By T F L Mawlong
Hundreds of students will appear for the coming JEE Main entrance exam on April 4, 2015 in Shillong for admission into various engineering courses in different engineering colleges and institutes in the country. In last two years many students from our state qualified for the JEE Mains but almost every one (barring a few) had qualified with pathetic scores of 50, 60, or 70 and much below 100 out of 360. I feel compelled to share few important ‘last minute tips’ for students who are appearing for the exams this coming Saturday. JEE papers generally test the basic concepts, problem solving skills and general intelligence of a candidate. By now the candidates who are serious are thorough enough with basics, at least of the important topics in Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry.
While almost every crammer among tribal students can qualify JEE mains (since cut-off is very low), it needs the ‘problem solving ability’ or alternatively ‘general intelligence’ to push the score beyond 100-120 mark. Thus for students whose problem solving ability in the subjects has not evolved to the required level, there are smart methods they need to employ in exams for gaining extra marks.
Smart guess or educated guess or sensible guess is part and parcel of JEE exams. In a question there are four options of which one is correct. Now either a student should know one correct option out of four given options or know three wrong options out of the given four options. By the latter I mean that a student should try to eliminate the impossible so that what is left is a possible option. There are smart ways to eliminate the incorrect options. JEE papers are such that even if a student does not know how to answer a question, if he/she is clever and knows the basics he/she should be able to eliminate the incorrect options. Many questions will have really stupid answer choices. Thus some question will have options which are too high, too low, or too impossible to be correct. While in some other questions options given are just so stupid and absurd that it become easy to eliminate the incorrect ones. Let me give two examples here.
First example: in certain question a peculiar situation is given and you are asked to find the ‘expression for velocity.’ Now the options given are absurdly of different dimensions, so a clever student will not try to work out the expression for velocity (which can be very difficult or not possible for him/her), he/she will just see which of the given options have same dimension as velocity that should be a correct option.
Second example: take this simple question which appears in AIEEE – ” a car is moving on a straight road with a speed of 100m/s. if the coefficient of kinetic friction is 0.5 then the distance at which this car can be stopped is: a)100m b) 200 m c)500m d) 1000m. ” – now to actually solve this question you need to know how to apply two concepts involved, but majority of students are bad at application of concepts. So if a student is clever he/she will just scan the options and apply his/her commonsense as follows: 100 m 200 m and 500 m cannot possibly be the correct options because it would mean the car going at 100m/s can be stopped in 1 second, 2 second and 5 second respectively which is absurd given the weight of a car and a low friction of just 0.5. Hence possible answer should be 1000 m.
There are many other such smart ways. Students should confidently seek to apply their mind and tricks in exam. They should not allow themselves to be carried away by the formidable appearance of the JEE questions. In a good number of questions every year at least two options can be eliminated by using smart guess and commonsense. When students face a dilemma of what to choose from the remaining two options (when they have eliminated two other options) they should remember to ‘trust the mind not the heart’. We see a question in exams and our heart says that the answer is something whereas the mind says something else. Students should rely on ‘first impressions of the mind’, because JEE is a test of intelligence. Thus if a student had eliminated options (a) and (b), and the first impression is that (d) is correct, without second thoughts he/she should choose (d). More often than not the first impression is the right impression. In any case the student should not leave such questions un-attempted. Even if the student can eliminate only one option, it is wise that he/she attempts the question.
Let’s do a little maths here: If a student has eliminated two options then the chance of getting correct or wrong answers if he/she chooses randomly among the two options left is 50-50. So let’s say you encounter 20 such questions and you random guess all 20, then number of questions you are likely to get right is 10 that means your score from these 20 question is likely to be 10×4 -10×1 = 30 (since -1 is a negative marking for wrong answer and +4 is awarded to correct answer). Even if the student can eliminate only one of the given four options then a random guess among the three options left should give him/her, if she attempt say 20 such question, a score of (1/3)x20x4 – (2/3 )x20x1 = 13 marks… Free marks of course! And maths do not lie!
Students should learn to judge a questions and to decide whether or not to go for it. This is important because in JEE there will always be some questions which are very tough. If students spend time in such question they will lose concentration and confidence. Also if students are good at judging a question they can easily spot out which ones they can attempt by using sensible guess work.
Above all, students should stay focussed, stay confident and maintain a positive attitude and never under-estimate themselves. Underestimation is more dangerous than over-confidence. Overwhelming majority of students had not attended any coaching classes. Well the good news is there is really NO need for coaching, be it JEE or AIPMT. Last year majority of students from Meghalaya who had qualified for JEE Mains had not attended any coaching classes. All that matters is a conceptual clarity, a confidence and a belief in oneself. Finally students should not be nervous if they find the paper tough. They should keep in mind that if the paper is tough, it is tough for all hence they should apply their best reasoning and analytical mind to work. And remember JEE is just an exam, so enjoy. All the very best!