Think you can make it to IIT?
This article will change your life and your rank. Only for students confident of cracking the IITs or a top NIT in the last phase of prep.
Lets cut to the chase. You are probably studying on your own and have been a rock star all the way through OR you are getting star treatment in a coaching institute of x,000 or xoo students and you ‘top’ your class. You may either be a complete nerd or someone who is happy go lucky and is still able to score high. Your entire life has been leading up to this moment. Remember, its not just about getting in — its the right college with the right branch. In 2014, IIT Mumbai CS was gone at Rank 75 in the general category.
Its the last leg, you have probably completed your syllabus or some parts are pending. Your focus maybe fine tuning whats left. e.g. IIT Rank 243, Kshitij Bajaj, Year 2014 was worried about only Modern Physics in the last quarter of prep. While his individual professors in Ludhiana did a great job with all subjects — he used to think about the hyper specialised teachers in Kota who super-specialised on different units! He was completely unaware of all the other ways in which super intelligent test analysis could help him improve his score! Here is what he was missing:
Deep dive academic improvement!
Sure, he needed to improve on Modern Physics. But what was his true ability on the rest of the content? When Kshitij took his first test on embibe — he realised the following:
While he scored an amazing 295/360 marks — which meant 77 correct questions — he actually had only 41 perfect attempts.
He also had 43 overtime attempts, of which 7 were incorrect! This meant that in these questions — he not only wasted time but also lost marks. Funnily enough, all three of the Physics overtime incorrect questions were from Mechanics — a unit he thought he knew really well.
Further he picked up on the exact concepts that were deficient test on test — just to focus on those as the date for the exam came closer. Thats right not just chapters, concepts. Each question for the JEE on average contains 2 concepts or more. The only way you can find out what is really going wrong is attempting intelligent tests — chapter wise feedback:
What about across tests? What if you are Rank 3 and want to focus on just the very concepts that hold you back across all the 8,000+ concepts (that is right-there are so many just in the 11th and 12th!). Check out the feedback below — this will help you find the few needles in the haystack of your prep. To really sharpen your prep!
ALERT — Marks lost because of test taking technique
- Further, he realised that he lost 5 marks just like that because of a careless mistake, which we call a wasted attempt! Predictably, just like 76% of rankers — this careless mistake was in Chemistry. A 4/10 difficulty level question in nuclear chemistry. Embibe knows the ideal time for every question. He took a mere 17 seconds in a question which should have taken xx minutes when attempted for the first time.
- The other interesting thing we saw was that he took 159.3 minutes to look at the entire paper in one go! Within this time, he attempted 87 questions within the first look. Of these questions — he had 39 overtime attempts and 1 wasted attempt as well as 13 incorrect questions. Take a look below. Here the x axis total time of the exam and the y axis is difficulty level. Each dot represents a unique questions and the colors represent the subject:
In contrast, Govind Lahoti (IIT Rank 3) in the same year — looked at the entire paper once in 91 minutes and was more selective about his first look attempt.
Clearly if you look at marks scored per unit time spent and overall time management, Govind does a much better job by gaining control of the test paper early. At the same time, he also had higher attempt quality and a better understanding of what he knows.
What is your first look accuracy? This is a very powerful metric. In fact check out this Base ranker (Advaith Sridhar IIT Rank 300, 2015)which talks about first look accuracy and what it can do for students and other ways in which embibe feedback has helped along with countless other success stories.
Also, track the sharpening of your test technique test on test!
Get the real picture on your performance
The other exciting thing is that across 400 students measured for 2015 and 2014 — the embibe scores in tests were around 92% in line with the real JEE scores. In fact, uncannily so — check out what Bakshish Mangat (IIT Rank 471 2015) had to say about his scores being in line with the JEE Mains actual score.
Everyone relies on the FIITJEE test series to understand where they would rank in the actual test — everyone also knows that FIITJEE tests are way tougher. So where is the mirror? Here is the mirror — 162 FREE TESTS to benchmark yourselves at every level which includes chapter level, unit level and full tests as well as previous year papers for JEE Main, JEE Advanced and BITSAT.
Lets face it — its just one test to take to get started. That is 3 hours of your time for a serious attempt. Way more than the 56 tests taken by Disha Ghandwani (proud ISI Kolkata admit and Abhayanand Super 30’s top student). In fact if you just start by taking JEE Main Full Test 1 — you will be able to compare your score and the method of taking tests with so many ex-embibers who have actually cracked the top IITs!
Fixing your score once you see your feedback (a.ka. study plan)
Chances are you would have at least scored above 250 in Test 1. Lets now examine the step by step process to really nail the last mile!
Step 1: Get your behaviour and test taking skills right: People who are real top scorers like you guys tend to make the following 3 mistakes:
- Wasted Attempts/ Careless mistakes specially in Chemistry. These are mostly caused because of overconfidence on your part. Embibe is really good at detecting when you under-compensate on effort. Wasted attempts have to go to zero. These are killer mistakes which cost you on average 5 marks in the test. The way to decrease these is to take a deep breath before every attempt. You attempt them fast either due to panic or overconfidence. Visualise Sachin Tendulkar batting and Brett Lee bowling. As pressure mounts, Tendulkar starts sweating in the anticipation of the next delivery. Brett Lee’s face looks more and more tense.
