How Do I Prepare For JEE

JEE or Joint Entrance Examination is now conducted by NTA from 2019 onwards. It is one of the toughest competitive exams conducted at a national level to get admissions into premier institutes like IIT, ISM, NIT etc. While there are many IIT aspirants who appear for JEE only a few succeed because of its difficulty level. Besides, attempting IIT JEE exam is often regarded as an uphill battle by many. The syllabus is vast and the questions are designed to test your understanding of the concepts. In essence, students need to be academically strong, have adept problem-solving skills and they need to prepare effectively for the exam overall. 

Over the years, the exam has managed to gain a huge reputation for being a challenging exam. As a result, today the most common question that we hear among students is how to or what is the right way to prepare for JEE exam? 

Just to give you a brief insight, the key to crack JEE includes smart work, dedication and well-formulated study plan amalgamated with right study materials and proper mentorship. In that line, we will look at how to prepare effectively for JEE in this article. Here are a few tried and tested tricks which will help you boost your preparation for the entrance exam.

Preparation Tips For JEE

1. IIT JEE Preparation Books

When it comes to the study material for IIT-JEE there are mainly 4 categories

• NCERT/SCERT textbooks
• Other Standard textbooks
• Study materials from the coaching institutes
• Video lectures

It is very confusing for students to focus on all the study materials. The combination of NCERT books plus standard textbooks and coaching institute study materials will vary from subject to subject and from chapter to chapter.

There is no guarantee that study materials of leading coaching institutes have exquisitely evolved to make a student equipped for this exam. Although the methods followed in these major coaching institute classes are questionable, the material they have arrived is fine-tuned over the years to give an optimal flow for a student. By using these you are actually skipping the theoretical understanding of the subject since these materials have to be used only after going through the NCERT/SCERT textbooks for basic conceptual understanding of the chapter concerned.

2. Facing Inconsistencies

A major issue one could face during the preparation will be inconsistencies or the down cycles. A few days of good vigour, followed by days without much productivity. This is very normal and happens with most students as it is a general human tendency. The only thing we can do is; to be conscious and calm. You can experiment with your own ways of getting out of such situations like music, short stories, pursuing a hobby or other such psychotherapeutic devices. Whatever it is, the long term target should be to progressively reduce the duration of such distractions.

3. Social Media

A very pertinent question that arises is; whether one should keep away from social media? Well, consider the empirical evidence. Most of the people I met in the IIT were those who didn’t use or deactivated their profiles throughout the entire course of their preparation. Late teenage years is a tricky wicket to be in. It will be good if you are able to exclude all the external variables during JEE Preparation.

4. Preparing For A Chapter

In the process of preparing for JEE, each IIT aspirant should devise a study plan. This flow is important because this can prove to be the single most relevant factor that can make or break the chances to succeed. If things are not going properly, tweaking the flow by formulating a different study plan is one of the things that can be tried.

5. Tricks for Studying a chapter

Undoubtedly the first step would be to read the chapter from the NCERT/SCERT textbooks and do the exercises given in it. You already know how to prepare for CBSC board exams. It gives you an idea of what’s the minimum level expected from someone preparing for this exam. You are aware that the contents of NCERT books are given paramount importance by JEE examiners. In recent years the number of questions in JEE has been directly taken from the textbook has increased especially for Chemistry.

Having an elaborate question bank would be great. After going through NCERT, start attempting the easy questions in these question banks of level slightly lower than the state entrance exams. It has many  Merits

• Confidence level on the chapter increases gradually and you get a firm hold on the topic
• Gives you the capability of doing intricate problems
•  Helps to memorize important facts and formulas

After attempting the simple ones, start solving previous JEE level questions. It is at this stage that you need to start reading the standard textbook or coaching material as per the requirement. Try to finish the chapter from cover to cover in case of coaching material. Usually, these materials start with theory then they go to solved examples and then the difficulty level slowly ascends.

For harder chapters, you may do well if you practice questions from more than one book/material. Standard textbooks that you choose should not be heavily theoretical like Halliday Resnick’s Physics text. Frankly, books like these are not going to help you crack the exam. If you are not careful with these, it’s only going to overcomplicate your JEE preparation process. If you are very passionate about any subject or topic, read them after you get into IIT as you will have time to follow your passions! A few books that are suggested are;

• C.Verma, D.C.Pandey and Irodov for Physics
• Arihant Books for Chemistry
• Tata McGraw-Hill for Maths

          6. Never Miss Tests

Class tests and mock tests are important checkpoints that will help you psychologically, even if you don’t do well in them. They will act as anchors if you falter in between two tests and help you get back to the normal routine. In the course of preparation try and give as many mock tests as you can, it will help you to know the pattern and help you to manage time.  Never miss tests even if you are not confident about them as it reflects the level of your preparation and it will help to contribute towards the development and final preparedness.

         7. Alternative Methods of Study

It has been proven that video learning helps better retention into memory. Apart from that, video learning is engaging and adaptive. It is not restricted to the scheduled time, with a mobile device you can watch it anywhere-anytime at your own pace. BYJU’S are the pioneers of Video learning in India. The learning module is designed by our IIT experts who have customized the study material sufficed to prepare for JEE.

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