Important Tips to improve English for competitive exams

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Important Tips to improve English for competitive
exams English language plays a very determining
part in any government exam. If youre aspiring
for any such examination, you need to have a
good command over English language.
There are some competitive examinations, where
questions are provided in Hindi or Regional
languages also, but the fact remains, that there
is a separate section in every exam where your
knowledge of English is tested. This section
carries no option for any other language, so you
are kind of stuck in it. To ease this difficulty,
you need to lay down special emphasis over your
language preparation so that you dont lose marks
due to lack of knowledge of English. Now, if
youre someone who is not too good at English or
is average in studies, you need not to worry.
Just follow some tips and keep up the hard work,
soon youll have the knowledge that you seek. So,
lets get started!
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Grammar- Grammar is the main essence of any
language and to know a language you must have
command over grammar part. The day you realize
that you need to prepare for English, the first
step you should be doing is, to ace its grammar.
To understand the question or to answer the
question, you need to know about how sentences
are formed and what they mean. Do not directly go
for heavy-heavy books of grammar, start with
basic school books. Start with learning Part of
Speech, Tenses, Narration and Voice. At first
learn the rules then try to apply them in
practical life. Once you start getting familiar
with the rules, focus on things like Modals,
Prepositions, Adjectives, Gerund, and Infinitive
etc. In a few months, youll notice a change in
your orientation. You will have knowledge of
rules and their application. Then you can try
some standard books of grammar such as Wren
Martin or S.P.Bakshi. Vocabulary- Once you get an
idea about the grammar, you must go for
Vocabulary. Start with learning the words which
you use daily, try to know the name of things
that you use daily. Grab any dictionary and try
to learn as many new words as you can. But
remember to revise and use those words,
otherwise youll forget them soon. A very good
source of learning new words can be newspapers. I
would also suggest you to listen to English
Songs, Podcasts and videos they introduce you
with new meanings every day. Apart from this, you
can search for specific pdfs of Vocabulary for
your exam there are plenty of those available
on the internet. A very standard book for
Vocabulary is Word Power Made Easy by Norman
Lewis. This book covers 85 of your vocabulary
if you grasp a hold on it. Always prepare
Synonyms and Antonyms for every word, some
questions are asked on this part also.
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• Bonus Tips for Vocabulary- Every person has
  capacity of learning new words. Some find it
  difficult to retain a lot of words. Here are two
  things that you can do-
• Divide the words in negative or positive tone.
  For example- Optimistic, Sanguine, Buoyant etc.
  are words which denote something positive,
  whereas Acerbic, Scanting, Vicious, Caustic etc.
  are the words which give negative tone. You can
  just remember the tone of the word. When such
  word comes in a passage, you can easily
  determine whether it is saying something positive
  or negative.
• Try to learn root words, for example- such as
  Bene means good, Bio means life, Aqua
  means water and Mal means bad. Whenever any
  word starts with these root words, you will
  automatically get the meaning.
• Comprehension- In many exams, we see unseen
  passages and paragraphs for comprehension. You
  have to read the passage thoroughly and
  understand what it says. Then the passage is
  followed by some questions, which you have to
  answer. In these questions, they can ask you to
  give general answers or to give the title of the
  passage or they can ask meaning of some words. To
  attempt these questions perfectly, you need to
  practice comprehension daily. Buy any book for
  practice or check on internet for daily
  passages. Try to attempt them in as less time as
  possible.
• Read the passage thoroughly and then move to the
  questions. Do not miss the central idea as it
  helps you to decide the title. Watch English
  Movies for better understanding of context, it
  also helps.
• Spellings- Do not underestimate spellings in any
  examination. Sometimes questions are asked to
  correct the spelling, and the options are very
  confusing. To attempt such questions, you must
  memorize the spellings very well. Also, when you
  write subjective

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answers, you are judged by your spelling too. Bad
spelling makes a bad impression upon the
examiner. Newspapers- A lot of people would have
suggested you to start your preparation of
English language by reading newspapers. However,
I would suggest that one must know the grammar
and the vocabulary first, so that when you start
a newspaper, you understand it better. As a
beginner, start by some light newspapers such as
Economic Times and gradually move towards The
Hindu or The Indian Express. Look very carefully
at the new words that you find in the newspaper,
and learn how to create better sentence
structure. Do not read too much in a day, read
only that much which you can memorize in a day.
Continue this for about 6 months, and youll see
a drastic change in your English. Write what you
learn- When you learn a new word, or you learn a
new way of sentence formation, always make short
notes of that thing. Because when we write
something, we memorize that thing even better.
You can make some flash cards or you can write
those words in a notebook. Either way, dont
forget to write them. Shape your knowledge- Once
you learn plenty of words, grammar and rules of
English language, its time to shape your
knowledge. You might be thinking, that How Ill
shape my knowledge? Well! Recognize the area
which requires work and revise the portion which
you know the best. For example- if you have good
command over grammar, but are weak in vocabulary,
give less time to grammar and focus more on
vocabulary. Make a routine and identify
your strengths and weaknesses. Once you know that
how much have you covered and how much is left,
youll know how to cover those left things. There
are many Government e learning Websites from
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where you can also explore more subjects and
important topics from and can start your
preparation. Hopefully this article guides you
in some way! Click here Online Learning Platforms
to learn Basics of English.