How To Prepare for JEE Main & Advanced Examination – 2020/ 2021?

The JEE main and the advanced examination has evolved over the past many years. When I took the examination it was called the IIT JEE and in its current avatar, it is called the JEE Main and the Advanced exam. Here is an interesting post about the history of IIT and its Joint Entrance Exams.

How to start your JEE Main & Advanced 2019 / 2020 Preparation?

I have divided this entire post into 11 different parts:

1. Time management
2. Follow a schedule / Prepare a plan
3. Know the syllabus and the exam pattern well, weightage
4. Coaching Classes – Online or Offline? Self-study.
5. Study concepts, solve problems, look at solutions
6. Solve previous years papers
7. Take timed practice test series
8. Group study, hangout more with toppers
9. Health is wealth
10. Manage Distractions – selfcontrol app
11. Retrospect your day

Lets begin!

1. Time Management

Even before I go into tell you about how you should prepare yourself for the Maths, Physics or Chemistry, you need to pay attention to this – Without time management no magic is going to help you reach your goals, which is All India Rank 1!

Time – nothing is more precious than this!

Realizing this fact of planning, we can make time our friend rather than making it our foe. Always remember – “You need to work smarter in addition to working hard”

There is a difference between sitting with a book 18 hours a day and actually studying 18 hours a day. And you don’t want to sit with a book 18 hours a day you need to put your time to good use as it is limited.

Managing your time over the next 2 years / or 1 year is the most crucial thing that you need to focus on. Not only this, you also need to manage your time during the 3 hours of your actual JEE Main / Advanced exam.

Here are the 5 key mantras of Time Management for JEE Exam Preparation:

a) Complete the most important tasks first – Studying that one chapter in say, Organic Chemistry is more important now than checking out what is the latest movie release or iPhone game on the block.

Once you have done the important task first, you will have a sense of accomplishment and that will lead you to the next important task.

b) Learn to Say NO to friends & family – I am not saying you cut yourself off from your friends or family while you prepare for the JEE. There will always be that friend who tried to distract you from your preparation, tell them a polite NO!

You can be a jedi, but dont try hard to be one!

Friends and family are always going to be around but if you lose these valuable two years of preparation,  you are not going to get this time back either. So, you decide!

Parth Kothari, IIT Bombay, AIR 11 in JEE Main says, “I knew that if spent too much time with friends, then I could not make it to IIT Bombay ever. I know people felt that I am avoiding them but the news of my success must have made them proud”.

c) Don’t procrastinate and aim for incremental improvement. My friend Atul was a genius in Maths but he could not clear IIT JEE because he use to postpone studying other subjects like Inorganic Chemistry.

Law of 1.01 – Incremental improvement

Above image is a great analogy of Incremental improvement. It is called the 1.01 Law:

• When we put that out 1% more effort every day, our progress can grow by 3800% in one single year.
• When we slack off 1% every day, we do not progress, rather we push ourselves to failure!

If you do not like a subject then do not waste time by postponing it, take baby steps towards studying it and gradually you will become a master!

d) Turn important tasks into habits –  There is a well known theory that for any task to become a habit you need to do it for 21 days at stretch, and it will eventually become a habit – be it a good habit or a bad habit.

Make it a habit of revising important formulae and concepts in the morning, especially those which you studied the previous day. Follow this tip and it will work wonders.

Harsh Singh (IT BHU 2006) told me once that he was having a hard time memorizing reaction reagents in Organic Chemistry. He was frustrated as he could not remember any reactions and their reagent effects. But he was determined to succeed.

Instead of losing hope, he would daily spend 30 mins at night before sleeping and 15 mins after the woke up the next day to just go through his reagent notes. This was so helpful for him that he not only topped the Organic Chemistry part test of FIITJEE but also cleared IIT JEE with a good rank.

e) Set a time duration to everything you do – Our brain is a funny object! If you tell it that you have just 1 hour to study a chapter, it will give you reverse feedback and make sure that you finish it in not more than an hour.

However, if you set aside 4 hours for something that could be done easily in 1 hour, our brain will be slow in that process and it will end up making you take those 4 hours to complete the task – what a waste of time.

