I think the title of this review says it all. More often than not, we mess things up because we are not organized in our thoughts. You may have scores of ideas to experiment and try out but what matters is careful inspection and the perseverance to sort them.
I think this is the major philosophy for acing IIT JEE (or any goal in life), where I use the word ’’acing’’ for good performance (to me, acing is to be used for both a 210 AIR as well as 500 AIR : The difference in their ranks can be luck).
During my preparation, I did get down to following this to some extent but I was messy with ideas. I had them all but I didn’t organize them as elegantly as I had the brains to do.
In a typical entrance examination like IIT JEE, you would have bunch of text to be read, loads of tutorials and hundreds of sample questions. Here is what you need to do:
-- Cultivate the habbit of organizing the way you work.
-- Keep record of what you attempt and where you failed. If an approach doesn’t work, investigate why?
-- When reading from multiple sources, try to correlate, merge information that is common and add the different pieces. Keep a log of all ’’atypical’’ things that you learn any day.
-- Proceed in parallel with all the three subjects (Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics)
-- It is really important for the brain to function fast and smart. For this, don’t lock yourself in your study throughout the day. I would suggest, run a mile or two or go to the gym or do some physical activity that refreshes your thinking.
-- To me, concentration was the gravest of all issues. The lack of concentration is due to an agitated mind. Always try to calm yourself down. Relax your muscles when you are reading things. Time yourself when you work, to test and improve your efficiency.
-- Have a game plan and foster competition with fellow mates. Try to learn tricks to problems solving from different sources, see how your friends approached the problem and keep compiling all of these in a log. A couple of days before the exams, you should be just brushing these logs.
-- Lastly and most importantly, believe in yourself. You have got it and you can do it. All it needs is some committment. Come on ! you are good at it. arent you ??
Best of Luck...
Manas