How to prepare for competitive, entrance and recruitement exams?

Preparing for competitive exam is completely different from your regular exams. College exams are normally prepared for every one to score good marks, but competitive exams are different.
Whether its engineering entrance exam, medical entrance exam, MBA entrance exam or CA, CS exam or Bank or PSU recruitement exam, your preparation should be planned properly. I’ll like to touch a few aspects here and rest may come from further discussion if you all like it.
Even now I’ll say success in competitive exams is not tough, one thing to focus is "intelligent hard work" rather then "hard work". Let’s discuss all in more details.



From my experience as a teacher I always found students struggling with following questions-

Is coaching required for competitive Exams?

What and how should I prepare for my upcoming entrance or recruitement exam?

Should I cover full course or should I be selective while preparing for competitive exams?

Is self study sufficient or group study required?

Which books should I follow? Are my text books enough for competitive exam too?

How should I prepare for objective papers?

Should I prepare notes for competitive exams? How to prepare good notes?

Can I use online study material for exam preparation?

How to discuss difficult questions?

How many hours should I prepare to succeed in exam?

When to start preparing for a competition exam?