Books to read

Here is a list for great books which students can read is summer holidays

How to win friends and influence people- This book is written by Dale Carnegie. This book will help you establish a good relationship with your friends and faculties. The first copy of the book was published in 1935, and it becomes an instant hit in the market. Pocket books is the publisher of this book.

The power of your subconscious mind- Written by Joseph Murphy, this book will help you to understand your hidden potential and how you can use your mind to get everything which you want to get in your life. A must read for every student. The first copy of the book was published in 1963, and the publisher is Pocket books.

Don’t say yes when you want to say no- This book will help you to gain confidence to speak anybody fearlessly. The book helps in overcoming shyness of a person and helps him/her in becoming assertive in life. This book is written by Herbert Fens Terheim and Jean Bear. The first copy of the book was published in 1975 by Dell Publishing Company.

Emotional intelligence- This book will help you to understand your psychology. This book is written by Daniel Goleman. The first copy of the book was published in 1996 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Freedom is not free- This book is written by Shiv Khera. This book will help you to become a better citizen of the nation and fight against corruption. The first copy of the book was published in 2005 by Macmillan India.

University of success- This book is written by some of the best authors of world and will help you in self-improvement and getting success in life. The first copy of the book was published in 1983 by Bantam Books.

Business Maharajas- Written by Gita Piramal, this book will give you insights into the lives of some of the best industrialists of India. This book is all about their life, struggles and the success they got through hard work. The first copy of the book was published in 2000 by Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.

Psycho Cybernetics- Written by Maxwell Maltz, this book will help you to create a positive image of yourself, which ultimately helps you to reach your destiny. The first copy of the book was published in 1989 by Pocket Books U. S.

Biography of Swami Vivekananda- Read any book on Swami Vivekananda. It will give you tremendous inspiration and motivation to do well in your life.

Chicken Soup for Teenagers soul- In this book you will 101 inspiring stories which will help you to keep yourself motivated. This book was published in 2011 by Westland.

Change your strategy

There was a vegetable hawker in a city. He used to keep his vegetables in a very unorganized way in his pull cart. Day by day his sales were going down and he was finding it difficult to earn for his livelihood. One day he met with an old man who said to him to leave his cart full of vegetables in the evening and take it from him, the next day morning. The hawker did the same as he respected that old man. He left his cart at the place of old man. In the night that old man threw all the rotten vegetables from the cart and only kept fresh vegetables, and decorated the cart in such a way that it was looking very attractive. Next day when the hawker came to take his cart he was surprised to see his cart which was looking new and well decorated. When he went to market with that cart he sold out by midafternoon. That evening when he met with the old man he advised him to change his strategy of arranging vegetables in cart and to keep only fresh vegetables in the cart.    

Same way we also need to change our strategy throughout our lives to get more.

How to use summer holidays productively?

Students get summer holidays every year. Most of the students don't know how to use their summer holidays productively. Here are some tips to use your summer holidays productively.

Summer camp: During summer holidays you can join summer camps. Try to learn basketball, swimming, rock climbing, art as a summer camp? If you love languages, why not try learning sign language? Learn to write, draw, bind books, make photo albums, knit ... the list goes on and on. Try something different that you know nothing whatsoever about, and you will gain a new skill and possibly find a lifelong love. Another upside is that you have a lot of time to practice and put your skill to use!

Study. Particularly if you are a secondary or senior-secondary student, studying remains essential even though the school year is not running. Look over last year's notes, or do some research into what next year's courses have in store. When school resumes, you`ll be grateful that your academic knowledge and skills have not deteriorated. Even if you are in high school student, do your summer assignments in a timely manner and review your notes. You will be grateful when you return to school! Most of the time, the first few weeks of school will be quite a surprise, as your brain has seemingly turned to mush and you have forgotten how to do even the simplest assignments. Keep your brain active, read for school or pleasure, research your own interests, or even just get into crossword puzzles.

