So its the last month until JEE Main. I know the pretty much excitement. The long journey is about to reach its destiny. It is about time now that you launch your last move. Ya, you read it right: The Last Move. This is the fight for your dreams and the most important and difficult trick is always to land your last move on point. This is an important post and it's going to be lengthy.
Here I'll help you with a revision strategy along with other useful skills that you need to work upon. Let's get started:
Always start with basic - "The Syllabus". Now ask two questions to yourself:
- Do you remember the syllabus? (Can you name all the chapters; yes, that's important)
Answer: If no, go memorize it right now! If yes, move on.
- Have you completed the syllabus? (I am not referring to revision, just a single completion from your side i.e. nothing is now new to you)
Answer: If yes, Very good. If no, Very good. (Even I had some chapters of physics and chemistry left when about 20 days were left)
No need to worry at this point in time. What you've done so far was the best you could've done in particular circumstances. Remember, JEE is not just a test for PCM, it tests your aptitude, decisiveness, interpretation skills, pressure handling, patience and much more. So thinking that only the knowledge of all topics and clear understanding of all ideas is only the matter of importance is wrong.
Understand it like this, throughout the journey you've been taught to only focus on clearing your concepts (like you've been collecting your weapons and learning tactics for a battle) but now it's the time to win the battle i.e. your aim to maximize the score and for that, not only knowledge but your other mental skills will also come into play. Now the details -
Revision Material:
At this point in time, I don't suggest you go to new theory books and learn new concepts. There is plenty of revision material available in the market. Try to grab one of those. I remember I could not get any revision package for JEE Main. I just had this FIITJEE review package that I bought from OLX some 10 days before JEE Main. For the 20 days before this, what I did was to get back to my collection of books - I took one best book that I've solved (can be your coaching material too) of each subject along with my own notes at a time and went through all the pages. See the next point you'll understand -
Revision Booklet:
While preparing for JEE throughout 2 years, I made notes for all the subjects but they were too bulky to be used for revision (it would take me at least a day for a subject, even maybe 2 days for chemistry, if I were to revise from those and also many of the details mentioned in them is now on my fingertips given I have used them throughout my JEE prep (like chemical equation balancing, simple reactions, vector algebra, quadratic equations, simple trigonometry, laws of motion, etc)). So, alongside I prepared one ultrashort notes (US notes) version of my bulky notes. The way I prepared it is more important to understand -
At first, I would go through my notes and note any un-recall-able formula in the US notes (This took hardly 4-5 hours for the complete physics notes to be US noted). Then I moved on to the best book I mentioned, I went fast through the theory (only formulas that were highlighted) and came to the section of problems. Now given I have already gone through my notes, I had a fresh memory of concepts. I looked at a problem, thought over it, if it felt trivial I did not solve it if it was marked or seemed to be a bit brainstorming, I solved it. Upon solving, if some new concept that was missed in the notes but is highly useful was found, I noted it in my USN (somewhere near the topic, top of the margin/constructed a box near heading etc). I still remember my complete physics notes were in USN were confined to just 20 pages (i.e. 20x2 = 40 sides!). Similarly, I followed for Physical Chemistry and some formula-driven chapters of Maths (like Coordinate geometry, Trigonometry etc.). I did not make US notes for Organic Chemistry and complete Maths as they were too important to be shortened.
For Inorganic chemistry, as I always suggest, mug up the NCERT (for both JEE Main and Advanced). So basically the ideal strategy for the same is to go through notes for chapters like Redox, Chemical Bonding and Coordination Compounds and to NCERT for all mainstream inorganic chapters like the s-block, p-block etc. Being honest, I'm telling you that I had never really prepared for inorganic throughout my JEE preparation. Only what was taught in my chemistry classes was somewhat known to me. So, when I went through the mentioned material, I made US notes from NCERT. I wrote only key points from it. But while doing so, I kept in my no point to be treated less-useful and not worthy to be noted down (just removed the waste stories that they put in between). And guess what, Complete Inorganic chemistry got USNed in just 15 pages. (Please note here that my font was very small and the language was very compact but in my understandable language).
This job of preparing ultrashort notes may seem a bit boring and off-track but believe me, it is one of the most important steps I consider in my JEE journey. You'll save one large leap of time during advanced preparation and coming last 10 days of JEE Main. Soon, when I get back to my home, I'll share a preview of my USN.
The Last 10 days:
If you followed a similar strategy as mentioned above, Congrats! You've already completed the first round of revision. Now in the last ten days, we focus on developing other attitudes that will help us maximize our marks in the actual exam.
Develop your biological clock:
During the last days, I sat for study at about 8:30 in the morning in shifts of at least 4 hours i.e. 8:30 am to 12:30 pm then 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm and finally 9:00 pm to 12:00 am.
Get ready for a flexible mindset:
This is where revision packages come into play. In the actual exam, you won't get questions in a particular order of chapters. They'll be mixed. So, you need to train your mind with a bag of mixed question from different chapters (like Rotational motion ques. followed by SHM ques. followed by Magnetism ques followed by Laws of motion etc). Solving questions in such an order will help your mind in developing a transition speed between different topics and think with 100% focus on every topic. This is very crucial in an exam like JEE where speed along with accuracy is required. Also to monitor my stamina, I would make a dedication daily that today, I would solve 100 questions or so. This helped me sitting longer as I knew I had a target to be achieved.
Pressure Handling:
There can be a time in the actual exam that you feel the time is slipping so fast, so many questions are left, which one to choose, which one to leave, should I make a guess for some questions, should I try to substitute options in the question? To make the mind calm and get the best out of your time during the exam, training your mind to handle pressure is very important. The only way of training your mind in this way is by taking as many MOCKS as possible. My strategy was simple, I had with one online test series and the review package that I mentioned earlier (the package consisted of 3 books, each of 300 questions). So, I divided my time like this - Out of the total 3 study slots, first 2 slots were devoted to Review package and updating/mugging the USN and in the last 9:00 pm to 12:00 am slot, I gave a mock. My review package was completed in 7 days. So, in the last 3days, I gave 2 mock test daily in the first two slots and revised/updated USN in the night. In the mocks, my target was to maximize my attempting rate alongside improving silly mistakes and calculations speeds. Whenever there was a question from the topic I could not complete, I read the solution casually so that if a similar question comes in the exam there may be a possibility I could make an intelligent guess. I tried different strategies and attempting orders (PCM. PMC. CMP, CPM etc; Going through the whole paper once then start solving after analyzing, and many more experimental techniques of solving the paper) so that I can find the best that suited me.
On the day before JEE Main, I chose to chill my mind a little bit. I woke up late, had my favourite meal (of course, not a junk meal - avoid junk meals in the complete last month as even a little illness can affect your results) went through my USN thoroughly, took hardly 3 hours (by now, I had gone about 10-12 times through my USN that now I could recall where any particular word was mentioned). Finally sweet chitchat with friends and my guardians followed by a sound sleep.
HOLA! On the D-Day, I was calm throughout, there were no surprises, no hurry in my mind, no doubts on my strategy and a rush of confidence in my blood.
The result - 271/360 (not my best but still I was really happy because I knew I couldn't have done any better!)
I hope this post helps all the aspiring candidates.
All the best for JEE.
PS. Since the dates for JEE 2020 are not yet declared (as on 25.06.2019) you can go through this TIMETABLE to utilise the lockdown period. If the exams still holds, repeat the timetable 'n' number of times until only one month remains. Then you can follow the given strategy in this post.
Share your feedback/doubts in the comments section and please subscribe to my blog for more such tips and stories. Similar post for JEE Advanced coming soon.
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