How to Prepare for a PhD Entrance Exam and Crack it | PET Preparation Tips |
Here are the excellent tips on how to prepare for Ph.D. entrance exam in your subject and crack Ph.D. entrance exam. For PET entrance preparation, Firstly, Know your syllabus and read more books. PhD entrance exam preparation and practice must be done with the help of previous PhD test question papers.
Follow these 12 rocking tips to crack your upcoming PhD entrance exam
- Apply for PhD National Eligibility Test
- Prepare the prescribed PhD entrance exam syllabus.
- Find the study material for PhD entrance exam.
- Select carefully best PhD entrance books for preparation.
- Get a perfect time-table to crack PhD entrance.
- Appear for PhD entrance mock tests online.
- Prepare PET previous question papers.
- Discuss your subject with friends.
- Follow skim and scan technique.
- Write a short summary of each chapter.
- Do a second and third revision.
- Revise PhD entrance exam syllabus until the exam day.
My 120 days schedule to Prepare for Ph.D. Entrance Exam
Do at least 3 revisions if you want to crack any type of PhD entrance examination. So here my calculation of studying for Ph.D. is 15+60+30+15=120 Days schedule. First 15 days you will read summaries of all the chapters. Second 60 days you will do the first revision. The other 30 days you will do the second revision and the last 15 days will be your final revision just when during the 16th day you will appear for PhD entrance exam.
Do you ever ask great people about their secret in getting good marks or the secret behind receiving that gold medal? Most of them tell that revision is the secret of the good marks that they get.
The more they revised the better they became. So taking their example, I want to tell you that you must revise all your 60-day timetable again for the second revision. This may not be too difficult to do.
It may not be for another 60 days but half of that for 30 days. So here we must know that 2nd revision will become easier. So I am giving you 30 days for it. In a similar way, you must go for 3rd revision too. This will be for 15 days again.
This is the exact schedule that you must follow to crack Ph.D. entrance exam without any single problem of losing your PhD admission.Revision of a subject is over all the secret and best study tip to crack any examination be it either PhD or any sort of other examinations. So be serious with revision schedules
Revision of a subject is over all the secret and best study tip to crack any examination be it either PhD or any sort of other examinations. So be serious with revision schedules
Here is my explanation for each point to get success in your preparation for Ph.D. entrance exam in English Literature.
PhD Entrance Syllabus point of view
Whenever you prepare for a PhD entrance test, the most important part that we neglect is not to follow the syllabus. This is because each university has its own framed syllabus.
You cannot study the same syllabus for every university. So it is very important to get not of the exact syllabus that is pertaining to the university that you have applied or if you are going to apply.
This is where you will start seeing success. If you start your beginning wrongly, then everything will go wrong. So the beginning is very important when it comes to any PhD entrance exam.
Once you are very well versed in the exact syllabus of the university. You are ready to set go on practicing some methodology that could be effective to crack the PhD entrance exam.
Many times we overlook the syllabus that we really want to prepare. We think that if we buy any book which is popular and studies, it is quite enough. It is not so.
When you think that way you will be in a bad situation. You will never realize how important the syllabus learning is. The whole secret on how to crack your PhD entrance exam lies in the way you learn it. You cannot simply make it differently to undertake the exam with your own preparation.
This will really put you off. There is no shortcut unless you study according to the syllabus and get your PhD admission. This is the only suggested thought from my side. So do not waste your thinking about studying some private syllabus. This happens when you join in any coaching center.
They will prepare some special syllabus and give you. Many time coaching institutes do them wrong. They frame it according to the old syllabus and sometimes they may not update.
They may just think that the printing costs would become waste as there are old books still need to be sold to the students when they join the institute. So take care not to follow the institute’s syllabus.
You must learn by heart the chapters
The next very important step while preparing for a PhD entrance exam is to learn and by heart the names of the chapters. This is very beneficial just because you must know them to reflect when you are free without a book. So I suggest you have at least some time to learn them by heart first.
Do not learn any other stuff unless you learn all the names of the chapters clearly and strongly. This makes a huge sense to know exactly what you are studying in the future.
Why learning by heart is so important is that it has to go into your long-term memory to again ponder over when you are without any book or when you get some free time. This way you will really foresee all that is coming in the chapter. I mean by the minute details.
The other benefit of learning by heart all the chapters is that when you get some question in the exam related to the chapter, you can simply remember exactly where the question has come from. This is the major advantage of learning all the names of your subject’s chapters.
If you cannot learn then it will become a problem in the future when you appear for the Ph.D. entrance exam. Learning all the names may not at all happen all at once in a day or two.
