With the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) set to begin on April 6 with the offline exam, the experts are offering some last minute tips for the country’s largest engineering exam.
Sridhar G., Managing Director of Ace Creative Learning Pvt. Ltd., says for the next one week, students should focus on a few chapters that are sure to give their marks a boost. “Based on the last few years’ paper, the following chapters are easy marks in your pocket: Physics: Modern Physics, Optics, Electricity; Chemistry: Named reactions in organic chemistry, d-Block and coordination chemistry, Chemical ionic equilibrium; Maths: Definite integrals, Straight line and conic sections, Complex numbers,” he said.
He also offered some useful to-dos: “While you are studying these chapters, maintain tip notes. Tip notes are papers the size of a sticky note where you make note of important formulae and concepts that you think are important. These tip notes need not be detailed as they are for your last minute reference only. If you are comfortable with the chapters mentioned above, move on to your NCERT books. JEE Main is a standard difficulty level exam that you can attempt easily if you are thorough with the NCERT textbooks. Unlike JEE Advanced, this does not test you on complex applications. So, keep it simple.”
Do not rush“The conclusion of a derivation is more important than the derivation itself. Do not stress yourself out by trying to remember the derivations. The paper tests you on accuracy and speed. It does not worry about how you reached the solution. Process of elimination may backfire in JEE Main. So, solve the question fully before selecting the answer. Do not try to rush into a solution just because you are running out of time. Attempt the question only if you are sure of the answer. The paper contains negative marking for wrong answers. Plan your day meticulously. Spend time in the morning brushing up concepts and take a mock test in the evening every day. This will help you manage time while solving questions and also help you spot areas of chapters you need to focus on the next day.”
Ajay Antony, Director, T.I.M.E. Chennai, added: “Ensure that you get to read all the questions in all the three subjects. The biggest mistake would be to be unaware of a doable question which you did not encounter because you did not manage the time properly. While the order of doing the questions is your prerogative, do not go into the examination hall with a very rigid test-taking strategy. Length of questions, ease of options, closeness of different options etc., are factors that will influence the choice of questions and the relative order in which they need to be answered.”
Target questionsHe suggested that it will be a good idea to target questions from your favourite areas in all the three subjects – Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics — saying this strategy entails hunting down all questions from that area and you get to take an on-the-spot call.
“The strategy of marking out questions mid-way for getting back at the last stretch of the examination should be used very sparingly. Many students make the mistake of branding too many questions as ‘to-be-done-later’. This strategy has two fallouts: the time management at the end of the testing window goes out of your control; and you may not be able to draw on the result of the work you have already done in the earlier phase simply because there are many questions clamouring for your attention.”
Know when to guess intelligently – not even the best prepared students can confidently solve all the problems between the time-window of the examination. This is where the choice of intelligent solution guessing comes in. Do not be taken in by the name of the strategy. Actually there is very little guessing involved.
“What actually goes into this strategy is elimination of 50 per cent of the options based on the work you have done and ‘if’ you get stuck between the remaining options under time pressure, you go for the best call and pick an answer. But this is backed by logic,” he added.
