Previous year question papers serve as a valuable self-assessment tool to measure the progress of your exam preparation. You can solve these papers and measure your current performance against your previous attempts and understand the areas you excel and lack in.

The best way to measure your progress for any competitive examination is to maintain a diary of your progress. This diary can contain the marks you have scored for each previous year question paper you have attempted. The idea is to revisit this diary once every week to track your progress and increase the number of hours of study in the areas where you need improvement.

In this way, you can easily use such past year papers as a criterion of self-assessment to further enhance your exam preparation.

Effective time management

Previous years’ papers help you enhance your academic knowledge. But the benefits of going through them don’t stop there.

Competitive exams are time-bound. They don’t just test your competency but also your time management skills. You can develop these skills by timing yourself when attempting sample or previous years’ papers.

Moreover, previous year question papers also help you develop a better understanding of which questions to answer first, and which ones to keep for later.

Ultimately it depends upon your skill and orientation to understand which strategy suits you best. But practicing papers will help you recognize it!