Take as many days as you can but not more than a week. You cannot waste your time more than a week. Just go ahead at least sit calmly and learn all the headings of the chapters and if possible learn also all the subheadings and their meanings. Learning subheadings is something advanced technique of how you use.
So make sure you do not really stress up yourself while learning by heart all the names of the chapter. It may be difficult for a few hours, but as you move, by the way, you will feel easier than previous to learn by heart.
Write a short summary of each chapter
A short summary is the best way o understand any chapter easily. If you can really understand the importance of short summary you can clearly come to the point what exactly that chapter wants to convey to you. Once you write your summary, it is up to you to read the summary a number of times.
Till your exam date, you must go on revising the summary. This is the best practice to crack PhD entrance exam. When you want to write the exam, summarize is one of the key concepts for anybody to get through. There are different types of summaries. Do not make so large summary.
Make it a simple one and make an interesting one to read. Many time I see students do not know how to make a good summary. Do not panic with summarizing.
As you write more summaries, you will automatically tune to the things. My other best suggestion is to read other’s summaries how they exactly look like. Once you read, you will know the method to write any summary.
So make it one for you. Each chapter must be summarized with elements and point that has been discussed. I have just told that it must be short on each chapter. Short in the sense, you must not skip the main points of the chapter at all. You must never skip the main gist of the chapter.
While doing a summary of a chapter you must take care of how practical are you doing it. This must be understood.
Set separate hours for studying each chapter
Do not read all the chapters at a time. You have to read them clearly one by one. Set some days to read one chapter and then follow the timetable.
Once you set some timetable for studying one each chapter in depth, do that without forgetting or getting lazy. If you do not feel interested to study that particular chapter, wait till you cultivate interest.
Try to get interested. But never jump to other chapters just because you are not interested in reading the designed chapter. If you do this way, you cannot really study well.
You will miss out some chapters at the end or you will just not learn about some chapters thoroughly. And there are possibilities that you may forget that too.
There are certain ways to study chapters separately. Now that already you know summaries very well, It becomes very easy to read all the chapters separately in detail. While reading your chapters separately, you must write some questions coming across the chapters,
Underline some important points which will help you for further study. If you do not understand any vocabulary, you must try to check a dictionary without postponing then and there itself. Never read chapters without understanding or become lazy to know the meanings of difficult words.
This is the best practice and you can crack your PhD entrance exam easily If you have enough depth of knowledge about the concepts of each chapter read in different days. Your timetable must be effective.
Plan the timetable for a number of days
Plan your timetable for 60 days and stick to those days without giving any room for procrastination. In the beginning, it may be difficult to follow the timetable that you have prepared.
But later on, you will get accustomed to doing it. Once you are in the well, you will have no problem what so ever in following the timetable. So make sure you get to note these points. I myself have made this type of timetable and I was really confident after some days about my Ph.D. entrance exam.
Your success lies in how good you have formulated your timetable rather than how much you studied. If you do not cover all the chapters in the number of days that your timetable has been designed, then what is the use of studying so much hard. You may get questions for other chapters too in the Ph.D. entrance exam.
That is why I tell you to take more interest in framing the timetable clearly. This will take you towards the road of cracking your Ph.D. entrance examination.
While preparing your timetable you must make sure to relax in some days. Like, for example, make Sunday free from the timetable or any other day that you feel comfortable to relax your mind.
All other days you can study hard according to the given schedule. This way of doing will refresh your mind and you can easily remember what you study on all the other weekdays.
Take Ph.D. mock entrance tests
If you have some money to pay online for mock exams conducted by some experts, then you can go for it. But do it 10 before your Ph.D. entrance test.
I say it is not required for the entrance exam. But it is all an option from your end. This will only extend our 120-hour plan to somewhat more hours. If you do not have money to attend mock exams online, then it is well and good. It is not a big problem what so ever.
There is a process of attending Ph.D. mock entrance test. Do not just go and pay blindly online. Just make some research about quality mock tests that are currently relevant and not age-old mock test with the old syllabus. Some online service will screw your money down from your pocket and they give you cheaper services.
So once you find a good site that serves with genuine mock tests online, Pay them the fees and join the group and take the regular test for some 10 days. Here there is a problem that after subscribing to the service, we are not determined to take those tests. In another case, you may attend just one mock test and keep silent for lack of your interest.
Do not do this way. This will waste your money. Unless you are serious with Ph.D. mock tests only, you try this methodology of studying.
Otherwise, it is always better for go with my suggested 120-hour schedule to crack the Ph.D. entrance test. Mock tests are really useful if you utilize them the proper way.
