Guide for improving weaker topic during JEE Preparation

Here is a guest post  by Zeel Shah ( IIT BOMBAY, AIR 1731, JEE ADVANCED 2019) 

 A must-read for everyone.

“Suppose you have your JEE Advance paper tomorrow, which subject you are confident to score the most? Are you sure that you can attempt ~70% paper correctly of the Advance level? “These types of questions raised by the director of my institute before two months of the final exam.

This is to show you that your end goal is to score high in a given time with pressure in the exam. So subject fetching more marks per time is strongest, not the one’s problems you enjoy solving.

So, now you have decided which is your weak subject, here are my suggestions :

Analyze past trends and find preference order of chapters. In JEE Advanced, there are inter-topics multi-layered questions but just get a superficial overview and figure our what chapters have more weightage.

Your first focus should be on top topics as again the main goal is to be able to attempt 70%. It is pointless to study 70 pages of salt analysis whose even one question appearing in the paper is uncertain. especially when your basic and important parts are weak.

You need to spend time with that chapter. You need to try different methods and check if that is helping. Keep tracking progress through timed question solving and improving preparation methods. There is no specific way for every chapter and subject. It depends on the individual also.

You may

• read theory,
• solve problems from the module,
• note down important points and formula on one paper and revise them multiple times,
• attempt past year asked methods,
• Note down imp formulas and types of questions derived from them
• read NCERT,
• listen to revision videos on youtube. ( don’t overdo this )

Point is you need to figure out what methods to use for a particular chapter by trying them, tracking them and spending time with the chapter.

weakness is in your mind, a subject is just a subject :p

Here is  my own experience of improving my weak topic coordinate geometry .

They started teaching circles in the 11th. It was going good, I was following what was taught in the class, then started parabola, its properties, conditions for tangency, director circle, and whatnot.

Still was able to solve basic problems, but things started to get messy, couldn’t click the right method, and couldn't solve a problem in the given duration. After ellipse, hyperbola things started to become dirtier. what condition when vertical ellipse, how to solve problems of rectangular hyperbola- made me confused.

Now I had two options:

• rant about the topic and leave such high weighted topic
• or try whatever I can till I have no regret when I go to give the exam.

I was already reading notes and questions solved in class repeatedly, I started trying different things :

• I spent more time-solving problems,
• After I have solved them once ( solving doubts from faculty, friends ) I made an extra copy and noted down all questions and answers carefully.
• I even noted what part of the question statement gives hint to do a particular method.

Now, my original plan was to revise this written solution many times, but I couldn’t revise much as other things packed me.

Now fast forward to 12th, I was still not confident about chapters. One reason I figure out was there were too many formulas and conditions for every conics.

I sat down, searched revision video for circles, and found a video of COACHengg. ( You check on the youtube ) I wrote all points covered in that video on one page. Did the same for all other conics.

After revising several times, I realize this is so much information to remember and I won’t be able to recall it in exam pressure.

I removed extra information and left about five important things per conic to remember. So, I deliberately left portions and focused on solving past papers at the end.

Did all these help me in improving the score ?

I don’t know, but I was satisfied before the day of JEE that I have tried.

The point I would like to tell JEE Aspirants that :

We even didn’t know what is the right method, we tried and saw if that was helping. We found out methods to revise and remember formulas that worked for us. Only you can figure out what is working for you, keep trying.

P.S.: You can’t ricks to leave this chapter. -Baburao :p

Keep Smiling,

Good Luck