IITians - people who are liked the most by aunties in the age group 40-50! Just kidding - IITians are people who have cracked JEE - the toughest engineering entrance exam with very low selection ratio.
Being an IITian myself, I have a good experience of how it feels to be in IIT - the most prestigious group of engineering colleges in India. Being in IIT means coming out of your comfort zone and making your dreams come true. 17th July 2013- the day when I reached IIT Bombay with my parents.
I was mesmerized by the beauty of the campus. It is a beautiful place with amazingly smart people, good at everything right from academics to sports to literature to dance to technical activities - rather anything! There are a variety of people ranging from dancers to singers, writers to photographers; sudoku masters to speedcubers, and yeah - procrastinators as well!
There is a short story associated with my JEE preparation. I'll narrate it here.
When I was in class 9th or so, my school took me to a trip to IIT Kanpur. It was an awesome place. I was amazed by the beauty of the campus. It was then that I decided that I will also fight to make it to such an amazing place. Next, my friend's brother cleared JEE 2010 with an All India Rank 125. This created a compelling atmosphere and I was strongly motivated to work hard and make it to the IITs.
I remember I began my JEE preparation towards the end of April 2011 soon after my class 10th board exams got over. Just like any other typical JEE aspirant, I decided to join a coaching institute that will help me in providing a direction to my JEE preparation. I also decided to join a dummy school so as to save time and be completely focused on JEE. I had a dream - a dream to get a 2 digit rank in JEE and with this dream in my eyes, I began a 2 year journey - aimed at making it to IIT!
"At any cost I want a 2 digit rank in JEE" - with this aim in my mind, I went ahead to start my JEE preparations. I knew that the journey was going to be a tough one but I was ready to sacrifice anything to get there. It takes a lot of efforts, pain and hard work but believe me, it is worth it! You will have a beautiful life ahead. But you need a strong determination - determination to work day in and day out. Determination to cut down the time spent in extracurricular activities. Determination to forget your otherwise busy social life for 2 years!
An important aspect of JEE preparation is staying motivated throughout the journey. Many students start with full enthusiasm but soon end up losing interest. There should be a driving factor. It may be anything - you mom, your dad, maybe girlfriend, the hunger to study in the best college, the desire to prove yourself - anything. But you need to stay motivated otherwise it’s highly likely that you will quit the race in between. For me, it was my parents. I wanted to make them proud. This was remained my driving factor during my preparation.
Another important aspect of JEE preparation is to believe in quality of study rather than quantity of study. Many aspirants wonder about - "How many hours a day should I study?” Well, this question has no answer. It depends on the workload. If the workload is high, you may need to put in extra efforts. But if it's low, then you can relax.
Now the question remains - "How to decide workload?” Well for that there is a simple but nice strategy which I used. It’s called as "Planning the next day". It's simple. All you need to do is to plan your next day just before sleeping. There should be a clear picture of the next day in your mind. You should clearly know what you are going to do "Tomorrow". For example, it may be something like - "I'll read rotation from so and so book, solve the problems of permutations and combinations from the package and revise P block from NCERT". Well that's a simple strategy but believe me it's really useful. Long term plans tend to fail but there is lesser risk with the short term plans. Also, even if the plan fails, it doesn't hurt your preparation much.
Clearing JEE requires good problem solving abilities. Given a situation, you should be able to analyze it from all possible angles and then solve the related problem. It needs sufficient practice. You'll be asked to apply the concept. It's rare that a concept will be asked directly in the paper. Hence, your main focus should remain on problem solving. You should practice as many problems as possible during the JEE preparation and get familiar with the pattern and the difficulty level.
Another important aspect is to use the recommended books. You may need more than one book to refer to. Different books have different "Good" topics. Mechanics may be good in a particular book but thermodynamics may be better in some other book. Accordingly, you may require a library of books. But it's advisable not to study the same topic from many different books. You may end up being confused. It's however better to solve problems from a number of books - it will help you to solve a variety of problems (maybe new ones). Resnick Halliday (by Wiley publishers) is one of the best books for Physics for JEE.
Each subject requires a different approach. For physics, you need a very strong hold on concepts. There are a number of equations and formulas. One must know how to integrate the concepts and apply them to solve a problem. The concepts learnt in class 11th serve as tools to solve the problems of topics of class 12th. It needs a lot of practice to master the art of "Physics". But once mastered, it's very easy to retain.
For mathematics, you need endless practice. A huge variety of questions can be framed in maths and one needs to have a good exposure to various situations, to be able to solve JEE level maths. It's better to stick to a limited number of books for theory. On the other hand, it's advisable to follow a number of books for problems. The more problems you will solve, the better will be your speed and accuracy.
For chemistry, you need to have a lot of patience, especially with inorganic chemistry. One must understand that it's very important to read as much as possible in order to learn chemistry. Also, it's very important to revise otherwise one is highly likely to forget the things. Organic and physical chemistry require a lot of practice while inorganic chemistry needs very good memorizing skills. A combination of both will help one to develop a strong hold in the subject.
About me : I am Aman Goel, B.Tech, computer science and engineering undergraduate student at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Born in a business oriented family of Kanpur, I currently stay in Mumbai. I secured an All India Rank 33 in JEE advanced 2013 and also scored 323/360 in JEE main 2013. I have also cleared Indian National Physics and Chemistry Olympiads and I also cleared KVPY. In my free time, I like to write articles related to my JEE preparation. I love speedcubing (the art of speedily solving a Rubiks cube) and also love to play computer/mobile games.
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