Myths About SOF Olympiad Exams Debunked!

Olympiads are talent search exams to identify talented students across the world. Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) conducts different Olympiad exams for students from class 1 to 12 every year to develop Science, Mathematics, General Knowledge, Computer Science and English language skills among them. There are 6 types of SOF Olympiad Exams namely National Cyber Olympiad (NCO), National Science Olympiad (NSO), International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO), International English Olympiad (IEO), International General Knowledge Olympiad (IGKO) and International Company Secretaries Olympiad (ICSO). Each of these exams helps to discover special skills and talents hidden in children that are essential for survival and career growth in their future.  There are a lot of benefits of Olympiads. Participating in Olympiads aids a child to better understand scientific facts and also improves their reasoning, analytical and problem solving skills. Despite of having a number of Olympiad exam advantages, most of the students are reluctant to participate in these exams. There are a lot of myths that students believe about SOF Olympiad Exams which prevent them from taking part in these beneficial exams. Here are some of the myths about Olympiad Exams that are not true:

Myths about SOF Olympiad Exams

1. Olympiads are only for toppers: Most of the students think that only toppers can score well in Olympiad exams. This is the biggest myth regarding Olympiad exams. Performance in any exam depends on how much efforts and dedications you have put during your preparations. An effective study plan and hard work are the two key factors to succeed in Olympiads. Read our previous blog on how to prepare for Olympiad exams, and be the achiever you aspire to be.
2. Olympiads require long study hours: It’s a general myth that getting a high rank in Olympiads requires a considerable amount of study about 3-4 hours a day. This confuses students on how to prepare for Olympiads while studying for their school exams. So, they drop the idea of participating in Olympiad exams. However, a routine qualitative study of 1-2 hours per day is sufficient to ace in Olympiads. Candidates should do smart study. With right study resources and proper study plan, they will be able to put full concentration and understand the concepts better. Quality of study is more important than amount of study time.

Do you want to do smart study in planned manner? Read:

• NSO Study Plan,
• IGKO Study Plan,
• IEO Study Plan

3. You must refer to a number of books to score high in Olympiads: The thought of studying from a number of reference books along with school books tends discourage from attempting SOF Olympiad Exams. The syllabus of SOF Olympiads exam is closely similar to school syllabus. The only difference is the questions in SOF Olympiads are application-based, whereas school exam questions are knowledge based. You can prepare for both the exams at the same time. All you have to do is learn with purpose,e., learn with strong understanding of concepts. Don’t do conventional rote-learning.

You must go for a keen study of your textbooks to have a deep conceptual knowledge and practice a number of sample papers and previous years’ papers to score in school as well as in Olympiads. MTG’s OSDS is a complete set of Olympiad preparation kit which is scientifically designed to raise your potential in Olympiad Exams.

Do you want to know how to solve SOF Olympiad Questions? Read:

• Know how to solve IMO Olympiad Question Paper
• Know how to solve NSO Question Paper
• Know how to solve IEO Question Paper

4. Tuition & coaching classes are necessary to excel in Olympiads: Some students as well as parents believe that getting enrolled into an expensive tuition or coaching that provides study materials for Olympiad exams is a key step to rank high in Olympiads. But this is not true. To perform well in your Olympiads you must dedicate a considerable amount of time in self-study. Unless you don’t study by yourself, any coaching cannot help you in attaining a good rank in Olympiads.
5. Olympiads require cramming of various topics before the exam: Few students believe that cramming before the Olympiads is a must to score well. This is a misleading belief. Cramming is never a good option for any exam. To score well in Olympiads, you must study from the beginning, learn every concept clearly and practice well to test your knowledge. It is always good practice that makes perfect. Hence, follow your time-table religiously and practice as much as possible to enhance your knowledge and boost your confidence.

After reading this article, we hope that you are now clear about the myths regarding SOF Olympiad Exams. Attempting SOF Olympiad will not actually allow a student to discover his/her skills, talents and areas of interest. Having thorough subject knowledge and identifying your interests and skills in a specific area will ultimately help you to make a right career choice in the future. Attempt SOF Olympiads to improve your skills and understand your talents in a better way.

Best of luck!