How to solve multiple choice questions

How to solve Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ’s)

Multiple choice questions are the questions which have four or five options. And you have to select the right option out of the given options. This type of question is nowadays used in almost all competitive exams and in school and college exams too.

Preparing for the MCQ exams

Unlike essay exams the preparation for an MCQ exam is totally different. In the essay type question, by just having the main headings you can write the whole answer by jotting down your own ideas. But when you are preparing for the MCQ exam, then you need to go through the whole book. Only then you can score very good marks, otherwise you will only get passing marks. So when you are studying from the start of the session then you need to underline all the important lines of the chapter from where the question can be framed. This underlining of the important lines will help you a lot during the exam time. And by just by reading these lines you will be able to prepare for the exams. This is the most effective way to prepare for the MCQ based exams. The other way for preparation for MCQ based exam is to go through all the previous years’ papers and solving them in the given time frame will help you a lot. When you are going through the old question papers, go through all the options which are given in the questions. By doing so, you will get an idea of the part of the chapter from which the question is asked. Sometimes you will find reframed questions from old question papers with the same options. So be ready.  Because the examiner can ask the question from any part of the chapter of the book, you need to prepare from the entire book.

Starting a multiple choice exam

First of all you should fill all the details asked in the Candidate identification grid. While filling this information you should be very careful, because sometimes the wrong information means cancellation of your answer sheet. So be careful while writing the details of personal information. While filling the answers, make the circle in a proper way. If your circles are not properly rounded, then your answer will not be considered and no mark will be allotted for that particular answer. While filling the answers, fill them carefully, sometimes in their hurry students fill in the wrong answers. Sometimes one wrong answer leads to the wrong answers of many more questions. How does this happen? For example you have filled the question-5’s answer in the circle of answer- 6, and so on; in this case all the answers you mark will be wrong after five. In such a case if you find the mistake then try to change the answers quickly and if time is not sufficient then you need to ask for extra time from your invigilator to rectify the mistakes. So it is very necessary for you to be careful while filling the answers.

Some quick tips for MCQ exam

• Be sure to fill the answers of every question, if negative marking is not there. And if negative marking is there then answer only those questions about which you are sure.
• Fill the answers carefully at the right space.
• Completely erase the wrong answer.
• Be sure not to mark two options for the same question. This will cancel your marks for that question.
• Work fast during the exams, first solve the easy questions.
• Underline the keywords in the question booklet. Words like many, some, none, always, never, more, best, bad, sometimes, less, are a sample of key words which can help you to understand the question fast.
• Mark the questions which you want to reconsider.
• Check all the answers and personal information before handing over the filled sheet to the examiner. Mark the answers on the question paper also so that you can check it with your answer sheet.

Reconsidering questions and changing answers of MCQ’s

Some research has been conducted on the issue of changing the answers of MCQ’s. The results of the studies suggest that if you have a good reason or a strong idea that the other answer choice is correct, then you can change it.

How to overcome shyness

A great video on how to overcome Shyness

How to keep yourself active

FRESH FISH

 

There is a story about the fresh fish in Korea. Korean people always like to eat fresh fish. But there is a problem; sea near to Korea did not have many fish from decades. So the Fishermen of Korea decided to bring the fish from far away sea water. But there was a problem with far away sea water fish. Once they were brought to cities, the fish were not fresh, and Korean did not like the taste. The fishermen got a solution of this problem, they installed freezers in boats. Now the boats can go for farther distances and can stay longer there. However, the Koreans were able to distinguish the taste of fresh and frozen fish, and they did not like the frozen fish.

So, the fishermen tried one another technique to keep fish fresh. They installed some fish tanks in boats. They would catch a fish and stuff them in water tanks. But, in tanks fish used to move for some time after that they stop and become inactive.  They were tired and dull, but still alive. Unfortunately, the Korean can still taste the difference.  Because the fish did not move for many days, they lose their freshness.

