Quickest Route to Clear IIT – JEE: Smart Work Trumps Hard Work!

IIT JEE might be repeatedly touted as the most difficult or most competitive exam in the world but don’t let that scare you. As an IITian I can tell you, there are enough average students who enter the hallowed gates of the IITs through their hard work and determination and do almost as well as the ‘geniuses’ on the campus.

Similarly, you do not have to give up on your life to clear JEE Mains and JEE Advanced. Even though the JEE syllabus might seem too vast, you can certainly cover most of it in 2 years’ time by devoting 5-6 hours of your time to IIT JEE preparation. Here are some of the things that you can do to make sure you can easily crack the upcoming JEE exams:

1. Start with Previous Year JEE Papers

I know this seems counter-intuitive. But try solving 6-7 previous years’ IIT JEE papers in the given time period (i.e. 3 hours) and then, compare your answers with the given solutions. At this age, your scores really don’t matter. All you have to do is to identify concepts that you don’t know, concepts of which you are doubtful, and concepts you know well.

List out all the three categories on a sheet of paper in the following manner: 

• If you have answered all problems related to a concept correctly, it should go in Category A.
• If you have answered some problems related to a concept correctly and some incorrectly, it should go in Category B.
• If you have answered all problems related to a concept incorrectly, it should go in Category C.

This is one of the most important steps of JEE preparation – to know your strong points and your weak points.

Now, in the week days, choose 1 concept you don’t know and 1 concept you find confusing from each subject and study them well. Devote 2-3 hours daily to learn, understand and practice these concepts.

On the weekends, take papers again. As you keep mastering concepts, your list will keep changing and your test scores will eventually improve too.

1.1 Topics to Practice Daily

Practice one Subjective and one Objective question from the following topics daily:

• Chemical/Ionic Equilibrium
• Complex Numbers
• Co-ordinate and 3-Dimensional Geometry
• Permutation and Combinations/Probability
• Qualitative analysis
• Rotation
• Stoichiometry

Add topics that you find most difficult to the list. Doing just 2 questions daily will make you familiar and comfortable with these topics and they will not seem like ‘demons’ anymore.

This should not take you more than 3 hours a day.

2. Books & Study Material

Besides NCERT books and course books, do not use more than one or two reference books for each subject. For Maths, you can use A. Das Gupta; for Physics, you can use H C Verma or D C Pandey; and for Physical Chemistry, you can use P. Mukherjee. NCERT book is sufficient in itself for Inorganic Chemistry and you must learn all its reactions by heart but you may want to avoid using NCERT book for Organic Chemistry as it is quite confusing.

Other reference books you might want to use for IIT JEE  

AskIITians study material is also a good reference point for JEE aspirants as they have everything readymade for them – formula sheets, revision notes, daily practice papers, and memory tips and tricks for each concept.

Once you complete the syllabus, you can start devoting all your time to JEE mock tests, sample papers and past year papers.

You do not have to go off Facebook or Twitter for JEE preparation but use your Internet time well. Interact with your peers, read through askIITians blog and forums, ask the right questions and try to help out your friends in distress. Use your fun time to make your studies interesting and see your results soar!