Is ‘IIT’ my cup of tea?

If my article in the previous issue has completely overwhelmed you, you may have begun to wonder “is IIT some kind of fairy world made for only GODS of academic world?” No, its not. Even an average student can aspire to be a part of the IIT dream, if only he decides to commit himself to this goal and approaches the exam in a strategic and careful manner.

Although the answer to the question, “Is IIT my cup of tea?” is not simple, I am not going to help you figure it out either. Preparing for IIT is a personal choice and you have to commit efforts to that decision and commit loads of efforts. My role here is simply to help you come out of some myths regarding IIT-JEE.

1) Have you ever really sat and thought why IIT-JEE is a tough exam? If you actually do so the first reason that shall probably hit you is the astronomical number of students that compete for the countable few seats.

For the uninitiated let me give the figures. Around 2.5 lakh students register for IIT-JEE competing for around 5000 seats. Roughly 2.3 lakhs appear for the exam. That means that 20 thousand students despite of purchasing the JEE form don’t even take pains to go for the exam. This suggests that not all who have registered for the exam are serious about it. Moreover according to surveys, almost 80% of the students who appear for the exam do not really increase the competition. Why? Well there are various reasons.

Many of these don’t aspire to be into IITs. They were instead preparing for SLEET (state level engineering entrance tests) which is engineering CET for Maharashtra. They had joined coaching classes also for SLEET only. When you prepare properly for IIT-JEE the preparations for SLEET is taken care of but un-fortunately the converse is not true. So if you prepare for JEE, you are definitely better of than this huge chunk.

Also not all who join classes for JEE prepare whole heartedly or are desperate to make it. And if you don’t want something badly you don’t get it. It’s as simple as that.

Then there are students who join classes for JEE and are quite serious about it, but un-fortunately suffer from a disease called ‘self deceit’. We shall talk about it in detail later in some other issue. In brief these are the students who work very hard, but understand little. What they lack is the right guidance and the right study techniques.

In nutshell if you approach the exam in a planned and committed fashion under some able guidance you automatically have an edge over so many others. Please remember, it’s not the ‘quantity’ of students appearing for the exam that make it tough but the ‘quality’.

2) The general notion is that IIT-JEE is a difficult exam and questions are complex and tough. This is not true. On the contrary, the test emphasizes on nothing but fundamentals.

3) Past ≠ Future. I know scores of otherwise brilliant students who feel that because they never topped their school’s merit list, they cannot sail through the IIT-JEE. This is an absolute myth. Performance at school examinations often bears little correlation with performance at IIT-JEE. The curriculum and skills required to crack two exams are as different from one another as chalk from cheese.

Success at school exams depends usually on a student’s mugging power. IIT-JEE on the contrary requires nothing short of strategic planning, motivation, hard work careful guidance and loads of practice.

Also I must emphasize, believing that because you did well in school, you will also do well at the IIT-JEE is living in a fool’s paradise. Basically IIT-JEE and School or Boards examinations are different ball games altogether.

4) In IIT-JEE the scope for error is high. This comes as a shock to the students when I share it with them for the first time. What does this mean? In the history of IIT-JEE the cut-off percentage score required to clear JEE has never exceeded 40% and has been around 30% usually. That means the scope for error is high. You can afford to do few silly mistakes! You can afford to leave few topics in each subject which for some reason you don’t like! In most of the other competitive exams like CET the cut-offs for good colleges and branches are of the order of 90%!!

5) Another myth that needs to be demolished is that you need to be super intelligent to clear JEE. Intelligence (or as we commonly interpret the term, based on a student’s performance in school or boards) is not a pre-requisite according to most of the IITians. IITs contain a broad spectrum of people and not all of them have exceptionally high IQ.

Finally remember, the only meaning that life has is the meaning we ascribe to it. This means, that if you are limited in any sense, you are limited only by your own thoughts. If despite of this article, you allow yourself into believing that you can never make it to IIT, I would agree whole heartedly to you. But if you have one little spark glowing in some corner of your heart that says ‘I can do it’ or rather ‘I will do it’ – don’t let that spark die. Instead give it fire. I assure you 100% that there’s nothing that can come between you and the IIT once you choose to enter its hallowed portals. It’s nothing but our belief systems that manifest itself into reality.

Please send your feedbacks about the article at bakliwaltutorialsiit@gmail.com.

Written by Vaibhav Bakliwal (Director Bakliwal Tutorials-IIT, Alumnus IIT Bombay)