Also read our most relevant articles on Olympiad Here.

Parents’ Guide For Olympiad Preparation – How My Child Can Get Merit Position?

How should my child prepare to get merit position in Olympiad exam? This question dwells in every parent’s mind as the SOF Olympiad season begins. Parenting can be a real pain-in-neck, when it comes to make your child sit for studies. And to add on this, you want your child to study for the Olympiads, who has some Olympiad myths impression on her/him about Olympiad, it can be really tough.  Don’t be scared! There is a way, and the right way will help your child to not just get benefitted of Olympiads but also to hold a merit position.

Here we have created a checklist to help parents resolve the biggest question of the season, an ultimate parent guide for Olympiad preparation. Read on!

If you are appearing for the first time or are regulars at Olympiads, complete preparation guide is a must. Read step-by-step Olympiad preparation guide for SOF Olympiad exams.

Make Them Aware Of Exam Pattern/Syllabus

This is the first thing that you need to do before you even think of preparing your child for Olympiad exams. The pattern of SOF Olympiads are different from school exams. It is an objective type test of 60 minutes in which 35 multiple choice questions are asked for Class 1 to 4 and 50 objective-type questions for classes 5 to 12 (details available on http://www.sofworld.org/pattern-questions-and-marking-scheme).

Must Read: Top 9 questions Olympiad aspirants and their parents often ask

Help Them In Managing Time

Time management is the biggest problem faced by students during their Olympiad exam preparation. With so many things to juggle during a day, from school, homework and exams and extra-curricular activities, working without a structure ends up making their preparation chaotic and unplanned.

As a parent, you need to help child to build a useful schedule for their days and weeks to help them efficiently utilize their time. A study plan must be made in which the syllabus of school and Olympiads can be studied simultaneously. Apart from school studies, invest some time, say half-an-hour or an hour every day for Olympiad exam preparation. Preparing for both school and Olympiad exams together in this way will be more time-saving and efficient.

Do you know studies for both School and Olympiads can go hand-in-hand? Here’s how:

• NSO Study Plan,
• IGKO Study Plan,
• IEO Study Plan

Make Their Conceptual Foundation Strong

Since Olympiad exam questions are framed to test the conceptual understanding to make a strong foundation for future. Students must develop in-depth understanding of each concept. As the questions of Olympiads are trickier, you need to help your child with MTG’s Foundation Course. The course help to strengthens the understanding of fundamental concepts for long-lasting and deep-rooted learning.

Help Them Polish Their Skills

Don’t force your child to take Olympiad exam without preparation, it is like forcing them into pool without teaching them how to swim. Activate their skills like observation, identification, classification, comparing, analyzing, interpreting, etc. Olympiad Skill Development Programme (OSDS) help to do it so. It is a downloadable test series of 8 papers and OMR sheet similar to the actual Olympiads. OSDS simulates the actual SOF Olympiad exam, except with different questions. Every child has her own set of skills, you just have to identify them and make them your child’s strength.  To boost your child’s Olympiad skills, explore more about OSDS .

Help Them With The Right Choice Of Books

Selection of right study material is the key to excel in Olympiad exams. With the right guidance and direction lead by relevant Olympiad books, your ward will not just prepare-well but she/he will also prepare smartly as right books save a lot of time. So, no matter how dedicatedly your child prepares for the exam, the smart work will give you the desire result in no time.

There are many study materials available online and offline in the market for the preparation of Olympiads, but be careful!  The only content partner of SOF is MTG publication. Olympiad study resources of MTG are specially aligned to help students hone their skills that are required to crack the SOF Olympiads. Here we are providing a list of best books/study material for Olympiads to serve you the best preparation guidance:

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Make Them Learn With Positive Reinforcement

Your child will perform better if you will set realistic tasks for their entire preparation process and reward them every time, they achieve their task. Do celebrate his achievement with his favourite activity, like taking him out for a play date at her/his favorite place. But be cautious to be strict in following this reward game, you don’t need to bribe your child to perform good. You need to keep in mind the ways in which your child feels most encouraged to do a task, even as small thing as you being with her/him while she/he studies. Such petty thing makes a lot of difference. You need to be supportive for their emotional intelligence.

