So you did the smart thing and finished all your revision by October and are feeling very proud of yourself. However even though you may know all the chapters and topics in all the subjects you still need to know how to use what you have learnt. This is where practice tests come in.

Follow up:

There is a general misconception that just revising the portions of the various subjects, and doing so thoroughly, means that you know the subject well enough to take the exams. The truth is that while revision does help you understand the subject more, it will not help you score well in the exams. The reason for this is that when you sit for the exam you will be seeing may different types of questions. There will be direct questions, theory based question and those that need you to apply what you have learned in the last two years. May students delay or don't pay enough attention to practice tests and end up loosing out on marks and ranks.

The problem that a delay in starting will cause is that during the months of January, February and March students concentrate only on their final year exams and it is only after they are over do they return to preparing for competitive exams. Students only have till the beginning of January to finish practice tests as from mid of January onwards, preparation for CET, COMED-K, AIEEE, IIT-JEE or any other such exam stops. There are distinct advantages of taking practice tests.

One such advantage of taking practice tests is that they help you practice the different forms in which these questions are asked. Competitive exams are based on testing students to see if they know how to apply what they have learnt. For this reason most of the questions that come in these papers are 'twisted'.They will be tricky because at first sight they seem to ask one thing but reading the question shows that they want to know something else. You will loose marks for no reason in such question and practice tests protect you from just that.

Time management is a quintessential factor when it comes to success in exams. Most of the times you have lots to do and very little time to do it in. Time management means that students are able to attempt all the questions and do so without hurrying too much and making room for silly mistakes to happen. Good time management also means a reduction in the number of wrong answers that are given because answers are marked or written in a hurry.

Yet another benefit of practice tests is that you will know what to expect when you sit for the real exam and you will also get a good idea of how well prepared you are as compared to other students. What happens in most cases is that students go into the exam hall, and they walk out feeling confident of their performance till the result come out. When they see that they got less than what they expected they start wondering what went wrong. Make a note... there is no point wondering what went wrong once the exam is OVER. Taking a practice tests tell you where you are in terms of preparation and helps you identify and rectify weak areas.

One last major advantage of having done practice tests is that it helps reduce stress. Many students don't recognize the importance of this small factor. Almost all students who have studied hard have been through a situation where they have blacked out during an exam at some time or the other. This happens due to excessive stress and becomes worse when it happens during an important exam. First students can answer 1 question, stressed about that question, soon they can recall any other answer as well. Since practice tests show you the different types of questions that may come, how good your preparation is and how need to approach the paper, students are better prepared for eventualities

The choice is an easy one to make. Do practice tests and be better prepared or don't do practice tests and let the exam 'surprise' you (keep in mind, not all surprises are pleasant). So the question now becomes that when should you start practice tests? If you follow the schedule (hyperlink to revision article) then you will have some idea of how question are framed. Now the month is November. You have finished 2 revisions of your entire portions and are ready for tests. Start taking practice tests by November and carry on till January. The pattern will be that you do 2 tests a day. The first is based on PUC/ Class XII and the second on entrance/competitive exams. Keep at it all through November and December. You can do this also for the first half of January as from mid of January onwards most students get to concentrating only on PUC/ Class XII till March.

If you have gotten late in preparation then you can start practice tests by December but if you didnt do that either then you must START RIGHT AWAY. Don't worry about revision since it will also get covered as you do more and more practice tests.

Keeping these things in mind, its only fair to say that if success is what you want then the best thing to do is to save as much time as you can for practice tests. The gap between PUC/ Class XII exams and entrance exams, like CET, AIPMT, AIEEE, IIT-JEE, etc, is just about 1 month in which you need to do a complete revision and practice some more. This is never enough time for the kind of preparation that you will need since many of these exams need you to know more than what was taught in PUC/ Class XII. Always keep in mind that the more practice tests you do the better your chances at getting good marks and ranks so... GET CRACKING!