TIPS FOR PREPARATION OF AIIMS / NEET 2014

The article for all the students who have taken a year drop to try their luck once more to get selected in medical entrance examinations or those who are depressed and disheartened on not being able to pursue their dream of becoming a doctor this time and confused whether to risk a year for fulfilling their dream or to join a regular degree programme .

Tips and Suggestions 

*NCERT ARE THE BASIC AND MUST BOOKS FOR PREPARATION.LEARN BIOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY NCERT ON FINGERTIPS.

*DO MAXIMUM NO. OF QUESTIONS AND PREVIOUS YEAR QUESTION PAPERS AS MANY AS YOU CAN.

1.Identify your mistakes which you committed last year..What was the reason behind you being not selected in the exam. Whether you did not study or you did not study from the point of view of a competitive exam or you did not know what to study or you did not solve the previous years papers.

2. Learn from your mistakes. Making mistakes is not a major issue but repeating them will always prevent you from success. This rule applies everywhere in life.So rectify them and don’t repeat this time.

3. Don’t lose hope..have faith in your self and prepare yourself for one year of hardwork and 100% devotion.

4. If you really want to be a doctor, develop qualities that are the trademark of a doctor- hard work, determination, consistency and patience. There is no alternative to hard work, not even smart study as the latter too requires a lot of hard work.

5. Smart study – It is very important to note that you are not doing a PhD but are preparing for the medical entrances examination. You just have to study what ever is asked in the examination after all whatever you will be studying has no use in the profession you are opting for. It is a habit prevalent among many students to study from a high level book and flaunting the same in front of their friends and teachers to gain popularity in the class. First, it is of no use and second, it leads to wastage of time and may also hamper your success in the exam.

Q. It would be my third attempt for pre-medical tests. I have been preparing for medical entrances since I was in class 11th. I have even studied H.C. Verma, Resnik-Halliday  for physics, Neil Campbell for Biology and Deb Mukherjee for chemistry, but still I am unable to get through medical entrances. What more do I need to study?

Ans.  First, you need to bust this myth that the syllabus of PMTs demands solving  questions from very high-level books that are mostly read by the engineering aspirants. The level of questions in physics and chemistry is very low as compared to those asked in IIT-JEE. In PMTs, questions are simple and formula based but time is less and also the cut-off goes very high. So the examination paper demands you to be thorough with your concepts and the formulae should be on your finger tips. Solving from ultra-advanced and high level books is sheer wastage of time.

However , some questions from physics and chemistry which have earlier been asked in IIT JEE are repeated in PMTs especially BHU (Pre and Mains) and such questions can be found in any standard Physics objective book.

Also it is usually seen that some students are not able to clear the exam even after taking many attempts and studying rigorously while some crack PMT in their first attempt and that too without much effort.

The reason is very clear. While the former lack guidance and by hit and trial method , they study from whichever book they come to know of, the latter restrict themselves to few but authentic books and with proper guidance and smart & selective study, they come out with flying colours without unnecessary effort.

6. Is it necessary to join a coaching institute for preparation?

It depends upon your way of studying and whether your basic concepts are clear or not . If your concepts are clear and you are smart enough to understand by reading from books directly, then go ahead, study by yourself. After all coaching teachers are no wizards. They cannot wave a moron into a genius! They are only there to teach you, to help clear your concepts; if you can grasp the topic yourself then its sufficient.

However if you are one of those who cannot grasp the concept by directly reading from the book, and are dependent upon teachers, then you can join any coaching institute and attend the classes regularly. Don’t hesitate to ask questions and clear your doubts with the teachers. But please never blindly follow what all they say, the teachers (mostly; however exceptions are there) can teach you but they cannot guide you on how to excel in exam.

But still, I would suggest that it is better to join some local coaching to help you clear your doubts and provide you with basic concepts of the subjects. A little guidance is very essential to prevent you from unnecessarily wasting time reading unimportant facts.

7. Evaluate yourself regularly by taking mock test papers ( with strict examination like conditions)

Is there any need to join any test- series program for this purpose?

If you have enrolled for a classroom contact program, then you should regularly take the topic- wise tests conducted by the institute. But if you have not joined any institute but are preparing by yourself then it would be better if you buy a set of previous year’s question papers of exams than joining any of the costly test series. As it is, these test – series include unnecessary questions in the tests with the sole purpose of attracting more and more students.

Take previous years’ questions and solve a particular paper whose cut-off you know. Keep seated for the entire time limit and simulate the entire environment of the examination hall.

After completing, match your answers and calculate your total percentage. Match it with the cut-off. No test series can give you a better assessment of your ability. Also, while you are analyzing, mention the mistakes and silly errors that you have made in each subject. Solve a paper at least every 2-3 months during your preparation period. Make a note book so that you can have a look at your own analysis. It would save thousands of money spent on futile test series, and I assure you that you would definitely benefit from this.

7. Solve more and more Previous Years papers – You can solve the previous years papers in a way as I have discussed before . Alternatively, to be quick, you can just solve a question and confirm your answer by looking at the answers. If your answer is wrong, go to the solution and look where you went wrong. Don,t forget to mark that question for future reference. While solving biology paper , learn correct answer, mark it and also  jot down few extra points, mnemonics, other related facts/terms that come to your mind at that time after reading that question so that the next time you come across that same question, you can also glance across the other points you noted down yourself. This ensures easy and fast revision and the probability of missing out on topics while revising is also greatly reduced.  In this way, you can use your previous solved paper book for revision just before exam. I had too followed the same approach.

8. Which Books to refer?

There are many books available in the market but none of them tell you exactly what to study and what to not.  None of them tells you which topic is important but in  both books handbook of biology and biology @ your fingertips, which have included only the relevant and important and frequently asked points with an assurance of over 80 – 90% questions in biology from the same books

Prescribed textbook combination

Biology – any textbook ( Trueman) /notes of your coaching institute + NCERT + both of my books (Handbook and Biology @ your fingertips) + Dinesh objective
Till now I have written just two books and I am also working on the text book and an objective book for biology. But this would take time. So, you should buy above books. I also referred to the same books.

Note : this is the ideal combination, which I have prescribed, so if at any stage you are running out of time, you can only rely on my books along with NCERT
Physics – comprehensive / teacher’s notes + A.K Aggarwal objective book or any other book which your teacher has specified or pradeep or universal
Chemistry – Pradeep textbook and P.Bahadur for objective + NCERT

BIOLOGY-NCERT ALONG WITH ANY GOOD OBJECTIVE BOOK.

P.S. – If you have studied any other book instead of what I have mentioned then go ahead with it, no need to waste time studying from a new book.

9. Develop a feeling of healthy competition with your friends. Don’t be jealous of them if    they know more or don’t become complacent if they don’t fare well. Remember, you are not just competing against them but lakhs of other students. Instead of wasting time in gossip, discuss mnemonics, important facts, numericals with friends; it will make memorizing easier and you will also come to learn a lot more new things from them.

10. Fore more tips and suggestions, keep visiting the site.The site is still under construction and still there are many more things to be added.

11. Start studying again. Your target should be to complete the entire syllabus by December and start revising in January or alternatively, you should also revise the syllabus side by side in case you have joined a coaching institute as they usually finish the syllabus by February.

12. Also, keep checking your progress monthly by solving mock test papers as I have mentioned before.

These are a few points which you need to remember before starting preparation for NEET and AIIMS and other medical entrance examinations which you are going to appear in next year. If you have any query, feel free to ask. Wishing all the PMT aspirants all the best!

       RAHUL  CHAWLA  (VMMC AND SJH)