Students' Speak: Preparation tips for BITSAT 2020​

By: Donika Juthani

Practice and mock tests are very important. You should give at least 10 mock tests to be confident enough before the main exam.   

Many students might wonder which is better -  BITS or IIT? Well, BITS has its own reputation and it comes in the top 5 colleges for B.Tech. There are three campuses -  

• Pilani, Rajasthan 
• Goa 
• Hyderabad, Telangana 

First of all, let’s talk about eligibility. You should have greater than or equal to 75% average in PCM (i.e. Physics, Chemistry and Maths) and 60%+ individually. Now don’t say that you have not got your board results till now so what to do. During the time of admissions, you will have to show your results and hence, only those fulfilling these criteria would be allowed into the admission procedure. There is no reservation because it is an autonomous institute. 

Now, let’s understand the difficulty level of this examination. 

Boards  

Note: Boards are very different compared to the other three exams and hence you might think this comparison is invalid. But try to understand this from the difficulty point of view and the comparison is just made to give you an idea about the level of all four exams.  

Generally JEE Advanced and BITSAT occur at very near dates and so a major myth in the minds of students is - Studying for JEE Advanced will automatically prepare me for BITSAT.​ Well, let me break your bubble because this is not at all true. Both the exams are of very different nature. JEE Advanced consists of many tough questions and the number of questions is less. But in BITSAT, the number of questions is huge, the level of difficulty is less, numerical are less and theoretical questions are more and the exam is mainly about speed and accuracy. 

The main point is - if your JEE Mains score is not very good, concentrate more on BITSAT than on JEE Advanced. Do not take this personally because I am not trying to offend anyone here but just crossing the cut-off in JEE Mains will not necessarily land you a great rank in JEE Advanced even if you work very hard for it. Instead, BITSAT will give you a return of your hard work. 

If you want a CS branch only and you are not confident about getting a rank between 500-700 in JEE Advanced, you should focus on BITSAT because a score of 300+ will give you CS in BITS Hyderabad, for BITS Pilani CS, you need to score above 380.  

Syllabus 

• Class 11th and 12th PCM 
• English proficiency 
• Logical reasoning

Structure of the exam

(Frame of reference: Moderate - JEE Mains, Difficult - JEE Advanced) 

1. Physics - 40 Questions (Easy to moderate) 
2. Chemistry - 40 Questions (Easy to moderate)  
3. Mathematics - 45 Questions (Moderate) 
4. English proficiency - 15 Questions
5. Logical reasoning - 10 Questions  

Total number of Questions - 150 + 12 bonus > Total number of Questions in Mains  

Total time - 3 hours  

There is no room for fluke here because you get +3 for correct answers and -1 for wrong answers. Even bonus questions have negative marking. 12 bonus questions are of PCM (4 each). Extra 12 questions are for those who have attempted all 150 questions.  

English Proficiency and Logical Reasoning should be not underestimated at all because it requires practice. To prepare for these, refer to the previous year’s question papers and you can follow the book - BITSAT Prep Guide​.  

For Physics and Chemistry, there are more conceptual and theoretical questions than numerical. Even if you are thorough with Chemistry NCERT, you will be able to attempt the majority of the questions. So, be in touch with your NCERT as you might have forgotten theory due to a 1-month gap. Practice and mock tests are very important. You should give at least 10 mock tests to be confident enough before the main exam.   

The cut-off goes up to 380 for BITSAT and hence you cannot even think of leaving any chapter unprepared. All of your concepts need to be strong and by strong I mean if you have thoroughly covered all NCERT chapters, solved coaching modules throughout the 2-year span and solved more than 10 mock tests, you are good to go. But you need to decide well in advance which exam you are going to give after a month - BITSAT or JEE Advanced. You will have to set priorities. Majority of you will give both the exams but set the priority according to your JEE Mains score and giving BITSAT higher priority is definitely worth it.

About the Author:

Donika Juthani is pursuing BTech in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) from DAIICT. She is also an upcoming summer intern at Goldman Sachs. Donika is an ML (Machine Learning) enthusiast and skilled in Python, HTML, CSS, and MySQL. She is a member of the programming club at DAIICT and responsible for organizing SisCode, an initiative to motivate and guide female students in competitive programming.