HOW CAN YOU BE CONSISTENT IN YOUR IITJEE PREPARATION

Posted On March 12, 2021

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“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come. “
: Dwayne Johnson

Cracking JEE is all about consistency and dedication. It is not a sprint, rather a 2 year long marathon.
This is similar to the story of the rabbit and tortoise. The rabbit may run at first, but eventually he will tire or get distracted, whereas the tortoise will always continue at a slow and steady pace, and will finally emerge victorious. This is the essence of JEE prep. He who can work consistently is already leagues ahead of his competition and is at a huge advantage to begin with.

1. Set realistic goals : Many people will get hyped up and study 15 hours a day. Because we are, after all, human, their bodies and minds will get tired and they’ll spend the next week wasting time. This is the biggest problem and the easiest way to solve this is to make a reasonable schedule and set realistic goals. Instead of aiming for 15 hours on only one day of the week, aim for 5–6 hours a day everyday. Of course you can take a few days off such as birthdays and such, but the key is to not burden yourself all at once and complete the course at a slow and steady pace.
2. Approaching concepts the right way. When you pick a concept, first thoroughly understand the topic, doing some solved examples along the way. Then practice some questions. The questions should be tried in an order. Try out the easy ones. Then the medium level ones. Then try out the hard questions.
3. Do not let the hard questions demotivate you. You will face a situation where you keep trying to solve a question, and it just would not crack. This demotivates a student harshly and results in the student not being able to make significant progress for the rest of the day. Rather just leave the question and look at the solution. Understand how the question was solved. At the end of the day, come back to face the question once more.
4. Do not avoid the weak topics. The weak topics are usually the ones you hate and ignore the fact that you are not able to solve the questions in that topic. This is bad practice. One should study the topic again.
5. Time Management: Go over your course and make a rough plan. This should have the schedule of completion of chapters in your coaching (or your own schedule if you’re self studying). Decide what chapters you’ll do what week. Make sure you take into account holidays, birthdays and any other off days just so you can make it as accurate as possible. Make sure it is realistic and that you have enough time to solve questions, do past year papers etc etc. This will greatly reduce your stress and help you manage your time. You must analyze your study pattern. You must put in a minimum of 10–12 hours every day without fail. If you can’t do that, you can’t make consistent progress. Remember, all those times you are slacking off for no apparent reasons, your competitors would be studying hard. Thus, every minute, every second that you have needs to be put to good use.
6. Attempt mock tests as often as you can. This gives you an understanding of where you are in the best way possible, that is putting you against a JEE level paper pattern itself. If you are in a coaching institute like VMC, tests are conducted by them at regular intervals which increases when JEE approaches which is as it should. Give regular exams and mock tests. Try giving it in an environment similar to the actual exams. Try to analyze your result properly. Don’t forget that results don’t lie. Either you are getting your desired score or you are not. Either you are scoring top ten ranks in your coaching or you’re not. Either you are being able to solve the physics section in your paper or not. The point is don’t try to justify your result. Did you score less because of lack of time, lack of conceptual clarity, lack of revision, etc.
7. Regular sleep schedule : Please don’t pull all-nighters. It not only wrecks your physical health, but also decreases your brain function. Anything you study at night without proper sleep, you wont be studying properly. Sleep is something we just cant avoid, so make sure you manage it well, otherwise you will keep studying only to see no results. In JEE preparation, most of the information would just vanish off your brain if you are not in an active mind state. While sleeping too much is wasting time, sleeping less does not give you extra hours in any way. It makes you less efficient in the hours you get.
8. Keep Away from Distractions : Try to minimize distractions. Be it your smart phone, friends, family, social media, girlfriends/boyfriends, television, sports, whatever – sidetrack it from your life. If you really want to see progress, you need to focus. And if you’re focusing on JEE, you need to stop focusing on everything else.

There will be times during your preparation when you will be exhausted, burdened, and demotivated because you might’ve performed poorly in a test or you are not able to grasp a particular concept and you will feel like all your peers are getting ahead while you are stuck on the same topic or test and feeling that pressure of performing well is pretty normal, to be honest, and that can be a positive thing too as it might push you to your limit. Always remember that you yourself is your biggest competitor and no one can beat you. Hence, remain consistent, motivated and wear the winning hats!