Want to know the math shortcuts to make smart calculations that can save time? You May Like to Read: 10 Vedic Maths Tricks for Rapid Calculations

Encourage Healthy Food and Lifestyle Habits

This is something that need not be told to the parents. But during the preparations, students tend to give less importance to everything other than their studies. And in this line of negligence, food habits affect the most. Unfortunately, its effect isn’t very apparent. The last thing the parents would want is their kid to fall sick. So, this is something parents have to look after, because probably their child isn’t heeding.

At the end, it is advisable to take it easy. Complete the above discussed checklist and celebrate your child’s every milestone. Each child is unique, with her/his own talent. Having said that, every child can be whatever they aspire to be. As a parent, you role is to channelize, the right guidance and right resources and wait for the right time.

ALL THE BEST!

How To Make Right Career Choice-5 Simple Steps to Decide!

Among many concerns a student faces, one is to make the right moves to make the right decisions for future career prospects. The career choice you make determines a huge part of the rest of your life. After all, you spend large parts of your life working. When choosing a certain profession or making a career switch, it is important to carefully find out what your interests and ambitions are, and to identify your long term and short-term goals. How to make right career choice, well the decision is never easy, but we are here to help you in taking well-prepared career choice with 5 simple steps. Read on!

If you are confused about the course to take after class 12th, Check Out Trending Courses in Science, Top most Courses in Arts and Best courses in Commerce and choose the best course for yourself!

1. Assess yourself:

Before you rush making career choices, access yourself and your skills. Learn about your values, interests, soft skills, aptitude, personality type, etc. All these factors make some areas a good fit for some and a bad fit for others. You should take aptitude tests to assess relative information about your traits and then accordingly make areas in which you are compatible. Explore your strengths and weaknesses in detail with SOF Mindgraph. It is a set of analytical and psychometric tests which you can use to determine what you’re made for. Solving these tests will equip you to make smarter decisions that are best suitable for you.

2. Explore the areas of interest:

Now, based on the traits and skills you are good at, indicated by self-assessment ​test, make a list of career choices that will be suit you. Start collecting basic information about each area on your list. Learn about different opportunities, job descriptions, education requirements, data about earnings, etc. Explore and gather as much information as you can because this will definitely help you in selecting your areas wisely.

Are you looking for some good professional courses other than Engineering? Must read our blog - Courses after 12th Science other than Engineering-Best Career Options

3. Shortlist the selected areas:

Now, you have to narrow down your list by eliminating the careers you do not want to pursue. Remove all those options which do not appeal to you.  Also, remove the careers which have weak job outlooks. You have to remove the areas if you are not able to fulfil the basic eligibility for that areas.  You may also conduct informational interviews pf people who work in occupations in which you are interested. This will give you first-hand information about careers you have shortlisted.

Are you willing to become the best version of yourself? Read our blog – Why developing your persona is considered an important aspect in life? And let your personality develop by following the tips mentioned.

4. Make a wise choice:

After all the research you are almost ready to make your career choice. Select the areas which go according to your biggest attributes, to find a career that prefers you completely in a way that it gives you job satisfaction and lifestyle that you are aspire to have. You should enjoy your career and be passionate about it!

5. Chalk out your Action Plan

As discussed in the beginning, identify your long-term goals and short-term goals. This very important to move forward with the action plan for the right career choice. For example, you long term goal is to retire as CEO of IT company, so to achieve this your short-term goals will be to acquire a degree, do an internship, apply for jobs, etc. Now your action plan should include all your short- and long-term goals and the steps you will have to take to reach each one. Think of it as a roadmap that will take you from point A to B, and then to C and D. Include any anticipated barriers that could get in the way of achieving your goals and the ways you can overcome them.

Does thinking about studies worries you too much? Or there are times you feel demotivated when you sit for studies? Must Read our blog- 5 Reasons Why You Feel Demotivated to Study and How to Overcome It.

Hope these simple tips to know how to make right career choice will help you in taking right decision for your career. You’ll be able to choose a career which is the best fit for your personal aptitude and goals.

WE WISH YOU GOOD LUCK FOR YOUR CAREER QUEST!