Master's Kankor common mistakes
Master's Kankor · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Spending roughly equal time on every subject-specific question regardless of difficulty, so hard specialization items consume time needed for easy general-aptitude and language items later in the paper.
Candidates drilled only in their program field treat every field question as equally obligatory and lack a per-section time budget, so they over-invest in a few hard items and run out of time on sections they could score easily.
What to do instead
Before exam day, set a target minutes-per-question for each section based on its item count and your practice accuracy; during the exam, mark any field question that stalls past that limit and return to it only after the easy items in all sections are answered.
Answering specialization questions from memorized formula shapes without checking units, sign conventions, or the stated conditions (e.g., ideal vs. real, steady vs. accelerating).
Kankor field questions often present familiar setups with one altered condition; candidates pattern-match to a textbook problem and skip the one-line verification that the conditions still apply.
What to do instead
Adopt a two-pass habit for every quantitative field item: first write the given quantities with units and the asked quantity, then select the formula; explicitly cross out any answer choice that fails a units or order-of-magnitude check before computing.
Treating English reading passages as vocabulary tests, translating word by word and choosing an option because it contains a familiar word rather than because it answers the question asked.
Many candidates have stronger word-level English than discourse-level English, so under time pressure they default to lexical matching instead of locating the sentence that answers the specific question type (main idea, inference, detail).
What to do instead
Practice a fixed routine: read the question stem first, identify its type, scan for the key term or paraphrase in the passage, and justify the chosen option by pointing to the exact line; eliminate any option that is true but does not answer the stem.
Guessing on Dari/Pashto grammar and usage items by ear when the candidate's spoken dialect differs from the standard written form tested.
Everyday speech tolerates forms that the written standard marks as incorrect (agreement, ezafe, verb endings, spelling of homophones), so auditory intuition gives confidently wrong answers.
What to do instead
Build a short personal list of the ten grammatical contrasts most often tested (agreement, ezafe, verb aspect, plural rules, spelling pairs) and drill them in written sentences only; on exam day, apply the written rule explicitly rather than reading the sentence aloud mentally.
Solving quantitative comparison and data-interpretation items by full calculation instead of estimating, comparing, or testing with a single convenient value.
School training rewards exact computation, so candidates compute both quantities fully, burning time and inviting arithmetic slips on items designed to be settled by approximation or by plugging in one number.
What to do instead
For comparison items, first try simplification, estimation, or substitution of a simple value (0, 1, a fraction) to decide the relationship; compute exactly only when the estimate is inconclusive, and always test negative and fractional values before choosing 'cannot be determined'.
Misreading the logical quantifier or direction in reasoning items (all vs. some, necessary vs. sufficient, 'which does NOT follow') and answering the reversed question.
Under time pressure candidates skim the stem, latch onto the content words, and answer the question they expected rather than the one printed; negation and quantifier words are short and easy to skip.
What to do instead
Circle or underline the quantifier and any negation in the stem before reading the options, and restate the task in one silent sentence ('I need the option that cannot be true'); for syllogisms, draw a quick circle diagram instead of reasoning verbally.
Choosing a current-affairs or general-knowledge option that sounds plausible or familiar rather than the one tied to a verifiable fact, especially on questions about recent events, organizations, or geography.
General knowledge is the least systematically studied domain, so candidates rely on recognition and exposure; familiar names and numbers feel correct even when attached to the wrong event, year, or country.
What to do instead
Maintain a dated one-page fact sheet (organizations and their headquarters, recent major events with years, key geographic extremes) reviewed weekly; in the exam, reject options containing a detail you cannot specifically place, and prefer the option whose every element you can confirm.
Leaving blanks on items where elimination has already removed two or more options, and changing first answers on a whim without a concrete reason.
Fear of negative marking or loss of confidence causes skipped questions, while anxiety near the end prompts unnecessary switching; both behaviours discard information the candidate already has.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed policy: never leave an item blank if at least one option is eliminated, and change an answer only when you can name the specific error in the original choice; record the reason mentally before switching.
Mismanaging the answer sheet: filling bubbles in blocks at the end, misaligning a row after a skipped question, or losing track of numbering when sections change.
Candidates practice on the question booklet and never rehearse transfer to the answer sheet, so under time pressure a single skipped item shifts every subsequent mark.
What to do instead
In every mock exam, transfer answers in small batches (every five items) and verify alignment by calling out the item number against the sheet; if an item is skipped, mark its bubble position immediately with a light dot so the row cannot shift.
Studying only past-paper topics and neglecting low-frequency but predictable areas (e.g., basic statistics, sentence completion, map reading), then meeting unfamiliar items with panic and random guessing.
Reviewing past papers creates an illusion of full coverage; candidates optimize for the modal question and never build a strategy for the unfamiliar item that always appears.
What to do instead
Audit the official syllabus against your practice results, allocate short weekly blocks to uncovered subtopics, and rehearse a fallback routine for unknown items: eliminate by units, plausibility, or internal consistency, then commit to one answer and move on.