Why an average student should also sit for an Olympiad
Olympiad exams are still a comparatively new approach in the Indian schooling system. It’s often misunderstood and seen as an extra burden apart on top of the syllabus. Olympiad exams are school-level competitive exams conducted by various non-profit or private organizations. In India, Hindustan Olympiad, to be held in February 2022, is a great platform that allows kids to showcase their knowledge in each subject. This national level competition is being jointly organised by Hindustan Times and Doubtnut, a popular online learning platform. “Doubtnut is being used by about 5 crore students across the platform right now, the most used education app of India. The biggest hook is doubt solving, Students click the picture of a question and get a video solution immediately. The users come from all strata of society. 85% are coming from tier 2,3 & 4 cities. It's really a proud moment for us to partner with HT Olympiad, with a strong heritage of 6 years and more than 20K school participations, showing the quality level of one of the world’s biggest Olympiads. It is an excellent platform that effectively tests students in their academic abilities and makes them aware of their strengths and weaknesses,” says Tanushree Nagori, Co-Founder, Doubtnut.
Olympiads are not mandatory curricular activities like school exams. So why should an average student tackle them at all? Here are reasons why they are a great challenge for students to take on.
Olympiads prepare students for competitive exams
There are many benefits and tangible rewards of taking the Olympiad for various subjects. In the first place, Olympiad exams expose school students early to the competitive exam environment. Next, Olympiads play a pivotal role in determining a student’s aptitude in core subjects. It takes a student deeper into understanding concepts. Moreover, there are also monetary rewards, recognition and goodies that a student can earn, apart from making friends with peer group from other schools.
They cross set syllabus
When an otherwise average school kid takes a carefully prepared exam in familiar subjects, but from a fresh, analytical, and competitive angle, they gain valuable exposure that they would not be able to find by just following school curricula.
They are for focussed students, not just class toppers
Olympiad exams evaluate a student’s calibre in particular subjects, the depth of his or her thinking. The question papers do not follow the formula of class tests. So, this is a chance for a student deeply focused on a particular subject to show off his or her mettle and score above typical class toppers. After all, any student, irrespective of their grades, can participate in Olympiads.
Help average students find ‘their’ subject
Sometimes, a school kid is called average only because they are too confused to understand which subjects they genuinely like or don’t like. Class tests do not allow them to step outside the periphery of standard questions and answers to look at a topic just for the sake of studying it. Olympiads introduce average students to the approach of valuing a subject for its own sake. In the process, they often find their actual subject of interest and go deeper into it.