Students’ Speak: What are the preparation tips for JEE Mains?

By: Donika Juthani

It is of immense importance that you follow the timetable and execute your day-to-day activities according to that. This will help you to keep track of the actual studying hours. You may experience some guilt but that is required and it will lead you to increase your productivity the next day.

To crack any exam, be it JEE Mains, JEE Advanced, or Board Exams, you should follow just one strategy - “GOD Strategy”. GOD stands for:

G - Guidance

O - Obedience

D - Discipline

Guidance comes from a good mentor. Take your mentor’s advice regarding preparation and be clear about your goals, get individual treatment from them. Obedience is up to you to follow and do trust your mentor. Discipline comes with continuous hard work and consistency.

Every student has different capabilities, some have chemistry as their weak spot whereas some find physics tough. Thus, a personalized approach is required for each student. The aim of this article is to help you gain a position in the top 1%. You might think that in order to get an elite score of 180-235, you will have to complete the entire syllabus. However, this is not true, all you need is a fine grip on two to three chapters of each subject which I will be discussing in a moment. If you just study NCERT (11th and 12th) for chemistry, you can score 72 out of 120 in chemistry.

Tips:

• Timetable: It is of immense importance that you follow the timetable and execute your day-to-day activities according to that. This will help you to keep track of the actual studying hours. You may experience some guilt but that is required and it will lead you to increase your productivity the next day. You can also make a long-term timetable which would include the percentage of syllabus completed from each subject. Maintain a small personal diary and evaluate yourself.

“Evaluation leads to improvisation.”

• Revision: Revision helps you gain confidence and overcome nervousness and/or anxiety during examinations. Revision should take place from your own notes and plus the questions that you feel are important from the coaching institute guidebooks. Therefore, it is important to make clear and crisp notes for each subject.

When you just have at least two months before your exam, you should focus on your strong topics and increase your grip over the same. Find the topics which have difficulty level between easy and medium and can be competed with less number of days.

I will be discussing the topics and chapters that are important, from past trends.

Mathematics

Important topics in Mathematics (easy, require less time):

• Sets and Relations
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Statistics
• Determinants and Matrices

All you need to do is to solve NCERT and previous years’ questions and coaching institute guide for self-satisfaction.

Another important topic is Sequence and Series. Every year at least 1 question is asked from here. The former topic is from 11th standard, for those who have started studying from 12th, important topics are PNC and probability. The level is easy and at least one question is asked every year. Another must topic from 12th is Vector and 3D. This will also help for board preparation and the question asked in JEE Mains is of easy level. Or coordinate Geometry, prefer completing straight lines and circle because they are comparatively easy to ellipse, hyperbola and parabola. The latter topics are difficult to cover in a short time and the questions asked are tough. At least 2 questions are asked from determinants and matrices.

For calculus, consistency is important because the topics are interrelated and tough questions are asked. You need to have good understanding and preparation requires a long time. At least eight questions are asked from calculus every year. For those whose calculus is weak, the easy topics you need to prepare are:

• Definite and Indefinite integrals
• Application of Integrals
• Application of derivatives
• Differential equation

If you solve NCERT, basic fundamentals should be clear.

Limits and continuity are difficult topics, although every year at least 1 question is asked. Solving large number of problems with good difficulty level can help you gain perfection over these.

Books for reference:

• RD Sharma
• SL Loney

Physics

Following are easy topics which require less time and are important:

• Important topics:
• Electrostatics
• Current Electricity
• AC
• Modern Physics - minimum three questions

Below two topics are usually not covered by coaching institutes

• Semiconductors and Electronic Devices
• Communication

Below three topics are termed as universal topics (by me ofc!)

• Units and Dimensions
• Measurement of error (error handling)
• Instruments (asked in practical exams) :
  • Telescope, Compound microscope, galvanometer, potentiometer, ammeter, screw gauge, meter bridge, voltmeter, lens displacement method, vernier calliper)

• Doppler’s Effect (Examiner’s fav):
  • Moving Platforms, accelerated platforms, source and observer

Light - Ray Optics

Sound - SHM

• Class 11th (at least 1 question):
  • Kinematics
  • Newton’s Law of motion
  • Work, Power, Energy (important)
  • Friction

From modern physics, the following topics are important:

• Radio Activity (Half Cycle)
• X-ray (Characteristics, wavelength)
• Photoelectric effect (Spectrum, Radius)

One smart thing to do is just cover mains topics and not go very deep into an advanced topic which is a reduced mass system. 

Following topics are very important, carry huge weightage and are difficult (at most 2 questions):

• Optics
• YDSE (wave optics) - Hugen’s Principal / Fringe width, intensity, source property, etc.
• SHM, Fluids, Thermodynamics - at most two questions asked every year
• Moment of Inertia (at least 1 question)
• Rotational Dynamics

Books for reference:

• DC Pandey- question wise classification between mains and advanced
• HC Verma
• Irodov

Chemistry

Sixty percent of the questions asked are from NCERT. This subject is not predictable. Thus, you have 2 strategies:

• Study section wise. On an average 10 questions are asked each from Physical, Organic and Inorganic. But, this is not feasible as students just study some topics from each section.
• Focus Class wise. Class 12 carries weightage of 19 questions.

Now, coming to the important topics.

Class 11th -

• Chemical Bonding (At least 2 questions)
  1. MOT
  2. Bond Angle Comparison
  3. Fazan Rule
  4. Dipole moment
  5. Shape and hybridization
• Mole concept (At least 1 question)
  1. Periodic tables and its properties (learn without fail)
  2. Atomic structure
  3. Quantum Analysis (easy topic, students tend to leave this)
  4. Basics of Organic

Other topics:

• Chemical eql
• Ionic eql
• Thermodynamic, thermochemistry
• Gaseous state

Class 12th:

Following are easy topics and at least 1 question is asked from each topic:

• Biomolecules
• Polymers
• Chemistry in everyday life
• Practical organic chemistry

Important and tough topic:

• Transition elements and Coordination compounds (Read the whole chapter without fail!)
• Isomerism (optical)
• Lanthoide Contraction
• Nomenclature, shape
• Magnetic moment
• S block (Read the whole chapter without fail!)

P block

• Structure of various acids
• Oxides - acidic, basic strength
• Nitrogen oxides
• Dimers of B, Al (B2H3, Al2H6)

Reference Books:

• OP Tondon
• NCERT

Now coming towards managing both JEE and boards together. These two exams might decide your future into your dream college. Boards take place in March and JEE Mains phase 1 will tentatively be in January’s First week. The most important thing is the effective collaboration of boards preparation along with JEE Mains and score good marks in both. So, effectively you would have 40 days between JEE mains and boards. You should start JEE Mains preparation and constantly stay in touch with 11th syllabus. For example, if you are confident about JEE Main, Math, then it is guaranteed that you will be able to solve board questions. Physics is a bit problematic subject here because board-level questions are easy but JEE Mains questions are higher level. Thus, follow good study material for JEE Mains and learn basic concepts from NCERT. Play in the pool 12th more and study well. 40 days are more than sufficient to achieve over 90 percent. Learn theories, go through derivations, have good control over language, presentation and descriptive answers. For Mains Phase-II, boards will come first but even then, concentrate more towards JEE Main because after boards you will have only 30 days before Mains. If you are not confident about subjects such as English, start early preparation and do not leave it for the end.

About the Author:

Donika Juthani is an experienced team leader and ML enthusiast. Skilled in Python, HTML, CSS, and MySQL, she is a student of B.Tech in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAI-ICT) and also, a member of the Programming Club.