How I Topped the Boards and You Can Too – An Excerpt

Just saying something like ‘work hard’ can be pretty vague and frustratingly unhelpful. And since I don’t want you to gouge my eyes out for leaving you with similarly unhelpful advice that isn’t actionable, allow me to narrow down what I mean when I use the words hard work.

I used to hate taking notes. I hated it ever since the day I grudgingly picked up a pen and saw the monstrosity of a scribble that was supposed to be my ‘handwriting’.

It was terrifying in its illegibility—almost as frightening as the ten minutes of The Exorcist I was brave enough to endure from the safe confines of my blanket on my birthday.

It didn’t help that I was born with a condition called hyperhidrosis—a fancy word for sweaty palms. I hated shaking hands with people because it was embarrassing. I didn’t want them to know that I had leaky faucets instead of hands. I was constantly drying my palms on my trousers. Most people who saw me probably thought that I really liked caressing my own bums.

But if shaking hands was bad, writing was worse. Within minutes; my notebook could go on eBay for a swimming pool. I tried placing handkerchiefs between my hand and the paper, and I even tried those plastic gloves doctors wear—but nothing helped. Eventually, I just had to grin and bear it, and my teachers had to accept puddles instead of papers. Boy, did I look forward to exams in the Indian summer!

So, yeah, it’s safe to say that I hated writing more than most. But if there was one thing that helped me score the marks I did, I’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger reason than taking notes and compiling them into a single source of reference. I’m not kidding—I stopped referring to my textbooks about six months before my board examinations.

I realized the benefits of taking notes fairly late. It didn’t help that writing was a chore for me. Plus, for the longest time, I thought that I was ‘too cool to be seen taking notes’. Taking notes was for plebs—the smart kids didn’t need to write something down to remember! I would have rather got my arms waxed one excruciating square inch at a time than take notes. And I have fairly hirsute arms.

In Class 11, I had a teacher who seemed to have made it his life’s mission to make me take notes. And try as I might, even at my persuasive best, I wasn’t able to convince him otherwise. So, resigned to my fate, I took down those notes, one agonizing letter at a time, at every moment thinking to myself, ‘What a waste of time.’

And then the time came for a class test. And instead of having to stay up all night tearing my hair out, I found myself surprisingly at ease with the test syllabus. Even more so, while writing my exam, I didn’t find myself struggling to decide what to write. For possibly the first time, my hand knew exactly what to make the pen do, without any hesitancy, hemming or hawing. I was on autopilot, and I barely even realized it. I flew through the test, acing it, and then some.

That was the day I first realized the power of taking notes. Taking notes helped me in a number of ways.
1. First, it was a great way to reinforce whatever I had studied.
2. It forced me to read the source material slowly, as opposed to skimming through it. Slower = Better, on most occasions.
3. It allowed me to refer to different textbooks, choose the best parts and compile everything that was relevant into a single note.
4. By the end, I had to refer to just a single notebook, as opposed to a 500-page textbook.
5. It got me comfortable with writing, which really helped during the exams, where I didn’t have to waste any time thinking about how I wanted to frame my answer. Plus, by the time the exams came around, I knew exactly how much time it would take me to tackle each question. I never ended up spending more time than required on any answer.
6. My writing = familiar. This helped make the studying process feel more personal, and tailored
just for me and my requirements. Those are some of the reasons I would highly advocate taking notes.

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In How I Topped the Boards and You Can Too!  Gaurav Sood shares the methods that helped him top in his board exams, so that you too can best prepare for the most important exams of your life.

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