Tips on viva voce

Students often shudder at the name of Viva exams. The time when you have to answer the continuous questions being thrown at you by a whole team of teachers sitting in front of you, can make anyone lose their confidence. Moreover, in the final exams you have to face an external teacher who is from some other school. The fear of the unknown even makes the brightest student go blank.

We know that Viva seems to be scary to almost all of you, but it is not that difficult. All you need is to follow some rules to ace the viva voce.

Dress appropriately – As you know that the first impression is the last impression. The first thing

that the teacher will look at is your uniform to form an impression of how you might be as a student. Once that is formed, usually in the first few seconds, you will have to try exceptionally hard to alter that perception. Wear clean, properly ironed, neat and tidy clothes. Please leave your earrings, necklaces at home. If you’re habitual at makeup, make sure it is minimalistic. Avoid exposing tattoos or any other mark on your body that might tick off the teacher. Your shirt needs to stay inside the trousers/ skirt and the teacher most certainly would not be impressed if you flash your inner wear.

Be punctual – The last thing you want is annoying the teachers by being late. Try to reach early so that you do not lose marks on punctuality. Moreover do not try out your various innovative styles by making excuses. Just humbly apologize and enter.

Manners – Greet your teachers and ask permission to go inside the class instead of dashing into the room. Do not go and sit before they ask you to. All this may seem very unimportant, but is surely taken into account by the teachers.

Do not panic – Even if you are stressed, try not to panic and lose your calm. A stressed mind can make you forget things that you had learnt.

Be confident – Always wear a smile and be confident. Personality matters a lot.

Be specific – Be specific to the question and give simple answer. Try not to concoct stories. Beating around the bush will just annoy the teachers. If you do not know the answer, just say sorry and that you do not know it.

Notebook and stationary – Some students forget to bring their practical notebook, which holds a major portion of the practical marks. Make sure that you carry your practical notebook and stationary like a pen or a pencil with you.

Do not be overconfident – Being confident is a good thing, but having an air of overconfidence is not taken in the right stride by your mentors.

Prepare well – Make sure that you know all the things in your practical notebook thoroughly. Most of the questions are asked from the practical notebook itself. Prepare the concepts related to the experiments like the principle of the experiment, observations and conclusion thoroughly. Questions are asked from the book too. So, prepare the NCERT book well and solve the exercise questions. For example for physics try and refer to different sites that provide ncert physics class 12 solutions for learning better. You can do this for every subject.

Pictorial representation – Prepare your diagrams for biology, for physics – circuits of resistance, the different logic gates, ray diagram in optics. Students are often asked to draw them on paper or white board in the exam.

Formulas and equations – The formulas and the equations should be prepared to one’s fingertips. So that when the teacher asks you to solve some problem, you solve with ease as you know the formula. Chemistry is all about chemical equations and formula, practice balancing the equation and formulas for molarity, molality and normality are of great importance. Along with the formula make sure you know what the terms mean.

With these tips we hope that you are able to ace you viva voce.