On one beautiful Saturday afternoon, Funke’s phone rang. It was a call from her elder brother, a 200 level student of the school she applied to.
And the news: The Post-UME result is out!
‘How was it?’ she asked with all the emotional energy left in her.
The next few seconds registered her fears. It was not what she hoped for. In fact it wasn’t close to her expectation.
The worst part of it is that she could never get into the prestigious university she applied to with that kind of score.
The she remembered her friends… “How will I deal with all my friends who were less brilliant yet they are already in school?”
“I read an average of 8 hours a day… so where did I go wrong? She thought as tears begin to stream down her cheeks.
This is the case of countless candidates who have great determination to succeed at the Post-UME and yet they keep falling short of the required score to make the admission list.
If this describes you, then this report is for you.
WHAT THEN IS THE WAY OUT
Passing the Post-UME test is not a measure of your academic knowledge. It is the ability to convert relevant knowledge into excellent performance on the Post-UME test day.
Nobody is interested in your UME score. It was only a benchmark that outlived its usefulness when you qualified for the Post-UME.
This is why I will begin in this first report by giving you the 5 basic skills required to place a high Post-UME score.
Secret One
SPEED AND ACCURACY
I remember in my secondary school days. We had two best mathematicians. One was actually the best in solving difficult problems. The other was not as vast but has a reputation solving problems at the speed of light.
The latter was my favorite.
You know why?
You don’t win an intellectual contest like Post-UME by knowing everything.
You may know a great deal. But if you can’t recur them at the time you have to and use it to make right choices in the exam hall, then you are not ready for Post-UME.
This is the first litmus test you must use on yourself. Go through a couple of past questions relevant to the Post-UME test.
Try to answer the questions using the time stipulated which of course is relatively short.
Then take a statistics of your score. How many did you miss?
Compare this number with the number of questions that cover the topics you know very well. That determines your level of accuracy.
How many did you get right compared to the overall score? That determines your real performance.
You must study in such a way that these two fractions come as close to a whole number as possible.
Secret Two
GUESSING INTELLIGENTLY, NOT GUESSWORKS
There is a difference between intelligent guesses and guesswork. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to teach you a new concept in grammar.
When it comes to applying this secret, you would need to suspend your grammar for a moment.
Let me explain.
I would define guesswork as ‘the process of trying to manipulate an answer with little or no information’. This is the last thing I will advise any Post-UME candidate to indulge in. It is like trying to pick a pin in the dark.
On the contrary, guessing intelligently is a skill that you can learn just the way you learn how to drive. To learn this skill, make a date with the popular TV show, “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”.
There, you will discover the difference between winning a million and going home with nothing.
The most informative part of the show to you should be when he asks them why they pick the options they pick. The lessons you will learn from their responses are priceless.
There are several other ways to you can develop this skills. Just locate the one that works best for you and stick with it. I have only sited an instance above. You may want to give it a shot because itr was one of my little secrets for the UME.
Secret Three
STUDY SMARTER FOR EXCEPTIONAL SUCCESS
Except for a few new topics peculiar to the school you are applying to, you won’t be need much of ‘hard study’.
You did a lot of studying for your UME and that’s all the hard study you need (except if you passed by cheating).
So what you need now is to improve on what you already know.
You need to concentrate your efforts on areas that gave you stress during your UME. Current affair questions might appear in your Post-UME. What are the things you need to do to cover that area?
Locate other Post-UME students around you and brainstorm with them. There is no secret anywhere. Every question you will encounter at the Post-UME test is already a thought in someone’s mind.
A lot of people talk about luck.
But as far as am concerned there is only one luck I know. And that’s the one you consciously and deliberately create. You will only succeed at Post-UME to the extent to which you network with fellow Post-UME students.
Be active in large forums where people discuss about your upcoming exam. Nairaland is a good place to go often. Post questions about what you need to know about the Post-UME. There is always someone somewhere who knows what you don’t know.
You may consider checking your university portal. If they have forums, then you are lucky. All you need is to post questions and who knows… someone out there might be able to give you the special tips you need online.
If you follow my reports, I believe you will have virtually everything you need.
Therefore the way to study smarter is to leverage on what other relevant people know. I can’t count the number of free marks I would have missed if I had not overheard someone give away the idea in casual discussions.
There are many questions I was able to answer at my UME in 1995 that I never read in any book. I used the same principle all through my university years.
What are you looking out for when you surf the internet?
There are a lot of ideas and answers flying around especially among candidates like you who are equally preparing. You won’t know their value now until you are face to face with your exam paper.
I love this principle so much because it helps lazy people like us get excellent results cheaply.
Be smart. This principle saves you several painful hours of irrelevant study. Don’t be a victim.
Secret Four
PREPARE, DON'T PROCASTINATE
I may not be a big fan of ‘studying hard’. But I’m certainly a big crusader of perfect preparation. When it comes to preparation, I act like the tortoise that has a race with several faster animals like hare, dog, squirrel and the rest of them.
To ensure that I cross the finish line before any other person, I start my race several days earlier. I will encourage you to do the same.
I said ‘preparing’ and not ‘studying’. I am not saying that studying is bad. But studying alone is not good enough to guarantee your high score.
Everyday, between now and your Post-UME test, that passes without some form of preparatory action on your part is significant reduction in your chances of making it to the admission list. So… be wise and start your preparation right now!
Train yourself to be able to retrieve what you know at the speed of light. You will be amazed at the number of people who know a lot and were unable to remember in the exam hall.
They will say, ‘But I know this thing… why did I forget?’
There are other tools you will need for complete preparation. Studying is only one of them. I will be exposing the other tools in my coming reports. Watch out.
Secret Five
Assess Yourself
How prepared are you for the Post-UME test? This must be done at least once in every 48 hours between now and the Post-UME. This fifth secret requires a high degree of honesty. Forget about what you perceive yourself to be. JuDge yourself based on facts.
Have I revised my Math taday?
What new topic have I learnt?
Why did I get that simple question wrong?
Am I in serious fear of the forthcoming Post-UME test?
It will help you cover the loop holes that you may be overlooking. Don’t forget that every academic champion doesn’t just study. They have their strategies.
And one constant in all these strategies is the value for self-assessment.
Yes… Testing yourself with past questions is one of them. But there are other assessments that you need to carry out.
I will elaborate on them later. There are still a lot of suggestions I will be making. Your ability to act promptly on them will determine your success.
Always have a checklist. Tick out the suggestions I have given as soon as you carry them out. You will be able to know what you have done and what you haven’t.
Let me stop here for today. I really hope you have learnt something. Please expect my next report in 2 days time.
Feel free to ask any question related to this report.
To your success,
Psuccess.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
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