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What started as a month-long lockdown has taken up the entire year. Thanks to our educator’s farsightedness, we entered the online classroom weeks ago, and hence are at a place of no major loss. Virtual learning has been challenging for both students and parents alike. Parents have replaced the role of teachers. Teachers only guide students to learn through materials that have been prepared through media. Parents are the ones who play an active role to teach their children at home. They have faced many challenges in this process of online learning such as limited time, the inadequacy of technical knowledge, balancing their WFH, and Home, etc. But it has been harder on the students, especially because while all the learning happens online, the exams are conducted offline. In the month of December, most of our kids are writing their pre-boards, for which, none of them have had any contact teaching. These exams are as stressful as they can get for a student of good bearing. Without classroom experience, pen and paper practice, and peer interaction, these exams can get extremely stressful The scanning, uploading, dysfunctional portals just add to the student’s hassle, elevating stress and alleviating scores. For the junior classes, the parent’s IT literacy becomes a big issue. Practically oriented subjects like Maths, Chemistry, physics, etc become more strenuous. In this unusual scenario, here is what you can do to get your child prepared to perform their best. 1. Before an online Exam: Prepare Know the test format What kind of questions will the instructor ask in the exam—multiple-choice, fill-ups, short answer, essays etc. Check your computer Verify all the correct hardware and software in advance. Make sure of an adequate Internet connection. Plan your time While writing, limit your time to that which will be allotted for the actual exam and decide how long you will spend on each question. Carve out a quiet test-taking spot with minimal distractions Turn off all notifications from IM, your phone, your email, and elsewhere. 2. During the Online Exam: Focus Clock your answers Set an alarm to notify you when you have limited time (e.g., 10 minutes) remaining in your testing period. Print and save copies of the test questions, and answers These will prove extremely helpful if you have technical problems during the test or if you encounter issues while submitting your answers. Don’t leave the test page Don’t use the same tab or the browser as you do for your exam —you may lose all your work. Open a second copy of the browser to search. Contact your Instructor In the case of technical problems, contact your instructor immediately, detailing the error messages. Take a screenshot of the error message as well. For most students, taking an online exam is a new and bewildering experience. They don’t know what to expect and aren’t certain of what skills and strategies will enable them to score their best. The online environment presents some challenges that warrant a bit of extra awareness and preparation. It is always better to be safe than sorry.

Habits begin with a cue, or a trigger to act. Walking into dark room cues you to perform an action that will enable sight. Next comes a craving for a change in state – in this case, to be able to see. Then comes our response, or action – flicking the light switch. The final step in the process, and the end goal of every habit, is the reward. If your performance does not satisfy you, it becomes your trigger. Then rises the need to improve it, the techniques for which we discussed in our last article. But it is important to actively let go of those habits that interfere with newly formed productive ones. Increase friction for bad habits Despite having all the motivation to study, we get digressed as we have a habit of logging in 3 hours on social media or Netflix, or PS4. If you want to waste less time in front of the TV, unplug it and take the batteries out of the remote. Doing so will introduce enough friction to ensure you only watch when you really want to. Validation through apps My all-time favorite is Forest. It functions by allowing you to plant a tree, which will grow with every half hour you spend avoiding your phone. Should you stray from the app, it’ll kill your tree, which may seem inconsequential but you get surprisingly invested. It’s actually incredibly sweet to expand your forest, knowing that everyone represents thirty minutes of hard work. Immediate-return environment Our brains are wired into the immediate-return environment of earlier humans, who weren’t thinking about long-term returns like saving for retirement or sticking to a diet. They were focused on immediate concerns like finding their next meal, seeking shelter. So when you are pursuing habits with a delayed return, try to attach some immediate gratification to them. Eg. when you have decided upon increasing your study time by 30 minutes every day, it will not make a difference in tomorrow’s class test. But if you miss the 30 minutes, that will gratify you. Replace this gratification with putting in 10/- in a jar every time you make the 30 minutes cut. This practice will give you 300 bucks at the end of the month which you can spend on whatever you like. In motion vs taking action “The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning” James Clear, Author, Atomic Habits Sitting to strategize your syllabus, making a schedule, downloading mock tests, forming a group study are all ‘being in motion’. While this is useful, it does not produce results on its own. No matter how many routines you form, you’ll not increase your score incoming exams if you don’t actively engage in studying and memorizing. Starting on schedule, finishing the target exercises of a chapter is taking action. It is producing results by getting off stuff from your to-do list and honing your skills. Student’s Takeaway The aggregation of marginal gains, suggests that there is a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. Since bad habits interfere in developing good ones, it is important that we get rid of them.

