Engineering Entrance Examination:A student's perspective on Making It Happen successfully
Well, every year thousands of lakhs of students appear for various competitive exams across the country; IIT, BITS and AIEEE being the main ones out of these. So, what exactly can a student do, to make sure they come out with flying colours? Well, this article highlights my journey; read it, learn from it, adapt it, but do not follow it blindly, for I have made my own share of mistakes!
So, there I was, fresh from my tenth grade board exams. Not really sure of how I was going to face the next two years. IIT, BITS or NIT-K was the goal, in that order of preference, but the journey was unknown. I started off by joining, rather continuing, coaching in FIITJEE. Here, however, I made a small, yet costly, mistake. I went off for a vacation, and missed the beginning month of classes in April. To put it simply, I have never understood Mechanics properly since then.
I took 11th grade lightly, not really studying that much for the competitive exams. Going to school and going to coaching. I studied for school, but not for coaching, unless tests were close by. This helped me in AIEEE, but was not so great for my IIT. The 11th grade portions are very important, in all three subjects, and often the trickiest questions of any competitive paper are set from these chapters. So it really helps to be thorough with them. Writing from experience, I’d like to say, PLEASE do not neglect your 11th grade topics in 11th grade. We often think that there will be enough time in the two years to catch up, but that really does not happen. Take it from someone who’s been there.
Now, 12th grade ends up being more of a chaos. There are forms to be filled, boards to be written, records to be completed, graduation to be attended, not to mention the pre-boards. In the midst of all this, one has to focus on their studies. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that bad also, but at the end of a week, you are tired. 12th is the one year when you have study. That’s it, study. And since almost everyone is studying around you, it won’t seem that bad a task actually! So yeah, studying should be the mantra for the year.
On another note, one should also look into reference books and use them for studying/practice. Many students have the tendencies to look at many books, however, I did not find this very helpful. I spoke to my teachers and classmates, and bought only two or maybe three references per subject, the ones that were most helpful. Exceptions, however, can be made if a particular book is better for a specific topic. This way, you have a better grasp on topics, because you maintain continuity. Of course, it also helps to have friends in your class, who might bring in problems from other books, which then helps you adapt your thinking to different types of question.
Solving previous years’ papers and guess papers is also a good idea. Though the IITJEE is known for not repeating questions, they do have some noticeable patterns, like how many questions shall appear from a particular topic, and having this knowledge is always helpful, even during the paper. Being part of a coaching class ensures that you have enough questions to solve and papers to do, but if you are studying on your own, many institutes do sell guess papers. That is sufficient practice for anyone.
Even appearing for Olympiads is a good idea. Competing at an all-India level gives you an idea of where you stand and it helps in knowing your weaknesses and strengths. However, writing these papers without any sort of preparation could work the other way around. Your performance could go down, maybe making you anxious and worried. Here comes another very important aspect of studying, strategizing and self-review.
One also needs to follow the idea of planning the calendar in advance. Giving due priorities to the Board and competitive exams is necessary. Decide before hand on what exams to appear for. Nowadays, many papers are held online and over a period of time. You need to plan your calendar appropriately so that you have enough time to change gears from one exam to other, concentrate and re-charge yourself. This also helps mentally, because you know how far apart your papers are. Since the calendar for online examination opens later, it is better to apply for as many exams as possible initially, and keep most options open. However, one can decide to skip few examinations later if examination schedule become too taxing or hectic. I, for one, applied for about ten admission tests, but ended up giving only six of them.
One more thing, and we may find this funny being the internet generation, but it is important to practice online tests. Though it seems simple, getting used to solving papers without having the questions next to your work-space is a different experience. Objective tests also give the choice to attempt questions sequentially or in preference of topics; this is one thing that needs to be practiced, as we tend to go with the order of the paper. These small things do matter and should be practised before-hand to maximise the performance. One, hence, needs to make a strategy as to how to approach the paper and practice accordingly. However, do not alter your strategy a few days before the final examination.
Another very important thing to do is get your body clock adjusted to the timing of your exams. I had many friends who were having problems writing papers in the afternoon because they used to get sleepy! It would be a shame to perform badly in a test only because one was sleepy. This usually happens because we tend to take papers at our convenience, and also take small breaks between three-hour papers. Ideally, one should start writing papers in their allotted timing at least two weeks before the actual one.
There is one more issue I would like to address in this article, as it will probably be the only one I shall write on this topic, and that concerns motivation. There might be papers that go bad, and you will start doubting your capabilities. The following days might seem like bad ones, there might be arguments at home and you might plan re-thinking your goals. All I would like to say is that everyone goes through these moments. Almost everyone feels low at some point in these two years, and I believe it is quite natural. In these moments, it is better to take a break for a day, maybe two; refresh yourself by doing something you like. You could listen to music, dance, read a book or, my personal favourite, watch a movie. You might find it contradictory to take a break when your performance is down, but trust me; the break will only help you cool down and mentally arm yourself for the next bout of drudgery.
Finally, I would say that even though there can be no substitute for studying and hard work, planning your studies and strategizing how you approach your paper does play an important role in your performance in competitive exams.
~Hopes up, always! Nothing does wonders to your performance better than the confidence of cracking the paper.
by Pankhuri
(This article has been written by Pankhuri Kumar as a guest author. Pankhuri has had first-hand experience of going through this journey herself. She passed her standard XII in 2012 and also qualified for IIT JEE 2012, BITSAT 2012, AIEEE 2012, K CET 2012 and few other national engineering entrance examinations with good ranks. She is pursuing her studies at BITS-Pilani, Pilani Campus. Apart from studies, she is an astute writer, avid reader and prolific dancer.)
