How I cleared JEE

This is a short story ( I'll try to keep it short :-P ) about me. About the last two years of my life and the most boring topic in the world, studies ( It really is so boring that my roomies won't let me blog about it! ). But then it is also important ( We've all heard this before right! ). So without wasting any more time, I'll start with my story.

I didn't know what JEE was before class 11. I began preparations in class 11 ( before that I was pretty casual about it all ). I joined Prerna Classes because all my friends were joining ( I hadn't even heard about Vikas Tank!! ). After that, it was two years of hard work, studying like mad, going to sleep tired everyday and trying to balance studies and television and Fifa all at the same time.

Did I do everything right? Surely I didn't b
ut a few of my right decisions were :

1. Joining Prerna Classes : In Jamshedpur Prerna has the best faculty in A0 batch so that is the place to be in if you want to clear JEE ( You can clear from other coaching institutes also but, you'll have to work harder). I didn't go to any other tutions ( my friends were going to many places but I didn't want too much load), just school and Prerna. I had wonderful teachers at school too ( but still I would study other books at school ;-)).
2. Studying Regularly : This is really the most important thing. I wasn't the type of person who would study before the exams and after the exams do other stuff. My studying patterns were independent of the exam schedules.
3. Setting small goals : ( This point is a bit long because I think it's important). I have been asked at least a thousand times how many hours should you study to clear JEE. In my opinion, if you have this approach you are on the wrong track. After school got over I drew a schedule according to which I would study 10 hours everyday! Guess what, from January to May, there were only two days when I could actually do it! No one should ever set a target to study 'x' hours everyday. What will happen is, you might end up sitting at your table for 'x' hours, but you won't be studying for all that time ( double loss:- 1. you haven't studied much, 2. you think you have studied). My strategy was to set small goals for myself everyday, and to not go to sleep till I achieved my goal. Try this, it really works.
4. Exam practice (credits : My dad ) : For at least one month before JEE Advanced, I used to study for 6 hours everyday at the exact same time as the JEE Exams.  Your body is not a machine, but if you follow the same pattern everyday, the body will be at its peak during those 6 hours that matter.
5. Enjoy what you do (:-P) : If you don't enjoy something you'll never be good at it. But then again, as an engineer you'll hardly ever get what you like, so get used to loving what you are doing. I personally liked the feeling of satisfaction I got when I could solve a pretty tough question. Don't hate studies, you can't truly love studies but try and be in a 'complicated relationship' with studies.
6. Practise : I believe this is the most important ingredient. Practise so much that just by looking at the question you know which direction to proceed. Practise so much that you cover each and every type of problem. I used to practice by writing and solving lots and lots of questions. I made my own notes, just reading used to make me fall asleep so I used to write down everything. Also I was weak in integration, I've actually solved the solved examples of Arihant twice ( with a few weeks gap ofcourse :-P).

These are the positive things that helped me, and will surely help anyone else who applies them to achieve their goals. Also for the people confused about which books to study, these are the books I covered :

1. New Pattern Physics and Maths, Arihant (Complete single choice questions of all chapters, multiple correct of only a few chapters).
2. HC Verma ( Almost completely, there are so many questions that it would get boring sometimes).
3. Maths , Arihant all theory books ( Almost all solved examples in the chapter, not the hard ones at the end).
4. Organic Chemistry, Ranjeet Shahi ( Almost completely, I left the last few chapters because it really got boring).
5. Physical Chemistry, Prerna Classes course book (:-P)
6. Inorganic Chemistry, theory from NCERT ( Questions from past papers of coaching, etc.)

Anyways it doesn't matter which book you choose. Whichever book you have, make sure you complete it thoroughly. There are many other good books available like the ones from TMH, DC Pandey, O.P. Tandon and so on. Entirely upto you where you want to study from.

"Success depends only and only on your hard work."  

I normally try to post on Wednesday and Sunday each week, but I could not post anything new due to midsem exams. 

Picture By Ambuj Saxena (Own work) [CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons