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Tips for IIT JEE Success #1 – Motivation

admin — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 11:16:42 +0000

What is motivation?

Motivation is a desire that activates us to take action to fulfill that desire.

So, what is your motivation to appear in IIT JEE?

This is a question only you can answer. Whatever the reason, please remember that it is choice you have made. It has not been thrust upon you by somebody else. If you choose to compete for IITs then you should raise your level of performance to be able to crack it.

Considering the level of competition, it calls for a tremendous effort mentally and physically.

If you don’t have a very clearly articulated reason to appear in IIT JEE, you may find it difficult to keep yourself motivated through the period of preparation.

Most people are very enthusiastic and motivated when they start their preparation for IITJEE. However, only those few, who manage to maintain that motivation till the end, crack good ranks in IIT JEE

Create a ‘Motivational Strategy’
Write down all the desires in your life. It is the knowledge of these desires that will propel us towards our success. Be absolutely honest while writing them down. Don’t worry if your desires do not look good when you write them down on paper. Link those desires to your success in IITJEE. Some examples of these desires are:

‘I want to learn’: If we look at ourselves, we have always been very keen and curious on learning new things. This gets lost somewhere during the school education.

IITs provide a great opportunity to satisfy that desire to acquire knowledge.

‘I want to be independent’: We all grow up to be independent adults. Independence can be financial, social and emotional. We live in the protected environment of our households, schools and society.

IITs provide the best grooming environment for professional, sports, academic, cultural and literary growth.

‘I want recognition’: All of us like to be recognized for being good at certain things. It helps us feel good about ourselves.

IITians are recognized the world over for their knowledge and skills. They are treated with respect and love.

Similarly, link all your goals and desires to the positive outcome of what you want to achieve.
This way, you will be able to pull yourself back whenever your enthusiasm is going down.

Secondary Motivation
Sports champions are the most competitive people. Most of them overcame great challenges on the road to championship. In the process of their discovery of life, they found great ways to keep themselves motivated. Read up the quotes and biography of sportsmen. Emulate their strategies.

Motivational Support
Take help from people around us in keeping us motivated.

Self-motivated people also, falter and need help getting back on track.

Setup a motivational support system at home, at school, and at work. The support system may be as simple as a “buddy system” with friends.

Declare your intentions of cracking IIT JEE with good rank, among your family members. Let them know how you are completely focused on it. All those who care about you will, thereafter, automatically support you. They will encourage you to keep putting your best.

Have discussions with them related to IITs and IITJEE. Keeping IIT JEE at the top of your mind helps in keeping the focus. It helps to talk and discuss your problems with your support system. Such conversation help in breaking the monotony and boredom

Check the following sources for motivational support.
* Family members
* Guidance counselors or advisors
* Coaches
* Faculty members
* Classmates

Engage in positive Self-Talk
Self-talk refers to the process of bringing our attitudes to a conscious level. It is what we say to ourselves and it reflects our self-esteem. Self-talk can be negative, positive, or neutral. Learning to engage in encouraging self-talk is an effective motivating strategy. An individual must be his/her own best friend, and to do so involves recognizing one’s assets and reminding oneself of them.

Write down all the desires in your life. It is the knowledge of these desires that will propel us towards our success. Be absolutely honest while writing them down. Don’t worry if your desires do not look good when you write them down on paper. Link those desires to your success in IITJEE.

Some examples of these desires are:

‘I want to learn’: If we look at ourselves, we have always been very keen and curious on learning new things. This gets lost somewhere during the school education.

IITs provide a great opportunity to satisfy that desire to acquire knowledge.

‘I want to be independent’: We all grow up to be independent adults. Independence can be financial, social and emotional. We live in the protected environment of our households, schools and society.

IITs provide the best grooming environment for professional, sports, academic, cultural and literary growth.

‘I want recognition’: All of us like to be recognized for being good at certain things. It helps us feel good about ourselves.

IITians are recognized the world over for their knowledge and skills. They are treated with respect and love.

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Tips for IIT JEE Success #2 – Study Hard & Smart

admin — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 08:40:30 +0000

You should have a well thought out methodology for your IIT JEE preparation.

