Professional exams aren’t like your average high school exams, where you can pull an all-nighter a day before the exam and still wing your way through and pass with a decent score. These exams are on a much more difficult scale and require a candidate to put in genuine efforts over a long period to be at a place where they stand the chance of clearing the exam.
As we all know, civil service exams are one of the most challenging professional exams one can give. The sheer level of competitiveness involved in these is enough to throw many off their tracks even before starting their preparation.
Thousands of people for just the few hundred spots in civil service departments—like the NYC firefighter department, NYC sanitation department, and the NYS court office—make these exams quite difficult to score well on.
However, the high difficulty level should mean that these jobs hold a lot of value, and you as a candidate should use this to motivate yourself to do well in the exam when the time comes. Let’s have a look at some ways that’ll help you do well in a civil service exam.
Practicing English Communication Skills
The key to doing well in any professional exam is to master the language the exam is being conducted in. This begins from being good at spoken English. Once you’ve got the basics down, you automatically start to make sense of various grammatical questions that may seem tricky to others but would be easy to you.
There are various resources and guidelines available online that help you work on your English communication skills. You can use those to reap the maximum benefits and stand a good chance of clearing the written part of the exams.
Improve Cognitive Ability
The cognitive ability of a person is the skills they have to grasp new concepts, memorize old ones, learn from mistakes, and be able to solve complex problems on-hand within a certain time frame. This is one of the best things you can actively work to improve.
There are various ways you can improve your cognitive ability to do well in exam conditions. So, whether it’s the grammatical part of the exam of complex arithmetic questions, you can count on your natural ability to solve them.
Adhering to a Study Plan
As with all kinds of exams—whether a college exam or a professional one—you need to follow a proper study schedule. If you want to go into your exam with confidence, knowing that you’ve prepared the best way you could have, here are a a couple of approaches you can take in this regard:
- Self-study
- Group study
For people who prefer the self-study route, there needs to be a high level of motivation. Otherwise, it’d be very easy to move away from the preparation plan since there’ll be no one to hold you accountable and keep you on track.
The other option is to study in a group. Study groups are known to be beneficial in creating an encouraging environment of learning. Though, you must make sure you stay focused throughout and help those around you to reap the maximum benefits.
Maintain Mental Well-being
Last but not least, having a clear mind is highly crucial for you to do well in a professional exam. Intrusive thoughts of not being able to clear the exam and the scenarios you’ll have to go through after that can ruin your ability to do well in the exam.
Stressing out too much about the exam can seriously affect your learning and ruin your chances during the actual exam.
There are tons of ways you can help yourself and your mental well-being during the exam season:
- Taking frequent breaks
- Eating healthy
- Getting adequate amounts of sleep
- Going out once in a while
- Exercising regularly
Following all of these tips will certainly put you in a place where you can do well in your professional exams.
To stand an even better chance, you can avail professional classes for your civil service exams. For residents of New York, Civil Service Success is one of the best places one can go to. They offer multiple exam-focused classes and workshops in different locations across the city. They also have a proven track record, making them one of the most trusted tutoring schools for civil exams in New York State.
About the Author
The author is a senior official in the teaching association of the state. She started off by offering classes that prepared people for professional exams. She now provides guidance on how multiple teaching programs can be improved, including civil service exams.