Practice previous papers of different PhD tests
One of the biggest mistakes that any Ph.D. aspirant can do is not going through the previous papers of PhD entrance test from a particular university that you are attending to.
Never do this. Unless you are sure about what type of questions are the giving in the exam, you cannot plan your 120 hours timetable effectively. So it is very important to gather all the PhD previous papers list and get through them with proper answers.
Learn the important question and include them to study in your 60 days normal study. I recommend collecting papers from the last 3 years.
Do not study older than 3 years. Usually, examiners will not give questions from too old question papers. Another secret I am giving out freely is that just stay away last years question paper.
For example, you are attending an exam in 2022, never study question paper that has been given in 2021. Nobody wants to give last years question paper exactly this year.
This is the right way. So leave out studying previous years question paper and practice the other last 3 years from then that you have left. This we call a smarter study which will help so much to crack your Ph.D. entrance test. Do not study supplementary question papers too.
Try to study regular exam previous papers to know exactly what are the important questions that are repeatedly given in the exam and that there is a chance to get in the upcoming exam of yours.
Give a break after a week of preparation
This is something psychological while preparing for your entrance exam. When you give some long after studying some chapter and revising, you will come to know whether you have sent all the information to your long-term memory or short-term memory.
Either are you able to recollect the information after a long time or you are forgetting such read information after a certain period of time? When you give a break for a week, you must be in a position to remember what you have studied. You must be able to answer questions clearly.
There is no meaning to study casually for that day’s satisfaction. You must send all information to long-term memory by revision again and again and testing your brain after some break.
Usually, I say this just because there are enough chances to forget because of tension during your PhD entrance exam. I have seen many PhD students saying me that they have forgotten what they have studied during the PhD entrance exam. So here tension plays its role.
So studying must be a serious task as long as you are able to remember during certain circumstances. I suggest you give a break for a week or even for a month to test your memory strongly.
This way of practicing your brain or training your memory will lead to a good chance of success in your entrance exam. Follow through all these techniques and think about doing and implementing them strongly. Be a doer rather than satisfied.
Follow certain PhD entrance tips
These are the tips that I am giving out from my success cracking a PhD entrance exam. But there are a lot more outside in some books or somewhere out there in the library about how to study effectively.
You can use all those resources and follow one regime without mixing up and getting confused well. In the end, you will give up. So follow the one-time table strongly that you are convinced.
The amount of effort that you put to crack this Ph.D. depends on how well you organize your studies. So not wasting much of your time. Start today itself doing things better to crack your Ph.D. entrance exam. Once you do them you will remain confident even in your oral interview.
This all happens with your steady determination about achieving something. This is to get admission in the university you desire and not the university that offers you admission for the sake of money. So think cleverly before feeling to appear for any Ph.D. entrance examination.
Prepare with all the techniques and smarter way of preparation will pay you much better than what you think to be. I am very confident that if you follow all that I have just told you in this article, you will win for sure.
You will stand first among all the Ph.D. aspirants. Admission is 100% guaranteed. Today itself you go out and collect some books that are important to study for the Ph.D. entrance exam and start studying them. I recommend studying research topic in details.
Sometimes universities ask you to write something about the topic you have chosen in a few lines. You must be ready for any type of question to answer in your Ph.D. entrance examination.
Never leave any questions blank in your Ph.D. entrance examination just because you do not know them. Attempt every question even though they are not up to the mark. Examiner will award you marks even for the garbage stuff.
So attempt fully all the questions and use all the exam time given to you. Do not leave your exam hall beforehand without the time getting over.
Use all the time until the end. This is another mistake that I have found with Ph.D. aspirants. They leave the exam hall within 30 minutes. This is not fair. If the exam time is 1-hour use that hour to write something good stuff or revise for some spelling mistakes.
Books for PhD entrance exam in English Literature
There are many books on Amazon. Once can easily look into one good book on English literature and prepare for PhD entrance exam.
PhD entrance exam question papers English literature
How to prepare for PhD entrance exam in management
Firstly you must try to understand what are the important chapters in management that more questions will be coming in every exam. For this, you must collect previous papers of PhD entrance exam in management subjects and try to observe them deeply. Here you will come to know which questions are important and which are not. This way you can understand which to include for your studies and which to exclude that are unimportant. For preparation books: check on amazon. You will get so many PET books for cracking PhD entrance exam.
PhD entrance exam question papers for psychology
These are the real time questions given in PhD entrance for Psychology subject
Syllabus for PhD entrance exam in English literature
The syllabus for English literature covers most of the periods. Below is the original syllabus that is almost common to every exam.
PhD examination previous question papers
Here is the site that can give previous questions for PhD exam.