Setup a Routine: The 1st step of smart and successful studying is to build a routine. A lot of our time and energy gets lost in deciding about the time and place of work. It is easy to procrastinate (postpone work) in absence of a routine.

Place: Find a quiet place, away from distractions, with ample room to work. It could be a desk in your room, the dining table, or the local library.
Time: Figure out what time of day you can concentrate best, and what works into your schedule. Use that time every day to study.
Every day: Make a time table to study at the same place at the same time, every day.

Posture: Sit in an alert posture

We can’t study effectively if we are not alert. If you are sprawled on the bed or sitting in a reclining posture, your body gets the message that it is time to rest. The mind stops working or becomes slow. Typically, the effectiveness becomes less than 25%. 1 hour of such study is equal to 15 minutes of study in an alert posture on your table and chair.

Do not fool yourself by counting such time as study. It is similar to us not being able to sleep while standing. When we are standing, the body gets a message that this is not the time to sleep.

Stay healthy : Achieving and maintaining high levels of performance (critical for success in IIT JEE) are difficult if an individual is in poor physical or mental health. It is important that one gets adequate rest, exercise, and nutrition.

Good mental performance can be achieved only with good physical health. Spending some time regularly in outdoor, physical activity like sports, running walking etc. is absolutely essential. Relaxation and concentration techniques of Yoga are very useful.

Organize study material: Keep all your homework material in one place, ready to be used. Keep it organized, and you won’t need to waste your time searching for it when you get down to studying.

Decide upon the material that you are planning to study during your preparations. Most of us don’t have enough time to complete even one set of IIT JEE course material. Collecting more than one set is a wastage of time. It also ends up confusing the student. Most of the coaching have very similar course material. A little better material does not make much of the difference. As a matter of habit, do the following in your study of the material*

Complete the reading of the text books
Writing and compile your notes
Read and understand solved examples
Attempt numerical problems
Mark unsolved problems for 2nd attempt
Take tests
Revise

*Set yourself a deadline for completing each component and make sure you stick to it.

Distractions: Cell-phones, friends, SMS, TV, Video games, surfing, chatting are some of the biggest time drains. Most of the students lose maximum amount of time in these activities. These activities do not require much effort (unlike sports) and they can go on for a long time. There is nothing wrong in indulging in such activities for entertainment. However, it is important to watch the time that gets consumed.

Some methods of dealing with distractions are:

Turn the cell-phone ringer and SMS alert tome to ‘Silent’. Respond to your friends but only as per your schedule. This will send the message that you are serious about not being disturbed.
Schedule a fix amount of time for TV, Video games, Internet combined. Typically, the time spent should not exceed 45 minutes. You can check your mail in 15 minutes. Watch your favorite TV program in 30 minutes.
Fix just one day in a week for video games. Don’t try to mix any of these activities with studies. This will spoil the fun in both.

Avoid ‘Marathon’ sessions: Marathon study sessions (longer than 1 hour) are the least productive way to study. Typically, most of us have attention spans ranging from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. The mind starts getting distracted after this attention span. It is good idea to unwind and take 10-15 minute breaks after every study session.

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Tips for IIT JEE Success #4– Attending lectures and taking notes

admin — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 07:13:57 +0000

Attend all lectures, even if attendance is not mandatory. Using someone else’s notes can help, but it is no substitute for attending the lecture. When you hear the information, process it, and write it in your notes, you are already beginning to learn the information. Reinforcement of the information through revision of your notes completes the learning process.

A student spends about 25 hours per week, in coaching and school, attending classes of Physics, Chemistry and mathematics.

Taking Notes From Lectures

Taking notes during a lecture can be a frustrating, almost overwhelming, job.

What should your notebook look like after a lecture?

In general, it should look a little like an outline with clear main ideas and some sub-points with a moderate amount of details and examples. There should probably be some white space so that you add notes from your text or from the next day’s lecture.