The Ministry of Education has declared that 2020-21 board exams will be held between May 4 and June 10 and results will be announced in July.  Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is yet to release the date sheet for Class 10 and 12. Meanwhile, CBSE Practical Exams 2020-21 will begin from 1st March 2021. However, no separate Practical Exam Admit Card will be released. You can get the entire date sheet at cbse.nic.in CBSE is expected to announce results by July 15, 2021.

Hi, I wanted to attend the seminar for Stress-Free Problem Solving in Grades 9 & 10 Is there a recorded video I can still watch? It was yesterday and I had forgotten to register before time. Thank you

There has been a campaign going on Twitter for while asking students, teachers, and parents to submit their queries and suggestions about the board exams 2020-21. Usually, the datasheet comes out in December, but COVID-19 has put it behind schedule.    Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal has recently tweeted and confirmed that he himself will address the queries regarding these exams on December 3. Pokhriyal has urged the students, parents, and stakeholders to post their queries or concerns with the hashtag #EducationMinisterGoesLive on Twitter.  Share your views by clicking on the image below or by tweeting it to Mr. Pokhriyal's handle.

In a tweet by the MoE, The Central Board of Secondary Education has launched a Mathematics practice book on its official website. It is designed for students of class 7 to 10. The Mathematical Literacy: Practice Book will help students examine the problems related to real-life situations and help them solve such problems. The Mathematics Workbook is designed in such a way that students can understand the concepts by themselves and solve the mathematical problems with minimal support from teachers or parents. The book also provides an opportunity for students to explore their reasoning and quantitative skills. Since CBSE reducing the syllabus by 30%, this is the first insight into what the changed syllabus pattern question papers would look like. Get it at http://cbseacademic.nic.in/web_material/Manuals/math-literacy.pdf

In our previous article, we discussed how Habits are the compound interest of small changes. Hence, it is important to develop a sustained habit of studying to improve our scores. By adopting these 3 techniques, you are bound to see a boost in the long run. 1. Implementation intentions Most of us tend to be too vague about our intentions. To actually follow through on your intentions : Prominent/obvious cues - Instead of putting up motivational posters, put up diagrams, reactivity series, or working of an electric motor so that every time you look at it, you are coerced into studying out of compulsion or even guilt. Definite/precise goals - Instead of forming vague goals like ‘I will study better’, create precise ones like ‘2 hours target to practice all NCERT examples and 2 exercises of Heron’s formula’. This way, when you sit to study, you won’t distract yourself with what to study, where to start, etc. 2. Temptation bundling “More probable behaviors reinforce the less probable ones”. James Clear, Author, Atomic Habits Try taking a behavior that you think of as important but unappealing and link it to a behavior that you’re drawn to – one that will generate a motivating dopamine hit. Pomodoro it- An Italian technique of setting your timer at 25 minutes followed by a break of five minutes; rinse and repeat. Eg. the target is to finish metal and nonmetals. Set up a Pomodoro of 25 minutes, followed by scrolling/walking/chatting whatever you feel like. When the alarm goes off, back to metals Token reward- You know how IG gives you an ‘official blue tick’ after you accumulate a certain number of followers, followed by a silver and gold button on every milestone after that. Similarly, you can give yourself a star every time you complete Chemistry, then physics, then biology. These 3 stars can then be converted into watching an episode of your desired show. This way, even if you don’t want to study, you’ll become conditioned to it if it means you get to watch your favorite show. 3. Make it easily doable “Habits are easier to build when they fit into the flow of your life”. James Clear, Author, Atomic Habits Energy is precious, and the brain is wired to conserve it whenever possible. It is human nature to follow the Law of Least Effort, which states that when deciding between two similar options, people gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work. Reduce friction You are more likely to study, if you are part of a peer group that is invested in studying, are into academic co-curricular, etc, even if it is just to save face or be validated by your peers Eg. Instead of calling a friend to discuss a doubt and digressing into gossip, text them to keep it short .Instead of studying on the balcony, with tons of activities of the neighbors to distract you, sit in a quiet corner where you won’t fave these frictions Choose your medium of Learning Visual Learners should draw flow charts, diagrams, use colors, and highlighters while Audio Learners should make acronyms, rhyming words, refer to audiobooks.