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2. Follow a Schedule, Make a Plan

Make a To-Do List

Remember, I told you about making a habit in the last point. Right from tomorrow, when you get from bed, make it an habit to spend 15  – 30 minutes to plan your day.

Planning your day will set the fact in your brain that you have X number of tasks to complete and thereby you will waste much less time. See, how time management and planning your day are so related!

Here is how you can plan your day in 7 easy steps:

2.1. First, get a calendar, a dairy and a pen – to make a planner to routine up your time. You could also use mobile apps like Wunderlist or Any.DO.

Always remember you have to utilize every bit of time you have got. Check your dates and make an organized plan for your upcoming preparations which is going to save a lot of time of yours, after all time is our personal asset we can’t waste it right?

Eliminate the wastage of time from your schedule like watching movies, sticking to your phone for a long time etc. And you will see that you are gaining control over your time easily.

BONUS: You can Download our Study Planners for JEE Main & Advanced 2019, 2020

2.2 You have to wisely plan your schedule. You have to mark your priorities first the work you cannot skip like lunch, classes and seminars.

2.3 Point out a long time of your day for studyingwhich will be your main job for these days. You will be mostly busy during the day with School, Classes – so allot time for after evening for your self-study.

Take a short break period between every other subject you study and a little for reviews.

2.4 Your Health and fitness are crucial for a good preparation. Keep some time aside for yoga or exercises which will reduce your stress and help you to relax.

Find out time to play or exercise daily

You will be surprised to know that bad health is one of the top reasons why hard working students fail to secure top Ranks in JEE Main!

2.5 Plan your activities wisely as well as logicallylike, take a copy of your notes with you whenever you visit cafeteria. You can use note taking mobile apps as well.

2.6 Sometimes when you fell sleepy between your schedule don’t just lie down and let yourself fall asleep instead take a break and walk to the library. Power naps are something that you might consider, though.

My friend Ruthika (IIT Bombay 2005) gave me a great tip about sleeping during these rigorous JEE Preparations. She said she slept for 6 hours at night, then 1 hour in the mid morning and 1 hour after coming from school. Here is what her sleep schedule looked like:

• 10pm to 4am – 6 hour sleep
• 8am to 9 am – 1 hour sleep
• 5am to 6am – 1 hour sleep

2.7 Don’t rush to study all the time instead get enough sleep which will refresh your mind and body and will help you to work more effectively.

Sleep Well, Sleep Tight!

I cannot stress the importance of planning your day more. It is the most important thing.

Last week, I met up with an ex-student of mine who confessed to me that he could have easily gotten a better rank and could have studied his dream branch (Comp. Sci at IIT Delhi) had he planned his days carefully and not wasted his time by studying haphazardly.

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3. Know the syllabus and the exam pattern well (including weightage)

The JEE Main and Advanced Syllabus is vast and in order to get a very good rank you must make sure that you go through all the 3 subjects and have almost equal command over all of them.

You should study all the important topics first and then solve ample problems in order to gain mastery over them. Certain topics in the JEE Main & Advanced syllabus has more weightage over others, so laying more stress on these important topics will help you score more marks in the actual exam and thus fetching you a top rank!

The tough topics obviously have more weightage so without any concession you ought to study them properly. Also, this would let you divide your time well in advance among the various subjects.

Before you start your preparation you must go though the List of most important topics in JEE Main & Advanced. Apart from these you should also study the Expected chapter weightage in the JEE Main syllabus which can be found here.

Paper pattern for Online & Pen-Paper JEE Main Exam:

• Objective type question with multiple choices – 4 marks for correct answer, -1 mark for wrong answer
• Equal weightage to all 3 subjects – Physics, Chemistry & Maths
• Total time duration – 3 hours

Shown below are graphs of sectional breakups of Physics, Chemistry & Mathematics: (You can click / tap on the images to enlarge them)

JEE Main & Advanced – Physics Weightage

JEE Main & Advanced – Chemistry Weightage

JEE Main & Advanced – Maths Weightage

Graph source

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4. Coaching Classes – Online or Offline?

  classes are a crucial part of your JEE Preparation. Be it Main or Advanced, having crystal clear concepts will always help you in scoring high and getting that extra edge over others in the exam. 

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