Starting out NEET Preparation by Vishwajit

Here's how achieving 600+ became even remotely plausible,

The paper was of low difficulty which becomes apparent on analysing the ranking vs marks 

The Covid-19 pandemic allowed 6 months of extra preparation. Giving time to recover from all the mistakes that were made initially and explore the topics that were taught during the crash course in depth. The latter and former couldn't have been done otherwise.

I hope the whole picture becomes clear now.

The goal here is to prevent students from making time costly mistakes that I did ,but wouldn't necessarily get the same recovery period.

There are certain things that would be useful to keep in mind during the NEET exam preparation :

• Please don't compare your 'practise test' marks with those of the seniors in the previous year NEET exams. The NEET exam is considerably easier.

• Consistency is vital

• Mininal/No coaching will suffice to crack this exam 

• Real success is when you manage to crack the exam, along with enjoying and making lifelong memories with your friends in 11th and 12th.

• Math is not an essential subject to be studied in 11th and 12th. Instead, selective and detailed study of the subject in certain areas will be more useful.

Paid external assistance I recieved:

Test series -

•  Allen (• Nurture : 2 years program)
•  Akash (•All India Test series and Daily tests during 12th)
• Crash course by Akash

Grade 11

I started my preparation from the August of grade 11, solely with the test series from Allen.  

The test experience was fairly confusing because, however hard I grilled the NCERT of physics, chem and bio, my marks were stuck between 350 and 400. 

That was fairly frustrating considering the high effort input but no output.

11th grade passed by just like this

In retrospect I understand

All the test series are made overly difficult that complies with the study material of the respective institute. 

This information can be obtained either by doing multiple tests or directly reading the study material.

I'm not suggesting "not to do overly difficult tests". In fact they are very useful. I'm suggesting "not to get disheartened by doing overly difficult tests".

Grade 12

I signed up for the 'All India Test Series' and the 'Daily test series' by the Aakash institute. 

Started reading 'Truemans Biology for class 11 and 12'. 'Solved Objective NCERT at your fingertips for NEET-AIIMS-Biology' by MTG.

Minimally read H.C Verma. Did not read the physics NCERT.

I was using 'Pradeeps' for Chemistry. ( I wouldn't particularly recommend this book because it's quite vast. I couldn't assess the effectiveness of the book as all the questions of the NEET exam were directly from the NCERT. Sometimes this book helped but mostly didn't. )

My senior helped me quite a lot, with physics and taught me all the calculus basics. Other than that, who needs a math teacher if you have your friends from Math, help you with all your math doubts.

Post Board Exam- 6 Month Period 

The Crash course began shortly after the board exams. My Informatics Practises Exam was cancelled (Drawing your attention towards the extra preparation time). 

The crash course was useful but not quite, at the same time. None of the topics are explored in detail (the short time period of the course does not permit them that luxury). They do introduce you to shortcuts but not the theory behind what your doing. The study material for biology was very useful.

According to me, the key to studying biology is to build on the NCERT, not free solo on some other reference book. It all comes down to, how far can you relate with the NCERT.

This 6 month period was characterized by doing tests everyday, correcting them and building on the concepts. I also resolved all the wrong and unattempted questions from the test series I have solved over 2 years. Its important to resolve wrong questions and explore new questions at the same time.

As I attempted question papers, the questions started becoming very repetitive( I did the free drill tests by the Allen institute).

I started solving H.C.Verma. Starting with ' type 1' mcqs, 'type 2' mcqs and solved examples from each chapter. Concentrating first on tricky chapters of class 11 and then 12. The solved examples are very useful for the concepts of how to approach and solve physics problems.

The magnetic susceptibility examples helped me during the final exam. 

I certainly wish that I had started that book earlier.

The pressure during exam day is immense and the thought flow can get hindered if your concepts are not clear. Little doubts you left out during preparation can creep up behind your back.

In this post we have given a general overview of the preparation timeline. In the following posts, we shall delve more deeply into topics like maintaining mental health during preparation and how to use study resources effectively.