Technically, each ball is independent.
What connects them is their tension and expectations. The way to decrease that stress is to breathe deep. Check this article out to further learn about stress management used by students who take the GMAT!
As a top student you will also have a tendency to go too fast and get things right. But why take a risk? The remedy is to take a deep breath before every question and remember the weightage. Don’t let the psychological effect of one question influence the next.
Note the chapters in which you have wasted attempts — you will be able to see this in detail in the question wise analysis or even in the test taking strategy part of the analysis.
Clicking on each ‘dot’ gives you the video solution and amazingly detailed explanations as well as the concepts used in each question! Video solutions are available for all full tests!
Take chapter wise tests on these chapters and also all unit tests in Chemistry to make sure you curb the habit of over speeding. Go to this link for all tests and use the filter to select the appropriate test.
2. Time spent on questions not answered: This will be visible in the ‘How did you spend your time view’ as shown below:
Even if you score high — e.g. the student, Advaith in question here scored 267/360 (not bad, you would say) and still spent 41 minutes on questions he didn’t actually end up attempting! Chances are you are wasting a lot of time on questions you don’t actually answer, look for this number. If you score 250+, we would say stick your neck out and try for a 100% attempt — see what happens. Then systematically solve for your weaknesses as shown below in Step 2.
A lot of students tend to get questions overtime even in their first attempt. The goal is to score as many perfect attempts and leave the questions you are not sure of to the end.
3. First Look Accuracy: I cannot stress this enough. Two things — make sure your first look time is less than 120 minutes when you go through the paper to have a very strong, confident start. We looked at the first look times for Ranks 1,2 and 3 for JEE Mains tests and realised that all of these guys get through the paper at least once within the first 1.5 to 2 hours of the test. They then spend time on the tougher questions and finally have time for revision. As illustrated in the very beginning, make sure your first look time is between 1.5 to 2 hours. Also aim for a first look accuracy of 90% plus. Targeting this will make it very comfortable for you to navigate the paper at ease without ever feeling pressure. You can see your first look times and accuracy in the ‘Test taking strategy’ section as shown below.
Step 2: Academic Revision the embibe way
A. Question wise revision
- Revise the questions you got wrong in the following order. When we say revise, we mean really solve these questions again and view the solution.
Start with overtime incorrect questions in your first look — these were questions you got wrong and spent too much time. To get these questions — use the filter combination: ‘OVERTIME’ and ‘INCORRECT’ together along with ‘PHYSICS’, ‘CHEMISTRY’ and ‘MATHEMATICS’ also selected. Only look at the questions on the left of the white dotted line indicating your first look. - Next look at overtime incorrect questions on the right side of the dotted line. By now you have covered all questions that hurt both speed and accuracy
- Next look at incorrect questions overall. Find these by using the filter combination: ‘INCORRECT’ together along with ‘PHYSICS’, ‘CHEMISTRY’ and ‘MATHEMATICS’ also selected.
- Finally, look at all overtime correct questions. To get these use the filter combination: ‘CORRECT’ and ‘OVERTIME’ together along with ‘PHYSICS’, ‘CHEMISTRY’ and ‘MATHEMATICS’ also selected. Look at the method used — why did you go overtime?
- Use ‘Learn’ on embibe to revise the concepts used in these questions. You already know that clicking on each dot in the graph shown above will show you the solution on the question. The other way is to use Questionwise Analysis. Click on the tiny eye in the right to view the detailed video solution for each question and understand the concepts for revision.
B. Chapterwise Revision:
Look at the Chapterwise analysis. The order of practice should be as follows:
- Important Chapter and ‘Chapter I got wrong’
- Important Chapter and ‘Chapter I did not attempt’
- Regular Chapter and ‘Chapter I got wrong’
- Regular Chapter and ‘Chapter I did not attempt’
I have shared below, the right way to go about each of these using embibe:
- Chapters I got right: Just after the first test, don’t spend too much time on these unless you have many overtime attempts. Use chapter practice to fine tune the time management. Focus on the micro-recommendations that come as you make an attempt. Follow their guidance to improve on time management. First focus on getting accuracy right, use hints if you need to; be aware that you are going overtime. Once that is under control, try and get questions right before the timer on the right turns amber.
- Chapters I got wrong: Click on the chapter tile to see which concepts were the culprits. Use embibe’s Learn feature to specifically Learn those chapters and concepts. Next take a chapter wise test on the same chapter to further diagnose weaknesses.
- Chapters I did not attempt: Why did you not attempt this chapter? My sense is these chapters would be very low for you guys. I would recommend starting with Learn and the Knowledge Tree for a quick revision if confidence is low. Follow that up with trying out a few questions in Chapter Practice and then finally take a Chapter Test
Check it out below:
Look for yellow stars indicating important concepts. Once this is done, you can then focus on Part Tests and Unit wise practice to check for speed and accuracy at a higher level.
Regardless of your current score, you should be able to improve your score to a significant extent — using analytics driven practice, learn or setting your test taking skills right as shown above.
Remember, you deserve to maximise your potential. Now and in life. Embibe will be your friend, always.
