  We present a method for the effective preparation of a Bose-Einstein
condensate (BEC) into the excited bands of an optical lattice via a
standing-wave pulse sequence. With our method, the BEC can be prepared in
either a single Bloch state in a excited-band, or a coherent superposition of
states in different bands. Our scheme is experimentally demonstrated by
preparing a $^{87}$Rb BEC into the $d$-band and the superposition of $s$- and
$d$-band states of a one-dimensional optical lattice, within a few tens of
microseconds. We further measure the decay of the BEC in the $d$-band state,
and carry an analytical calculation for the collisional decay of atoms in the
excited-band states. Our theoretical and experimental results consist well.
