How to prepare your child for private school exam and common entrance
This article give detailed information on how to prepare your child for private school exam, common entrance, and competitive exams.
All private schools, state schools, and federal schools have an entrance exam that all intending students have to take before they can be offered an admission into the school. And these exams are highly competitive due to the number of people seeking admission into the schools.
I am aware that most federal government college, Airforce schools, Navy schools, Command schools, Nigeria military school and some highly rated private schools in Nigeria do conduct competitive entrance exams for their new intake.
My concern is not about how competitive the exams are but how your child will ace the exam through adequate preparation.
Below is what you can do as a parent to help prepare your child for any of the exams
Before I made my points on how you can be of help to your child, it is important I let you know that most of the exams are divided into five sections: Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, Mathematics, English Language, and Current affairs.
Having the knowledge of how the sections of the exam will be will give you a direction of how to be of help to your child in excelling in the exam.
How to prepare your child for private school exam, common entrance, and competitive exams
- Get your child a preparatory guide for practice
During my own time, a book by M.O. Odiaka was what I used to prepare for my common entrance. It has many questions on each section I have mentioned above. Nowadays a book by Ngo C. Ngo is what some schools recommend for their pupils.
Apart from the two books I have mentioned, some schools do provide past questions when you purchase their entrance examination form.
The essence of the preparatory guide is to let your child get familiar with the type of questions he might see in the exam.
- Get him/her a good private teacher
Some parents may not have the time to sit their child down and put him/her through difficult questions during his/her practice time. And that is why you can employ a good teacher to put your child through.
A good private teacher will be the one to teach, motivate, and inspire your child during the time he is preparing for the exam.
- Help your child to schedule his/her time
Naturally, most children are playful, they prefer playing to reading. So as a parent, you have to make sure that your child has a reading timetable which he/she must follow.
- Encourage and make him feel confident
One of the reasons why some students fail competitive exams is because of the lack confidence in their ability to excel. It is the job of the parent to understand the confidence level of their child and work on it before he/she go for the exam.
- Help him/her on how to read and understand
This is one of the effective ways to be successful in any competitive exams.
Recommended: How a student can read and understand
Lastly, you must make sure your child has a sound sleep a day before the exam, eat a balanced diet, and arrive at the exam venue like one hour before the exam. Getting to the exam venue early will make him feel relaxed and will reduce any form of pressure.