Sit near the front and center of the class. You will have the most direct communication with your professor, and you will less likely be distracted.
Read the chapter from the textbook before the lecture. It makes a tremendous difference to the understanding of the lecture. This way, a student can focus on the difficult parts of the chapter and ask questions.
Learn to identify main points. Professors often give cues to what’s important by repeating information, changing their voices or rate of delivery, listing items in order of importance, and, of course, by writing on the chalkboard. What key point is the professor making?
Maintain eye contact with the instructor. Of course you will need to look at your notebook to write your notes, but eye contact keeps you focused on the job at hand and keeps you involved in the lecture.
Stay active by asking questions. Active listening keeps you on your toes. Whenever you have a doubt, immediately ask for clarification. Get very specific in the question that you ask.
Try to anticipate what the professor is going to say. It keeps the mind involved and active in the learning process. Your mind does have the capacity to listen, think, write and ponder at the same time, but it does take practice. You can think faster than the lecturer can talk.
If the classroom is too hot or too cold, wear appropriate clothes to deal with it.

An essential skill for good note taking is good listening.

Hearing vs. Listening
Is there a difference between hearing and listening?

Yes, there is! Hearing is simply the act of perceiving sound by the ear. If you are not hearing-impaired, hearing simply happens.

Listening, however, is something you consciously choose to do. Listening requires concentration so that your brain processes meaning from words and sentences. Listening leads to learning. Most people tend to be “hard of listening” rather than “hard of hearing.”

Receiving an online education could help you maintain the important material given by professors more organized than when you have to attend to class lectures. This is one of the reasons why students are considering online universities.

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Tips for IIT JEE Success # 5 – Create a competitive study group

admin — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 08:00:54 +0000

Prepare a competitive study group

Your best source of cooperation is your competition. Working with a competitive study group goes a very long way in the successful preparation of IITJEE. When you decide to study in groups, you recreate a cooperative environment to multiply your knowledge exponentially. Students can learn very quickly by sharing their knowledge, skills and resources.

Group formation guidelines

Look for people who are experts in certain subjects and topics.
Seek diversity in expertise. There should be at least one expert from each subject. Within a subject, look for experts in different areas like organic chemistry, physical chemistry, calculus, co-ordinate, electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics etc.
This could lead to having a group that is very diverse. It is good because you may also have different learning styles represented in your group.
It may not be possible to find all experts from the friend circle itself. So, it is important to seek out experts from other areas.
Make a study group of five to seven people (Larger groups get unwieldy. Groups with less than 5 are difficult to sustain)

How to study in groups?

Ask your friends for clarifications of doubts.
Quiz and challenge each other with questions from the IITJEE syllabus.
Share useful concepts and questions
Be very eager to help. Answer and teach whenever somebody has a problem.
If you have to teach a concept, you have to have complete clarity and understanding of the concept. So you are not only helping the other group members, but also you are reinforcing your own knowledge.
Someone should take the role of the session leader to keep the session productive.
Take a few minutes at the end of the session to evaluate what you’ve done.
Don’t meet more than once in two weeks
Meet at least once a month
Don’t meet without a clear agenda for the meeting

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Is coaching essential?

Prtyagi — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:40:11 +0000

In my opinion, coaching has its own uses and disadvantages.

If we talk about the classes I to VIII, there really is not such a big need for a separate trainer to coach the student. We must understand that a coach or a trainer is required to prepare the student for some major examination. So when we talk about our school system, the major examinations begin only from class IX. Coaching institutes definitely do a great job at making the student run. They try to make sure the result shows up. Thats their only job.

The school studies are quite sufficient in terms of their content and number of periods allotted for preparation for the examination at hand. Most of the teachers in schools also have sufficient knowledge to train the student for the exams. So it is not really the lack in value addition from the school system that is to be blamed for growth in the number of coaching setups these days.
It is something else.

The student has been trained to go to school as part of a regular routine. He has to go to school whether he makes use of that time or not. And, as far as preparation for examination is concerned, there is coaching or tuition in the evening. So the student makes this a routine… to go to school unprepared, come back empty headed as if nothing really happened there with some homework to be done, and then tries to get real value from the coaching. Even the student is not to be blamed here.

