. 
2. Always remember starting point and endings while writing a paragraph\question. 
3. Keep word and time limit in mind. 
4. For essay writing, article writing, speech, and debate writing follow this (divide and conquer) method. That means, divide the topic that is given into small 5 paragraphs. 

Literature Section:-

For acing this section, you should read lessons infinite times by practice. For short answers, practice writing answers from different question sources. For long answers, read the particular text that should be answered and make shortcut notes for you to understand well. For the preparation of the Literature section, you will need NCERT Class 12 English Book PDF. Do refer to it. But, do not depend too much on the summaries in the textbook, rather you create summaries. Subsequently, you should make notes with the keywords from all the poems and lessons you have. Revise it frequently as many times as you can.  

1. Complete all the chapters before the exam. Do not leave or omit any of the chapters
2. In the exam hall, complete long answers first.
3. For novel writing, have the plot, character sketch, and theme as a focal point. 

Tips to follow in exam hall:-

• Devote 50 minutes in each section. In the end, keep 15 minutes for the revision of all the answers. 
• Choose the questions you wanted to answer first. Decide which questions boost your confidence so that you will start writing those first. 
• Based on the weightage of marks, you arrange the timings for each question. 
• Make sure you are correctly numbering the answers you are writing for. Also, follow the right order of answering the question for each of the sections. If you wanted to think more about a question for a particular section, do not waste your time, move on to the next section by leaving some blank space for the question and answer them later. This is far better than changing the order of the questions\sections. 
• Maintain neat handwriting and do not overwrite the answers. 
• Use a black pen to highlight the headlines, keywords, sub-headings, and main points.