Now the Korean companies were facing a big challenge to supply fresh fish to the market. All their previous attempts were failure. They were looking for some new approach to solve this problem.

So, ultimately they got a solution:

To keep the taste of the fish fresh, the Korean companies still keep the fish in water tanks. But, now they did a trick. In the tank they put a small shark. Now this little shark used to eat some fish, but it keeps active the rest of the fish. This way the Korean fishermen were able to supply fresh fish to their countrymen.

 The lesson we get from this story is that to keep ourselves active we need to continuously challenge ourselves. Otherwise we will become inactive and dull and will not be able to achieve much in our lives.

How to overcome shyness

Shyness is a problem in which a person find it difficult to talk with new people and even he has many other fears like what other people will say when he will do a certain type of work. Shyness hinders a persons growth, it stops him/her taking actions. It is very necessary for students and college going students to overcome shyness. Here, I am giving 10 tips to overcome shyness.

1.      Understand Your Shyness

Try to understand your shyness. What is the situation which makes you shy, try to understand it and then take advice of your parents or teachers.

Seek to understand your unique brand of shyness and how that manifests in your life. Understand what situation triggers this feeling? And what are you concerned with at that point?

2.      Learn to Like Yourself

You should remember that you are the unique person in this world. Practice appreciating yourself and liking the unique expression that is you. Give yourself a treat for your achievements.

3.      Releasing Anxiety through Breath

Whenever you are feeling anxious or not feeling good about yourself practice to become more assertive in order to overcome this problem. Take deep breaths and day all is well.

4.      Releasing Anxiety through Movement

One way of viewing anxiety is that it is blocked energy that needs to be released. We can release this energy through physical movement.

Exercises like jogging or walking will help to re-channel some of the blocked energies, but also helps by pulling you out of the situation and shifts your state of mind. This refreshed state of mind will help by adding perspectives to things.

5.      Visualization

Visualization helps us to overcome our negative pictures. Visualize yourself in the situation as a confident and happy person helps to shape your perception of yourself when you are actually in the situation. Close your eyes, sit back somewhere relaxing, listen to some relaxing music, imagine yourself in a scene or situation and see yourself the way you would like to be. Get all your senses involved to make it real.

6.      Affirmation

Positive words carry incredible energy. What we repeatedly say to ourselves, gets heard by our sub-conscious mind, and it acts accordingly. If we repeatedly tell ourselves that we are incapable, and too shy to do anything, we will become increasingly aware of evidence to back up this ‘fact’, and our actions will always match what we tell ourselves. Similarly, if we repeatedly tell ourselves that we are capable, confident, and wonderful human beings, our unconscious mind will likely surface the awareness that gives evidence to this new ‘fact’. While, we can’t lie to ourselves, positive visualization and affirmation are helpful in placing us along the road of positive thought patterns.

7.      Accept Rejection

Accept the possibility that we can be rejected and learning to not take it personally. Remember, you are not alone and we all experience rejections. It is part of life and part of the learning process. The key lies in how you handle rejections when they come. It helps to be mentally prepared before they happen. Never take it personally. It was not your fault. It just wasn’t meant to be. The scenario was not the best fit for you.

8.      Stop Labelling Yourself

Don’t label yourself as a shy person. You are you, you are unique, and you are beautiful. Can’t we just leave it at that?

9.      Practice Social Skills

Like any other skill, social skills can be learned through practice and experience. The more you put yourself out there, the easier it becomes next time. If you have a hard time knowing what to say, you can practice what to say ahead of time.

10.  Seek and Record Your Successes

As you overcome this condition we’ve been labelling as shyness, you will have many wins and realizations about yourself. You will gain insights into the truth behind social scenarios. You will start to view yourself differently and come to recognize that you can become comfortable and confident. When these wins and realizations happen, make sure to keep a notebook and write them down. Keeping a journal of your successes will not only boost self confidence, but also shift your focus towards something that can benefit you.