Assertion and reason questions have been part of major competitive exams in India and globally. CBSE, in its recent notification, has changed the pattern of question paper for board exams and has included 20 objective/VSA type questions. There would be various types of objective questions like fill in the blanks, true/false, MCQ, and Assertion – Reason type questions. Among all these types of objective questions, the most complicated one is the Assertion – Reason type. Word “Assertion” means a confident and forceful statement of fact or belief. In this type of question, students are provided with two statements named “Assertion” and “Reason”. Assertion represents a fact or belief. The other statement is the reason, which may or may not be the explanation of assertion. What do A-R questions mean for CBSE Class 10 students? The new pattern that has been introduced gives a heavy 25% weightage to objective type questions in all subjects. That means, Out of 80 marks, 20 marks will be assigned to this new bracket of questions i.e Multiple Choice Questions, Assertion-Reason Based, Case study based questions, Fill in the Blanks, etc. Till 2019, this was not the case. Subjective questions where students need to write a detailed answer will carry only 60 marks under the new pattern. The long answer type questions have reduced in number and weightage. Hence, it has become necessary to study between and lines with minute details to answer objective type questions. Why are A-R questions difficult to crack? In this type of questions, the student has to read the Assertion and Reason statements carefully and choose the correct option from the following: A. Both the Assertion and the Reason are correct and the Reason is the correct explanation of the Assertion. B. The Assertion and the Reason are correct but the Reason is not the correct explanation of the Assertion. C. Our Assertion is true but the Reason is false. D. The statement of the Assertion is false but the Reason is true. E. Both the statements are false. There isn’t much difficulty in the cases where either assertion or reason is false. The real challenge is when both are true and you have to predict if the reason is the correct explanation of assertion or not! You give the correct answer only if you are not only confident about the correctness of the assertion but also know its proper explanation. EXAMPLE. Assertion: Aryl halides are less reactive than alkyl halides for nucleophilic substitution reactions. Reason: There is a partial double bond character between halogen and benzene ring. For predicting the right answer: Read the assertion carefully and see if the statement is correct or not. In this case, we know that it is a true statement. Now ask yourself what is the reason for this statement to be true? Here we know that this statement is true because there is resonance in aryl halides due to which there is a partial double bond character which makes it more difficult to remove halogen from the benzene ring. Now see if a similar statement is given in the reason or not. If yes then it would be the correct explanation of assertion else not. How to score well in A-R questions? Certain things that you can do to score well in these new types of questions are: Read thoroughly A lot of students skip this utterly important part, making it as easy, but always read the question carefully to understand the assertion statement. Then, figure out whether the reason statement is true or not. Once you feel you have found the correct answer, read both the given statements once more. Then select the option that you think is right. 2. Think of each statement independently Evaluate the given statements independently to figure out the correct answer. In certain questions, the reason provides the correct explanation for the given assertion statement, while in others it does not. If your concepts are clear, you will be able to quickly spot the inaccuracy in the explanation and select the correct answer. You need to think logically and use your conceptual understanding to analyze the scenario before answering assertion questions. 3. Practicing assertion questions with CBSE Class 10 practice tests Assertion questions can be confusing. You need to know the meaning of the options available to get the answer right. Here, practice tests can be useful. Just reading tips on answering may not be effective. Tips are great for developing your own strategies to tackle the exam questions. If you practice CBSE Class 10 assertion questions, you will improve your thinking abilities. Once your practice test results are available, check whether you happen to lose marks due to lack of conceptual knowledge, overconfidence, or lack of focus resulting from nervousness. You can start by practicing a few that we have created from Class 10 Physics chapters of Light and Human Eye Select the correct answer to these questions from the codes (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv) as given below: i) Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of the assertion. ii) Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of the assertion. iii) A is true but R is false. iv) A is false but R is true. Assertion: An object placed in front of a convex lens forms an image of the same size. Reason: Object is placed between the center of curvature and focus Assertion: Dentists use a concave mirror. Reason: Concave mirrors are converging mirrors. Assertion: Danger and warning signs are red in color. Reason: Red light has a larger wavelength.