Students who have just appeared in their SSC and HSC examinations are at a very important junction in their life. They
have to select a correct path for their future and also a suitable guide in this journey who can keep them on the right
track always. It is very important to enjoy this journey as it is a long one and can be completed successfully only by
enjoying it.
IIT is one of the most sought after destinations for which it is necessary to compete with about two lakh students and
get one of the approximately 3,500 seats. You can be a winner if you believe in yourself; you know your needs and also
the place where these needs can be fulfilled. You as an individual are different than others and hence are your
requirements. You may be able to do self-study and need help on few selected topics only. Or, you may be of the kind
who needs a start and rest can be managed by you if proper strategy and temperament control assistance is made
available to you. Or, you may just need to get tested time to time as you progress on your preparation and availability
of some assistance on taking corrective steps may do miracles for you.
Whatever the case may be, a wrong decision in choosing the assistance is likely to waste plenty of your precious time.
Plenty of coaching options are available. Classroom coaching, mock tests, correspondence courses, study material all
are packaged in different forms to meet your requirements.
In your pursuit for an IIT
berth, you need to do following:
You need to build strong concept on theories involved in topics as per the syllabus by studying them, thinking about
them, arguing about various alternatives and strong reasoning.
Application of concepts through practice on conceptual problems of varied difficulty level. Selection of difficulty level
is very crucial as non-conceptual difficult questions disturb your preparation.
Setting the strategies right. How much time to give on different subjects? What topics to be given priority? When
to finish the syllabus? How many times revision should be done? What should be done just before the examination?
How many questions should be practiced? What to do if you don’t enjoy the subject? What books to study and when?
How to pace the preparation? How much marks one should target at? You should know the answer to these questions
and these answers should not be the general one but should be specific to you.
Temperament control during preparation phase and examination. Preparation for such a competitive examination
over a period of one year, two years or even more will take you through many mood swings. How to stay focused? What
should you do to generate positive energy in you and overcome any negative thoughts during the process? Answers are
person specific and have great impact on your success.
Frequent evaluation of progress and taking corrective measures.
If you feel that you require assistance in JEE preparation then evaluate the Coaching Institute on following parameters:
1. Uniqueness in their study material: Study material provided by the coaching institutes is of little assistance if they
are compact copy-paste or rewrite of materials taken from other books. If the reading of such material doesn’t increase
interest and enjoyment then they are not worth. There are plenty of standard books on each subject by good authors,
which can make your study enjoyable during preparation.
2. Collection of quality books in their library: During the process of theory conceptualisation and building application
capabilities, you need good books, which can really put your brain on exercise.
3. Flexibility in the Coaching Model: What happens when your pace of learning is much faster or slower than the
average? Is there any mechanism by which the model can identify exactly where you need help and provide the same?
Is it possible in that coaching model to minimize the wastage of your time?
4. Quality of questions discussed: Number of questions discussed is not that important. By discussing and solving
10-15 conceptual questions on each topic you can build a good application capability. On the other hand solving many
tricky non-conceptual questions will simply waste your time.
5. Tests and evaluation model: How is the progress of your preparation tested and analyzed? To what extent the
feedback helps in identifying the areas for further work?
Once you are able to choose the correct assistance for your IIT-JEE journey, it will be an enjoying and thrilling
experience.
Girijesh Pathak
VP, New Projects
Aptech Limited (The author is an IIT alumni)
Students who have just appeared in their SSC and HSC examinations are at a very important junction in their life. They
have to select a correct path for their future and also a suitable guide in this journey who can keep them on the right
track always. It is very important to enjoy this journey as it is a long one and can be completed successfully only by
enjoying it. 
