NOTES:
ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE BEFORE THE SYLLABUS WAS CHANGED!!
REVIEW CONTINUED IN COMMENTS!!
Having given my 10th Board exams earlier this year and attaining 94% marks, I guess I can give you some really good advise on how to handle this exam. I guess some of my points wont be really valid as a major part of the syllabus has been revised, but even then, you’ll find that much of the idea remains the same.
First and foremost, although you must realize that this is the biggest examination you will be giving till date, it will also be one of the easiest. If you take my advice, don’t worry about it at all. Let your parents and teachers do all the worrying. One of the most irritating things you’ll have to cope up with this year is the constant reminder by your parents, teachers, relatives and others that you’ll have to study a lot. ’’This is your board year. You shouldn’t watch TV, spend too many hours playing’’ etc... etc... Take it from me, those are the things that will save you from dying out of boredom later next year. Personally, I didn’t miss a single world cup match in which India played even though I might have an exam the next day. I’m glad to say that my father was very supportive of me. He kept on telling my mom that as long as I studied a few hours daily, a match wouldn’t do much harm, in fact, if I were not allowed to see it, I might get frustrated and not be able to concentrate well. But that doesn’t mean that I watched cricket right from the toss till the presentations. All along I had my books with me and when it got boring, I practised some maths questions or read my science textbooks. The worst thing your parents could do to you would be to remove the television. In fact, I would say that 1-2 hrs of TV is quite essential for you. But that shouldn’t stretch to 6 hrs.
Another important factor will be your teachers. Uptil now, your favourite teachers might have been the ones who just gave you the important notes from which questions came in the exams. Now things will be different. The teachers will have no idea exactly what questions will come. (Even though the really experienced ones find some pattern of frequently occuring questions). But if your teachers continue to give you notes, this could very well be the reason why you would score 75-85 instead of 90-100. The best teachers are those who make you study the textbooks yourself. In maths, I remember my teacher always used to make all the concepts very clear and then for a week or so she would tell us to keep on practising questions. It didn’t matter to her what books we used, as long as we did it. Our History teacher used to read the chapter in the class and although, I slept in class three times during the year, I guess, some of the main points remained in my mind even without my needing to study it.
I wont tell you to make out serious timetables and divide the year into different phases because it will make studying much more boring. Just make a point to study 1-2 hrs daily till November and then increase it slowly to 4-5-6 till February. Its entirely your wish what you want to study. It would be even better if you can get a Maths teacher and finish 60% of maths during the summer vacations. I would also recommend you to start Physics in the vacations as well. (I am not sure just what the level of physics is this year, but during my time, it was so easy that even had I started physics around December I would still have secured 80+ marks). English will cause you serious problems ’’if you study hard’’ all through the year. I used to read the chapters twice (at least) before every test and school exams. And by February, I had gotten really tired of reading the same sentences and didn’t read any of the chapters (except the poems) that month or in March. Its best if you have taken Sanskrit (Manika) because I would rate it the easiest subject to score off (including english and the physics we had). I cannot help you in Hindi as I dropped it the first chance I got. Social Studies is another subject which I hate, although this year’s History (except the last chapter) was quite interesting. Biology and chemistry were really boring stuff. I would also advise you to take a 6th subject like IT. It requires only about an hour of preparation and you will surely score above 90. This will help you to increase your percentage. My percentage comes out to be 92 without including IT.
Maths - Like I said, finish a major part very early and keep on practising. If you take my word, don’t do NCERT (everybody else may disagree, but doing NCERT is a bother. You’ll find the same questions in R.D. as solved examples. This way you wont get tense if you are unable to do it right before an exam). Complete R.D.Sharma once on your own (or with a tutor) and then redo the questions before every school exam. Around November you should have completed the syllabus (not including the statistics part) and attempt U-Like Sample Papers and Together with Maths. Don’t worry too much if you aren’t able to solve the Set II problems in Together With Maths. I have found some of the same questions in my class X1 NCERT. If you have time, do R.S.Aggarwal. My tutor made me do from 5 books - R.D, R.S, U-Like, Together and a little bit from NCERT. From November onwards (after Diwali) you should do at least one sample paper every three days and increase it to one/day in January and February. Take my advice and do Trigo very well. Make sure you can do all the identities with ease. Also practise Geometry. These two were my favourite topics. Get used to componendo and dividendo (I think they have removed it now from the syllabus) and be prepared to use it in Heights and Distances questions. This is a very handy trick especially for a particularly irritating question (the lake and the cloud’s shadows). You’ll really hate this question unless you solve it using C&D (none of the refreshers use C&D, though).
English - Your teacher might make you get some sample papers like Together or Comprehensive. I would recommend Together since it has a lot of stuff for practice. But don’t worry. Very few people actually do them. Just do the sample papers and an exercise or two at random before school exams and if you didn’t solve them with ease do a few more. Don’t follow your teacher’s notes. Only read them once or twice. These notes wont help you in the boards. And don’t try to impress the examiner with flowery language. Use simple words and short sentences and revise your formats well. Make sure you actually understand the poem and the message conveyed. Rime of the Ancient Mariner was perhaps the toughest stuff we did in English but it also had the simplest questions (e.g What was the name of the bird? Who killed it?).
Social Studies - I used Sultan Chand Self Tutor. But I also read the lessons (at least the history ones) from the text book. I found history very interesting. But I never studied Geography or Civics. The best book for Eco (at least according to my syllabus) was B.L. Gupta. Our history teacher while reading the chapters gave us the important questions. If yours also gives them, make sure you do the answers in a register. Your aim at maintaing registers/note books shouldn’t be because the teacher said so but because you might need it later. I didn’t maintain any maths/civics/eco/geography(I hate this subject)/english/physics notebooks because those were the subjects I knew I would study entirely from the text book or from refreshers. Don’t really make a huge effort trying to memorise the dates. Apart from the major events (WW1, WW2, etc...) the dates don’t hold as much importance as they used to. Get your facts and points correct.