In fact, there is no place where ‘what is the right way to prepare for your life and examinations?’ is taught. The school and coaching are only aids to prepare the child for the exam, and both do their duties quite satisfactorily, but thats not all. The student in the early years has to be taught HOW to study, WHEN to study, HOW MUCH to study, how to MANAGE TIME and WHY to study at all. What he should expect from the school and what from coaching. This training, everyone thinks is not useful and time wasting. But I surely feel that if I was given this training in my childhood, I would have saved a lot of my own time and would have been more happy and stress free.

As I said, school does bring in its own value. So the student must focus hard on whatever is being taught in school (for school studies), and then put all focus in the evening in coaching (for competitive examinations). Arts, science, commerce, it does not matter. There are competition exams in every stream now-a-days.

For choosing the right institute, one should only look at how near the coaching is to ones house and how much time is he going to spend there (because self study is the most important thing). Cost should never be the criteria. Time is everything, once lost, never comes back. Money lost, comes back.

While going to school, the student must prepare well for the class thats going to be held in school in advance. So much so, that the student must do a thorough reading of the chapter thats going to be taught in school and take his doubts (whatever was not clear) to the school to ask the teacher. If this is done by the student regularly, performance of the student will improve drastically.

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Questions with no negative marking

Prtyagi — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:42:40 +0000

— Questions with no negative marking

There are two types of questions, which have no negative marking.

1. Integer type: Students have to “calculate” down to the finest value and then indicate that value in the OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) sheet. This is where the test really lives up to its definition — “objective”. But not multiple choice.

For example, if the answer to a particular problem is 112, then the students have to arrive at the correct answer. In the answer grid that contains four columns of numbers running from 0 to 9, they have to darken 0, 1, 1 and 2. The OMR reader would read the answer as 112 and only to that answer, marks would be awarded.

2. Match the following: The students are asked to match the items in the left column with those in the right column.

A seemingly simple proposition, if you were to exercise ‘fix a couple’ and ‘eliminate one possibility’ kind of techniques. However, it would not work here.

Let the left column have (A, B, C, D) and four options in the right column be (w, x, y, z).

The final marking would look something like this: A- x,y; B- x; C- w,z; D- w,y,z.

You would have to mark exactly like this in the specially designed grid in the OMR sheet to get any credit for this question. If you were to mark all others correct and then D-w,z, no marks would be awarded for this question.

If you were able to get out of the compartment mode of thinking and look for applicability of concepts across subject areas, you would do well. For example, when you look at an area in Mechanics, you should also realize that the same concept may be present in five other topics, viz., Motion in one dimension, Motion in two dimensions, Work Energy Power, Rotational Dynamics and Laws of Motion. Which means you should be able to use one concept in different areas to get these type of ‘Match the following’ questions.

Well, that is what the JEE intends to seek in young aspirants – can you ‘size up the situation’?

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“I do not feel like studying… please tell me how i can concentrate” – II

Prtyagi — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 18:37:30 +0000

(b). The spiritual help: This is the mother of all solutions to problems in life. Here I just tell students to ‘Stop thinking’ altogether. The very fact that the mind is the one which gives pain in your life, that makes you restless, gives anxiety in your life, makes you very happy at one time and extremely sad at some other time.

We are taught a lot of things in our school, college, work place and home. But we have never been told about the mind. What it is and how we can use it to our advantage, and when it becomes a evil. I will try to explain as clearly as I can. (Many have tried to explain this same thing and died painful deaths trying to help compulsive thinkers)

The brain has connections to the rest of the body through the spinal chord. Every part of your body is connected to your brain. So you cannot afford to mess around with your brain, can you?? If the wrong signals are sent, you do not know where those signals will eventually land up, and what they might convey to that part of your body. But what does the brain produce?? Nothing but ‘Thoughts’. Just like the bone marrows produces Red Blood Cells. Its just keeps producing thoughts. Thats its job. But now just wait a moment and analyze the difference between the bone marrow and your brain. Both were given to you as part of a self-driven programmed mechanism called ’save this guy… help him live’. The machinery of both was programmed in the DNA of every cell in your body. So thats what they keep doing.

