IIT JEE Preparation – A Marathon!

Kishlay

10 years ago

I am Kishlay, an IIT’an and I understand how hard JEE preparation can be at times. I graduated from IIT Guwahati and now I work at one of the MNC and I wish I have known some things while I was preparing for IIT JEE.

so much to study..

I am from Bihar and went to Kota for my JEE preparation. Away from home, all on my own, I learnt a few things which I think played an important role for my preparation and finally for my selection.

So here are those decisive factors

1) You

Preparations starts with you. First make sure that you have convinced yourself to dedicate a year or two and then go for it. Remember it is a marathon, not a sprint. So, it is important that you take care of your physical and mental health.

Take healthy food, do some meditation / yoga (even with 10 minutes a day, I felt the difference in my concentration and energy level – it helps!) and take proper rest.

Make a timetable and spend at least some specified hours to each subject (physics, chemistry or maths) daily or weekly.

Remember it is not about the number of hours you spend,it is about the number

of productive hours in the right direction.

2) Syllabus

Yes! the syllabus is vast but it is doable.

And yes, for getting good result you need to cover most of it! There is less chance that you will clear the exam if you are expert at only few topics. So, the key is to understand your strengths & weaknesses and spend time wisely.

Categorize the topics based on your strengths and weaknesses, spend relatively more time on your weaker topics.

How did I work on my weaknesses ? – I found certain subjects extremely boring, some chapters took longer than others to even get a basic understanding. I never left them though! I kept reading them again and again till I understood the concept. C’mmon guys it is hard but people are able to understand it, if you can’t understand it in one shot, read it again, ask experts for help and do it again. You will get it!

Try to understand the topics / concepts rather than remembering them (What are you reading? Where is it applicable? What is the basic funda behind it?). I agree sometimes you need to remember some chemical formulas, equations but most of the times you should be able to understand the concept.

You need to take care of two percentages as well. Firstly how much of total syllabus have you

covered and secondly what is your competency percentage of your well prepared topics? According to me both % should be greater than 80, the greater the better. The best way to analyze these percentage is by taking good test-series once you are done with your preparation. Work on improving your percentage.

I have made this mistake and it costed me an year. During my first attempt, I thought

of scoring just cut off marks in Physics and scoring higher in rest of the subjects. With this approach, I could not clear JEE that year…

Don’t underestimate any individual subject and do a balanced preparation. Any subject can get you a rank based on the difficulty level of the paper. There is no margin mistakes like the one I made.

3) Competition

This is less important. I am writing this because I was afraid initially of of lakhs of candidate appearing for the exam (some were from better coaching institutes, better schools, better cities, better IQ levels, seniors, toppers….it was scary!). But then I realized that by worrying about others I am just losing focus and sleep. When I look back, that promise of not being bothered by others was the best decision I every took during the preparation.

The real competition for you is yourself!

You need to believe in yourself, be true to yourself (about your strength and weakness) & analyze your preparation. You are your best judge.

If your preparation is up to the mark & you are true to yourself, you should crack it!

At last, remember IIT JEE is neither the start nor the end. There are a lot good things in life waiting to happen to you even if you could not clear JEE. So give your best shot but even if you don’t get the best result, don’t give up. Your preparation will pay you in some way. It definitely makes you stronger. There are lot of non – IIT’ans that have done wonders – look at Satya Nandella, Narendra Modi. Life is long and it is important that we live it with joy and enthusiasm.

All the best.