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

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

I  am pretty satisfied ,I wasn’t really expecting it , when I saw the results I was pretty happy 

Have you thought about your career plans yet?

Yes, of course , after this I am planning to go to Netherland for linguistics and then I have my masters and everything planned out. I want to go into academics . 

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?

Honestly for me the most striking thing was the change in teaching like in the school normally  you know face to face in a classroom . it would be more interactive because it was online , normally the teacher would be just teaching there would be student interaction studying wise it was more independent , they give you assignments and check but here it was all up yo you , so this year I depended on writing a lot more 

What was your daily routine for Class XII 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 like during school like I used to come back and may be like 2 hours a day I would do homework and study , after during lockdown and it became online and every thing , I would spend maybe around the same time  but distribute it differently instead of spending time on homework , I spend it on trying to absorb what was thought in class because you can’t really pay attention in online class that much and when exam time came closer I would spend a lot more time around 5hours per day , I would study that much . 

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

Early days I was more relax I would not rush myself so much but a month before the exam , a couple of weeks before I would use test questions instead  of just reading I ask myself questions I have a lot of people who ask me questions , then I would write notes without looking and anything to see if I knew the material properly .

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

The easiest , I think because the exams were held during the  evenings , I have taken it a little more relaxed because it didn’t feel like a proper exam. Writing  was pretty easy. There wasn’t a lot of pressure , like I would sit and I wouldn’t study on the day of the exam because it would increase my stress a lot more. I would sit and focus on   getting my materials ready in check if I had everything in place . 

Which college is your dream college for studying further ?  

Right now I am aiming at Amsterdam University , I think I will get in hopefully. 

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

My family were always super super supportive  when ever I used to stress out of the exams they used to be there for me, you know like, comfort me like everything is gonna be okay nothing is gonna mess up your future   destressing may be when I realize I have spent over 5 hours a day I would take a step back and take a second for myself and think back and I come back to my normal life .

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

Teachers , they were very very through with what they do, which made a major difference they help instantly whenever either of us had a doubt , we wouldn’t be kept waiting in case we didn’t understand something and ICSK had a system of weekly assignments , where they give a bunch of questions which might be in exams and that helped.  

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

 My class teacher was the main inspiration to me. She was my history teacher and history is one of my favorite subjects . Every class she used to tell us about how important it is for us to read and learn properly . And our principal we had this morning assemblies  and he gave us motivational speeches to try to calm us down and give us assurances , in case any of us is stressed , so they didn’t put any extra pressure on us instead they focused on calming us down, which is nice 

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

Next year I am not sure if it’s gonna be online or face to face , if it is online my advice would be not to slack off , because I realized including myself we have habit of not paying attention knowing they can’t catch us , so my advice would be to actually pay attention keep up with everything that your teachers are telling like be on time with you assignments  and if you keep doing that like at the end it will be a massive help .

What is your future plan?

Right now I’m taking a gap here next year I will get in to college , over there I will be studying linguistics , after that we will see what happens .