We at Universal Tutorials, recommend a particular method of study prior to exams. We call it the “Backward Reading” method. We recommend the “Backward Reading” over the conventional “Forward Reading” method.

What is “Forward Reading” method?
Conventionally most students follow this method. In this method whenever a student is preparing for an exam, he/ she starts from the first page of the chapter that is being asked in the exam. The convention wisdom is that first you read the chapter that is being asked in the exam. Thus most students first do a reading of the chapter. In-fact we have observed most of the students just restrict themselves to reading the chapter and memorizing the key concepts every time an exam happens.

So what is wrong in this approach? Why recommend 'Backward Reading' ?
Well the forward reading approach works well for most conventional exams. But for you students the situation is different. How? Well, most of you will agree that at present your syllabus familiarity is pretty high. What we mean by syllabus familiarity, is that for most of the chapters, you must have read them once with us, once with school, may be you must have been tested on these chapters at least a couple of times already. Thus during these earlier exams you have already read the chapters. Now at this stage if you still follow the 'Forward Reading' approach, every time before an exam, you tend to waste a lot of time. You need an effective, time saving and scientific method to prepare for the Board Exams.

What is 'Backward Reading' approach?
In this approach, since your syllabus familiarity is very high, we recommend not to begin from the first page of the chapter and not reading the whole chapter every time before an exam. Rather we recommend starting from the last page of your chapter where all the questions are given. We advise you to pick a rough note book along side and start scribbling the answers for the questions that you know how to solve. You need not write full detailed answers, just scribble the important points. It may so happen that you may not know the answers of some questions. Then, we recommend to open the inside pages of the chapter to find out the correct answer. You will be able to identify the right answers as your syllabus familiarity is very high.

What are the advantages of this 'Backward Reading':
There are a lot of advantages of this 'Backward Reading'. These are as follows:
In this approach, you are studying in question answer mode only. This is how you will be tested in the Board exams. For the answers that you know, you are revising the syllabus that you already know. For the answers that you do not know, you are scientifically identifying your weak areas and strengthening them.
If you start following this method you will realize it saves immense time. If you continuously keep practicing by this method, you will get confidence from the fact that without reading the chapter, you are able to answer all the questions and score well. This method is very effective given the fact before the Board exam in March it is not practically possible to read the full syllabus before the day of the exam.

Which books should I follow for implementing 'Backward Reading':
If you have questions regarding which books to follow, we at UT recommend the following books in priority as given:
1st Level: NCERT Text Books (for std. ICSE your school textbooks)
2nd Level: UT Notes
3rd Level: Any other reference books that are recommended by school (follow any one reference book, we strongly believe all books are pretty much alike, do not get overwhelmed with lot of extra reference books)

Conclusion:

the backword reading method recommended by UT to study in question answer mode instead of the conventional method of reading the chapter saves time, identify and strengthen the weak areas theeby increasing the student's confidence level.