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Showing posts from May, 2019

English Letter Formats

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Less importance to formats in lower classes – Till grade 8, in my school, I studied a subject called “English Language”. This subject focused on the basics of English grammar such as tenses, modals, nouns, etc. It also included other writing skills such as letter writing, dialogue writing etc. The format for “letter writing” was given by my school. So, I wrote letters according to the format given to score marks. Creative writing questions in Class 10 – In class 10, I paid a lot of attention to the different types of letters and different creative writing questions. For the boards, I studied four types of letters – Ordering, Complaint, Enquiry for joining a course/accommodation and enquiry for a trip. I also needed to study some other formats such as Diary Entry, Article Writing etc., for writing VBQ’s based on these. Difficulties faced while writing letters and solutions – I found that many students knew all the formats, but didn’t know how to write the content according to...

Sanskrit Words Meaning

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Why I chose Sanskrit – Sanskrit seemed to be a language that was easier to learn and understand for me. It was the only language which was the closest to Hindi. The subject mostly required me to understand the various rules in grammar and apply them in various questions. Easy and difficult parts of the Subject - In grade 10, I felt that the grammar section was easy to attempt and score marks. But the comprehension section seemed to be the most difficult, because it required to know the meaning of some words which were critical to write answers. Comprehension questions - Comprehension Questions followed a fixed pattern - One-word answers, one sentence answers and Do as directed questions. The “Do as directed” question contains various sub-divisions such as finding verb, noun, synonym, antonym etc. for a given sentence. These comprehensions may be appearing from the NCERT book or from other sources. To master all the patterns, I practiced past question papers. Links ...

CBSE English Keywords

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Definition of keywords - Till Class 9, I studied all the lessons and wrote answers in my own words. Class 10 was the first time; I heard the term “Keywords”. According to my teachers, “keywords” were phrases/words which described the whole answer and had to be underlined in the answer. Importance of keywords - They also told me that, teachers who correct papers in the boards, check for these keywords, and allot marks accordingly. My teachers, wanted these “keywords” to be underlined for all my answers. They also wanted me to use these keywords in the VBQ’s also. I was already accustomed to writing answers in my own way, without any keywords underlined. But, my English teacher, didn’t give me full marks for my answers in unit tests, since I didn’t use any of the keywords in my answers. My teacher insisted me, in using those words/phrases, so that I could score well in my board exams. Usage of keywords - At first, it was very tough to include these keywords in my answers. It...

Approach to Trigonometry Problems

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Difficulty while learning Trigonometry - When I initially started out, I had difficulties in grasping the basic concepts. Trigonometry was an alien topic to me where I was unable to remember the simple formulas and t-ratios right. Types and approaches to different problems - Trigonometry had a lot of “to prove” sums. Each sum had a different approach. For example, some sums, needed the LHS to be rationalized at the first step, in order to arrive at the RHS. Many students in my class (including me at first), didn’t know how to approach the sums. I tried lots of different problems, in order to know which approach is correct. In exams, speed is important. So, if you know the correct approach for a sum, you can arrive at the correct answer very fast. You may also have another approach, but if it has a lot of steps, it may not be as helpful in your exams. Practices to follow for being thorough in Trigonometry - My IIT coaching institute helped me in giving lots of differ...