More to it than right answers: Tips on preparing for JEE, NEET

The Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) are regarded as two of the most significant and competitive exams in India, since they open doors to premium institutes such as the IITS and NITS, and well known government medical colleges.

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, a few tips to help you.

Remember, this exam will be online, and you can choose the date yourself. Also, only the best score (between the summer and winter exams) will be considered. Don’t hesitate to give 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 goes the fastest, which subjects you score the most in. These exams go on for a long duration and you must train yourself to concentrate for this extended period.

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 a problem, for instance? For incorrect answers, find out if it was a silly error or a fault in your conceptual understanding.

Remember, even silly errors repeated 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 these tips, but altered according to how much time you have left.

The author is VP, Educational Content, Toppr.com