Exam fear – Beat exam stress and score (last-minute mashup?)
It is natural to feel stressed and nervous.
Don’t worry it will pass.
Here are my suggestions to overcome these jitters and to fulfill some study schedules.
Action plan to get the demons out of your mind:
Have a simple plan of study. Keep it simple. Simply list down all major headings and sub-headings of a particular lesson on a sheet of paper. I call this the stock-taking method. You will be ticking off whatever is completed.
Tick for those topics that you studied reasonably well.
Circle where you also practiced and are quite confident.
Underline for those where you need revision and repetition.
Rules for the day’s schedule
First thing in the morning, plan targets for the day. For this planning, spend 5 minutes maximum.
Take a short target for next 30 minutes, one specific ‘heading’.
Don’t think beyond 30 minutes at a time.
To gain maximum out of the above 3 pointers you have to follow some recommendations.
Take small break every 45 minutes. Stretch lightly during the breaks.
Maintain a regular sleep pattern. Leave study at least 45 minutes before sleep. During these 45 minutes, wash your face, settle down, breathe deeply, close your eyes, relax your mind, and allow yourself to drift to sleep.
Unless really necessary, avoid tea and coffee. They may lengthen your waking time. But they can also disturb your sleep, reduce grasping capacity of brain, and make you feel tired when you wake up next day. Instead of tea or coffee, have lemon water or green tea with sugar.
Avoid TV, films, chatting, long phone calls, social media unless absolutely necessary. These will tire your brain. Speak less with others. Allow your brain to spend time with yourself.
Play music, or sing, or dance, or simply meditate during the short study breaks.
The best advice I can give to CBSE chess students is to keep the learning schedules consistent throughout the year. Prepare well when you have time, because no one knows how tomorrow is going to be.
It is better to start sharpening the sword during peace, rather than after a battle has begun, as an old story says.
Education will not give what you want. It is what you want that will give what you want.
Exam fear – Beat exam stress and score
Exam fear is a very common phenomenon among children, and it has a avalanche effect, there is no doubt about it. But, have the powers to be, ever tried to think about how to remove the fear & make exam a fun task rather than a jittery one? How to make them capable to overcome their fear of exams and especially on weak students to make them stronger?
Share your thoughts…
The author Kish Kumar is a trainer and Coach at Golden Chess Centre. He can be contacted on his Facebook page.
How to train in Chess effectively – 3 Basic Books and 5 Tips For Beginners up to 1500 ELO
Some recommendations on how to train in Chess effectively and on training methods and resources. If you are a novice and like to improve through diligent training and perseverance then this post is just an appetizer. There is no such thing as “the best advice” for chess improvement as everyone has different requirements and circumstances that make their learning unique.
The most effective way of training in your chess is by addressing your weaknesses, not strengthening your positive skills.
However, having said that, here are some general tips for you that may work for most of the beginners and post-beginners.
At least you cannot go wrong knowing how to train in chess
Practice Tactics positions DAILY
I recommend the following books:
600 plus winning chess themes and tactics by V. Subramanian‘,
as good training material to start with (of course with a good Coach to explain what is happening).
How to train in chess Tactics?
When working through puzzles on Chess Tactics for beginners, I suggest working through the specific themes at a time.
By progressing thematically, you will slowly build the pattern recognition database in your head that is needed to recognize the tactical elements when they appear in your games.
Random tactics will appear in your games, obviously, and only by constant familiarity with the tactical elements and factors can one get to identify the tactics satisfactorily.
That is why tactical position-solving should initially be theme-based.
Solutions given may not always be the best or the only correct ones, but they roughly describe the theme and pass the crux of the message.
How to train in chess visualization?
Trying to visualize the chess analysis will improve your tactics while imprinting the ideas in the brain, will serve as an absolute foundation of your chess.
Don’t memorize the answers but memorize the thought process.
It is not enough to go through the problems and understand the solutions, but it is necessary to go through them regularly until the solution is recognized within a few seconds without any complex calculations…
To put it more practically... treat them as your math multiplication tables and then see how you do complex numerical mathematics… in other words, you compare your game results before and after!
5 Tips on how to train in chess
It is better to train regularly, for a duration that is fixed for an individual daily schedule.
Start with as low as 15 minutes a day – make it a daily RITUAL.
Take stock daily. Set new goals for the next ‘weekly report’.
It is advisable to take time to review the past performance without fail.
Avoid excuses ‘I will catch up at the weekend!’ etc.
For you to grow in chess, get out of your comfort zone.
You will feel awkward and uncomfortable doing new things the first time.
If it’s worth doing for your chess growth, even doing it poorly until you get a feel for it is rewarding by itself.
Here are the 5 tips on how to train in chess so that you climb steadily and surely.
Try to create a habit of chess workout daily. Say, solving 15 tactical puzzles in the morning before you go to school (that’s what I recommend my students). It doesn’t matter if it is just a small start. Being regular guarantees progress.
Try to use your analytical brain rather than just checking the solutions when the position is difficult to solve.
Give your brain time to think.
Minimize distractions and remain focused while you are working on the tactics positions.
It’s not about winning, it’s about learning. If you did not learn you merely wasted your time.
Using the Chess Informants as a way to hack up your learning and thereby increasing your strength.
Read this: Chess Informant – the esoteric art of learning (hacking your chess brain).
It is natural to feel stressed and nervous.
