A twoyear plan to prepare smoothly for entrance exams
PLANNING If you have just started preparing for the JEE or NEET exams, here is a two year plan to help you with the vast syllabus and questions.
Every year, lakhs of students appear for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for admission to engineering colleges and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for admission to medical colleges. These exams are regarded as two of the most significant and competitive exams in India, since they open doors to premium institutes - the IITs and NITs, and well known government medical colleges. Some students start preparing for these exams from class eight itself, but most begin right after class X board exams, giving them enough time and a fair chance to score well. If you have just started preparing for either of these exams, the vast syllabus and complex questions can be daunting. To make things slightly easier, here is a two year plan to help you:
First six months (April to September)
This is the best time to finish your class XI syllabus. The first few months is when you have a vacation, and plenty of time to get ahead of schedule with your class XI syllabus. Moreover, if you start preparing early, you can get a head start and ask relevant doubts when the same topics are taught in class. Due to this, you can ask your professors all of your any doubts, and use the tests and exams to strengthen your skills.
Subsequent nine to 12 months (September June/August)
This period will be a stressful one. During this time, complete your class XII syllabus while constantly revising your class XI syllabus. Ensure that you spend time revising old concepts, so that you don’t forget them while studying new ones. You should try to finish this in a year. Remember, you will also have to juggle between college (since what you are studying now is not what is happening in class) and college exams. To make things easier, you can take topic wise tests on your class 11 portion to see how much you have remembered.
Last six to nine months (June/ August April)
This is the home-run. Now you’re done studying the entire portion.
• The first three months, you should spend giving subject wise mock tests. Find out which areas are weak and revise those chapters. Practice tougher problems and learn how JEE and NEET questions can be twisted to trick you. Understand where can you save time and where should you spend that extra minute. If you’re confident, you can also attempt a few mock tests!
• Remember, now JEE and NEET are conducted twice a year. If you wish, you can appear for the exams in January of February to gauge where you stand. Remember, this exam will be an online exam, and you can choose the date yourself. Also, only the best score (between the summer and winter exams) will be considered. Don’t hesitate from giving it a shot even if you aren’t fully prepared!
• In the next three to six months, you should attempt test series and solve previous years’ question papers. Ensure that you do this in as much of an exam-like setting as you can. Time yourself and find out which subject is the fastest, which subject do you score the most in. These exams go on for a long duration of time and you must train yourself to concentrate for this duration. However, don’t make the mistake of blindly solving question papers and expecting your score to increase. Go back to the solutions. Even if your answer was correct, did you use the fastest approach to solve it? For incorrect answers, find out if it was a silly error or a fault in your conceptual understanding. Remember, even repeated silly errors are not a good sign, especially since these exams have negative marking.
This is an overview of how you could break your syllabus down and make it a little more manageable. It is advisable to start preparing for these exams two years prior. If you have missed that bus, you can still follow this plan, but split it according to how much time you have left.
By nature, online gaming could also be addictive, and therefore a multimodal professional treatment involving both psychopharmacology to help work on impulse control, as well as psychological interventions targeting behaviour modification as well as cognitive restructuring are essential.
HAVE A ‘TECHNOLOGYFREE ZONE’
As a family, you could allot certain technology free zones, which are applicable not just to the children but to all members of the household. For example, meal times could be set aside as time for the family to sit together, and all technological devices need to be put away during this time zone.
SET AN EXAMPLE
Often, we as adults might make rules for the children, but ourselves be over-indulgent with technology. While work and personal demands might make it seem difficult, however it is important for us to practice what we preach. It is not a bad idea for instance to delegate your child to remind you to put away your phone at the dinner table!
SET REALISTIC LIMITS
It is important for you to be reasonable while setting limits. As parents, we can find that children are likely to compare themselves with their peers, and while you can discourage it to an extent, it is important for you to also make some allowances for the child’s preferences as well.
LIFESTYLE MANAGEMENT
In addition, lifestyle management can in itself lead to significant changes, including setting realistic limits for time spent online, and maybe even having a technology free zone for the entire family together.
INVEST IN NON-TECHMEANS FOR RECREATION
And lastly, as a preventive approach, we can create nontechnological opportunities, if we want our child to be spending less time in front of the television sets or laptop screens, it becomes our responsibility to help the child find alternative sources of entertainment. In fact, such options need to be encouraged in the early years itself.
REMEMBER,
THIS EXAM WILL BE AN ONLINE EXAM, AND YOU CAN CHOOSE THE DATE YOURSELF.