Career Planning After 8th –Preparing for IIT-JEE & Other Competitive Exams

Studying in one of the Indian institute of Technology (IIT) is the dream of almost all the engineering aspirants. They put years of their time in preparing for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) either on their own or through some coaching or a combination of both. The target remains to get one of the approximately 3500 seats competing with about 2 lakh candidates. Some steps in developing correct habits can make this task much easier.

Have you noticed that most students know how to get better marks than what they have been getting but they don’t seem to be improving on that? Similarly most of the sales people know how to sell more than what they are selling at present. What holds them? There are many people who are constantly in debt. They know how to come out of that but they don’t. why? Most people know how to do the job better than what they are doing. But they are not able to do so. Their action and what they know do not go together. The reason is that they haven’t applied their knowledge to form good habits. Bad habits are holding them. They keep repeating the mistakes by habit and don’t apply the knowledge of doing better.

By forming the habit of doing certain activities you are able to do them with complete ease and almost automatically. This is true for good and bad habits both. When you do an activity for the first time you have to think about each step and perform the activity. But when you keep doing the activity repetitively you develop habit of doing that. Then the activity becomes so easy for you that you can do that without much of the effort. Ideas related to that activity starts flowing to your mind automatically.

While taking the IIT-JEE, you have to be at your conceptual best during the examination hours. All the three subjects, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics are tested in one session in screening test and in three sessions on the same day during main examination. The syllabus is vast. If you need to recall the theories and concepts while solving the problems in the examination, then you will not be able to attempt sufficient number of questions to get you in IIT. Theories, concepts and ideas to solve those problems should keep coming to your mind automatically.

Habit formation uses the power of subconscious mind. Subconscious mind dictates most of our activity and so it is important to use it’s power. As you practice an activity and become independent of conscious thinking during the performance of the activity you achiever a state where the activity is performed automatically by the subconscious mind. To achieve better result, you need to push your knowledge to this part of your mind by practicing and habit formation.

Habits get formed as you keep doing the activity repeatedly. Building on theories, concepts and ideas to solve problems involving multiple concepts is the key requirement. You can improve your chance of getting into IIT by developing the habit of understanding the theories well, thinking and conceptualizing those theories, applying them in solving conceptual problems and continuously developing better techniques to solve the problems.

Whatever process you want to follow during the examination, develop habit for that so that you don’t have to consume mind energy and time for doing them consciously. If you plan to do something right directly in the examination hall, you will either not be able to do it or you will take more time then required. It’s better to practice that in advance and form the habit of doing that right so that it happens automatically for you without much of the thinking.

For example, you might have developed habit of making silly mistakes in the examination. If you simply feel that you will be more careful in the final examination and not make such mistakes then either you will not be able to do so or you will waste lots of time in consciously remaining careful. Solving majority of the questions involves three steps in general. First understand the problem and visualize the details. Then establish mathematical relations between variables. And, finally solve them mathematically. If you analyze your common mistakes and find out the step in which these happen, you can reduce the occurrence of silly mistakes by becoming careful in that by practicing and developing the habit of it you will be able to do automatically which will save your time in the examination and also reduce mistakes.

Remember, "We first make our habits, and then our habits make us". As there are some habits that are good and help us in attaining our goal, there are bad habits too which become deciding factor in the failures.

In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure. Thus, the first law I will obey, which precedes all others, is—“I will form good habits and become their slaves.” Og Mandino.

IIT-JEE is a different examination in terms of types of questions and it’s conduct both. It requires a different approach and hence a different set of habits. That is why a topper in HSC board may not clear IIT – JEE whereas an average scorer in board examination may make it to IIT. It’s better to start developing these habits at the earliest. Developing a new habit is easier compared to changing a well-formed habit. So sooner you start, better it is.