But haven’t you ever noticed that you definitely have some ‘CONTROL’ over your thoughts. But you do not seem to have any control whatsoever on your bone marrow. That control is the ‘YOU’. You are not your hands, legs, brain, body. The ‘YOU’ is that control ’sometimes’ exercised. This control sometimes even appears in the form of ‘ATTENTION’ while reading a book, watching television, listening to someone speak. It can even be the ‘CONCENTRATION’ thats needed often while studying. You are simply this attention, this control, this knowing, this observer. Once you have got this, then only you will understand the next para.

Now that you have got your ‘ATTENTION’, whenever you have a thought like ‘I do not feel like’, or “I feel sleepy’, or ‘I am a loser’, or ‘I cannot…’, then just start to observe your thoughts. Simply observe without any prejudice or judgment. JUST WATCH your thoughts… if you do this the right way, your thoughts will not survive your attention. They will die/vanish.

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“I do not feel like studying… please tell me how i can concentrate” – I

Prtyagi — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 18:36:10 +0000

Whenever I am faced with this expression from a student, I get into a state of confusion myself as to which way I should help him out…

(a). The psychological help: The thing that separates the two ‘helps’ is that this one has at least some acceptance. Almost no one likes to hear ’spiritual lectures’.

You have to know the following sequence -
Thoughts -> Words -> Actions -> Behavior -> Habit -> Personality -> ‘Who you are’

So in a way, we are saying that what you have thought of, will eventually become ‘who you are’. There are just some steps involved in the process that I have written down above. Hence, when you say ‘I do not feel like doing something’, then you are already in stage 2 of the process of becoming ‘who I really am’. Which means you have already thought that ‘I do not feel like it’. Meaning that ‘I have actually made up my mind. And you just listen to what I have committed to myself in my mind, which is, that I do not feel like it’. Well, in this case I really cant do much to help you, can I. Nor can you yourself do anything about it. I hope you got what I am trying to say here.

I am not trying to play with words here. Just trying to help you out a little, to make you realize that your just saying something starts to put shape to what you want to become. The moment you say ‘I feel tired’, you begin to become tired (I mean how can you become tired when you have not moved too much of your body the whole day, and have just been thinking and solving problems). I know so many students who say they get tired by studying. How can you?? How can your muscles get tired or be out of oxygen, when all you were using was your brain?? So in reality, when you said ‘I feel tired’, you wanted to quit doing whatever you were doing, because now you have got ‘bored’ of doing that thing.

But not that you have said that ‘I feel tired’, you will begin to get yawns, your muscles will begin to ache a little and you might want to lie down, or even sleep. “Your body will do what you want it to do”.

Has your brain or your body ever “disobeyed” you?? They just cannot. They are not programmed that way. Then how are they? Well, they will always help you and follow your instructions. ALWAYS. So you will ask, ‘But even when there is exam tomorrow, I feel sleepy, so my brain is not helping me!!’. I will then tell you that you yourself have told your brain to feel sleepy. It is you who thinks!! Its not your brain that thinks. Your brain is what you use to think. Let me explain… does your hand move on its own? Or do you make it move? In the same, how can your brain do anything on its own. It looks like its functioning on its own, but in reality it is you who is asking it to do this, or that.

‘So what do we do if we cannot really control our brain like we can control our hands and legs? What if we just keep thinking compulsively. Thoughts just come in and we do not have a way to close the door?’ … Try N.L.P. (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). Read about it in the book ‘Unlimited Power’ by Anthony Robbins.

This is one of the things that I do… I visualize situations in my head. Suppose that I have a big headache. I will create an image in my head of all the bad, red, hot, angry, negative things in my head and collect them all in a box. I then start shrinking the box in size, and imagine complete peace and blackness outside the box as it shrinks. The peace increases in size and the box reduces in size progressively, till it disappears.I keep doing this again and again for 5 minutes. And the headache goes away. This simple technique actually works every time in all situations. So you could be in a situation where you are feeling lazy, and all you have to do is close your eyes and imagine a situation in which you have been selected in IIT. You have secured a rank of 340 and have just gone for counseling in IIT-Delhi. And you have been awarded the stream of your choice, ‘Computer Engineering’. And you are so happy and enthusiastic with joy that you have never been in life … Just imagining this situation is enough. The next time you feel lazy, imagine a similar situation, but cook up a different future story, otherwise you will start feeling bored of the same old story.

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