Q8india.com, The well-known news portal in Kuwait recently had the opportunity of having a chat with Ms. EVELYN CISAL JOECHIM, one of the toppers of CBSE Class X from Indian Community School of Kuwait.

Congratulations on your CBSE Class X result! What are your feelings on this achievement?

I feel so proud to be a topper of ICSK because CBSE has a lot of competitive students  so being a topper is great 

 Have you thought about your career plans yet?

No, not yet 

The lockdown was announced in March and things changed. How did you prepare for your exams during COVID-19? How did it affect your preparation? What was the most striking thing during this preparation?

First of all I was shocked to know , when covid started I was like , I don’t know that CBSE would conduct exams or not , then gradually the school started with the MCQ questions then i was not familiar with questions my teachers helped me a lot in preparations of the MCQs and my parents also helped  then I aced the exams them exams felt a lots easier . I kept practicing from a lot of different books and guides.     

What was your daily routine for Class X exams before lockdown and after? How much time did you devote to self-study because coaching can only teach you but you have to do the work? 

Before covid I used go to tuitions and come back  that took a lot of time but later when it was online tuitions you get a lot of time to prepare yourself like from different guides ask questions and we used to get immediate responses my teachers used to give me immediate reposes that’s a big plus point that I have got. I used to study mostly MCQs ,this year it was like a lot of MCQs . 

How was the preparation different from the early days to just a month before Class X exam?

I was never prepared , like I was preparing for exams. You know you should constantly practice what questions are gonna come. Basically you ask friends to help you ask the grandparents and the whole family to pray for you . 

What was your exam day strategy? What was the roughest and the easiest section according to you?

My toughest subject was science especially physics like I used to loss a lot marks in physics for that i used to look at guides ,it helped me but still I had look through a lot , I didn’t get that much time to look at different sides a lot of teachers used to help me during this covid time , I asked a question the next day I get the reply , sometimes the next second I get the reply , it is for me a big plus point but before covid days and all I used to be like  we should wait till next day to get the reply , we should go to the teacher to get the reply during the covid time and all very easy for me to the answer .   

Which college is your dream college for studying further ? 

India has a lot of nice colleges but I would prefer going to London or something like that .  

How did your family support you and motivate you during this stressful lockdown period? How did you de-stress during your preparation?

So first , I had a lot of stress in the beginning but we thought that the whole portion was there ,then CBSE declared 30% is canceled. A little bit of relief was there but still we cant be relieved because they will make the questions even hard . so, ,my parents used to say like ,especially my mother used say that look through extra questions keep on practicing and my brother used to help me through technological stuff like getting into the meetings and some network issue he used to solve , when ever I used to get stressed out my brother is here so like he cheers me up ,we watch something half an hour Tv or we play . Especially physical health is more important not just mental health so during this covid times I urge people need not out to get some fresh air or play otherwise people get sick . I used to get some help from the family , they used to help a lot .       

What role did your school ICSK play in your successful achievement ? 

My school , especially during some test ,sometimes I used to log out of the exam so when I told my class teacher that second she used to tell the IT team and then get settled and do my exam my school helped a lot in such cases . There used to be a lot of cases like that and if there is some net issue they understand and they solve the problem.  

Tell us what’s so special about your school teachers and management, how did they inspire you  ? 

My school principal used to conduct meeting to 10th std and used to inspire he used to say never to procrastinate the work , never to keep it the next day he used to ask us to make long term goals and short term goals .so I used to follow that and that helped me a lot so the meetings helped and the teachers are like very helpful when ever I get doubt they call and solve  

What message do you have for students who are going to attend next year ? 

24 hours don’t study like that, you take care of your mental and physical health, but don’t have fun every time you should keep in mind that you should study, you should keep in mind how much marks you should score , based on that study .  

What is your future plan ? 

I am thinking of taking actual science and then MBA .