A STRANGE STORY OF AN IITian...

You will find it interesting. It will be quite motivating for many JEE aspirants. JEE aspirants can relate to my experiences. Some might find it difficult to believe this story. In this story you will come to know how a child who was considered average by some people reached AIR 247 in JEE Advanced.

• My Background :

My father is a shopkeeper and mother is a housewife. I had never been a topper in my class. In ninth class (CBSE) I got only 8.2 CGPA. Everyone considered me as an average student but some teachers and my father believed that I had something special in me. In tenth class I got 9.6 CGPA and stood 2nd in my class. I knew that there were many students across the country who got 10 CGPA. But still it was a very big achievement for me and my family.

• Street Engineers :

Following some commercials, I joined an Institute in June. From the beginning only, I did not have any good mentor. All I had were street engineers (average seniors) who did not get a job. I took advice from them only without knowing that they are big losers. They also gave me such a poor random advice with useless logics that I had to bear a lot of loss in the future.

• Befooled by the teachers :

As I joined a bit late, I did not get best of the teachers in the Institute. Those teachers always focused more on theory rather than problems. They did not even teach complete theory. I was able to do all the problems they gave in the class and thought that my preparation is going quite well as I did not know that those problems were of very low level. I used to get rank 1 in our batch and thought that I can very easily clear JEE. I did not do a lot of problems at home because most of my time got wasted in attending the school but I did not take it very seriously as I was the batch topper in the coaching.

But gradually as I saw previous years papers and some other books, I realized that my preparation was not even close to what was required to give JEE except my Physics which was at least up to JEE Mains level as I used to study from HCV. But in Physics also I did not know anything after Center of Mass chapter. So I started feeling depressed. I started wasting my time and got a very big backlog of syllabus. I also got dropped from the first position in the batch, so, I stopped giving the weekly tests.

Time kept passing and I kept wasting it, but then I mustered all my courage and thought of solving the issue. So I thought of leaving the previous chapters and start with the current chapters. At that time, perhaps Coordinate Geometry, Rotational Motion, and Hydrocarbons were being taught. I chose RD Sharma, HC Verma and Solomons and Frhyle respectively. But I could not recover wholly because most of my time got wasted in attending the school.

I got depressed thinking about what may happen with me in the future. How will I be able to complete the syllabus of JEE. My parents had many expectations from me. They had spent a lot of money on me. Then came our annual exams in the school I somehow managed to get 75% around in those exams.

• Losses due to school :

I was brainwashed by some street engineers that I should join a regular school as the coaching institutes only teach the topics from high level and I wont be able to understand them if I did not join a school where the basics are taught. So I joined a school and attended it regularly.

In my class of 40 students only 4 students had joined a JEE coaching. No one ever had become an IITian in my school. The teaching quality was too poor but I didnt recognize it in the beginning. Some teachers did not like students who join coaching institutes and always scolded us for taking a leave. They thought that coaching institute is just an excuse to take leave. The students who joined JEE coaching always used to argue with them whenever they taught wrong concepts. They did not like this, therefore, they always suppressed students for competitive exams preparation.

The level and speed of teachers in the school was extremely poor. They used to discuss even small topics for a long time which was totally a time waste. As the level of school teachers and children was very low, I was considered as a very intelligent boy. I had a very good class response. I also loved when others used to appreciate me. Some of the teachers appreciated my superiority over them while some were jealous as I knew more than them. But no one ever considered that I could ever make it to IIT because clearing JEE was impossible according to them. The whole of my time in the school got wasted. It wasted around 8 hours of my day and a lot of energy.

The only reason for me to attend the school was to get the attendance. I used to study till 2–3 AM in the night and hence sometimes I got 5–10 minutes late for the school. The school had very strict rules for late comers. They used to make us stand outside the school gate for 2–3 hours and then sent us back. One day I had a big quarrel in front of many parents for the losses I had to bear because of the school.

Many times I tried to recover myself but my school never let me do it. In the later sections I will tell you about how I had a big quarrel with my school related to attendance.

• 12th Class Beginning :

Now I had moved to 12th class. Our session in the Institute began in the March 2015 end. I though of not letting my 12th class ruin as my 11th class. In 12th class we got very good teachers. Their teaching really matched JEE advanced level. I went to them and ask them which chapters in the 12th class needed prerequisite knowledge from 11th class syllabus. They started with Organic Chemistry, Electrodynamics, and Calculus. The latter two did not need any special knowledge of 11th class chapters. I chose DC Pandey, Solomons and Frhyle and Amit M Agarwal respectively for these chapters. I enthusiastically did Physics and Maths But organic chemistry needed some previous knowledge of chapters like GOC, Optical Isomerism etc. I tried to cover these chapters along with my 12th class studies as much as I could. But it was very difficult to understand these chapters for me at that time. I kept listening very attentively to my teachers in the class and enjoyed everything they taught.

Everything started going smoothly. But this was not the end of my problems, I had the enormous 11th syllabus to cover. I thought of not attending the school for a medical excuse. I did not go to school for around 15 days. One day, a schoolmate caught me on my way to coaching classes and informed my class-teacher. The school warned me that if I will not attend the school , they will struck off my name from their school. I got scared. I started attending the school regularly. Then came our summer vacations. All my plans got ruined when the school teachers told us that they will take our extra classes in the vacations for 15 days. This time I could not take a leave. I also searched of any dummy school which could register my name at that time, but it was too late. I got hopeless. I finally had to attend the classes and in the remaining holidays I got a lot of organic chemistry done.

Then I visited a Counsellor and she advised me to talk to the School Principal. I went to the Principal many times but she denied and said that she can not break the school rules. But after visiting many times she agreed but upon one condition that I should get above 90% in Half yearly exams in the school. I got far more than 90% in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics and went to her. But she did not even let me enter her room, it was around September 2015 end.

I got extremely angry and decided to take as many leaves as I could. I only went for 4 days in October, 2 days in November, 5–6 days in December and 5 days in January. They warned me many times that they will strike my name off their school. But I didn’t listen because my life was already miserable and it won’t make a difference to me if they will do so.

• The Great Comeback :

One day (around the end of September 2015), I sat and thought a lot about the solution to this problem for whole of the day. Then I devised some techniques to save time, classified topics and arranged them in a specific order so that the efficiency can be maximized.

I selected the best books for me. I used to study for around 14–15 hours daily. I got an immense acceleration. I was able to complete my syllabus by January end and that too very thoroughly.

• The Changes in Everyone’s Behavior in the School :

I gave my Pre-Boards in January and I did not find any objection by the school in that although they had warned me. I got good marks in the Pre-Boards. The teachers who used to boycott me started talking to me in a very polite way. They also gave me the admit card and I could very easily give the board exams.

• All is Well That Ends Well :

After a lot of struggle and hard-work, there came a very big victory. I excelled in almost every exam I gave. My results in various exams are:

1. JEE Advanced - 225/372
2. JEE Main - 254/360
3. CBSE Boards - 94.6%
4. BITSAT -372/450