My JEE Story

It all started in the summer of 2017 when I started my JEE preparation with my full zeal. I had attended foundations and had a keen interest in what I was doing and hence had a strong motivation to get going. It was slow but steady, pretty much like many aspirants out there.

I was a school attending student, so had to attend school and classes. It was easy in the start for the syllabus was so little.“I can handle everything.” I would say to myself. I had my goals and aims, very lofty dreams.

Slowly, the year went by and things started changing. Our batch’s syllabus was running back in February 2018. I predicted that it would be disastrous if it continued, and later it did. While the other batches and classes were doing beautiful organic reactions, I was clueless about what Mesomeric effect even was. Few things changed around, but the prime concern was the syllabus. For Sunday tests, the test syllabus was completed on Saturday. How was I supposed to compete with students from other centres?

It was May, yet once again, and I stopped attending my lectures for the first time. I hadn’t ever missed my lectures. I didn’t know I could do it myself without someone teaching it. My teacher called and scolded me, gave me an assignment as a challenge regarding the lectures I missed which, surprisingly, I very successfully completed. That increased my confidence that I could shift to self-studies, if I wanted to. However, it was difficult. I attended some subjects, missed others. We had only one batch running at our centre, and it was just like average batches. I enjoyed studying, and I started studying a lot, so much that at one point my parents doubted if I was really studying at all.

After September, I stopped going to school and classes completely. My test record wasn’t very clean. My marks dropped, and so did I. Another shock around that time was that mains was to be conducted in January too. I thought I could do it. I started on improvement track again but it was October already.

I had wasted my time without even realising it.

There were times when I got off in the middle of the exams because I couldn’t do it anymore. What if I perform badly? I don’t want to hear anything. It’s when people around you play a very major role. I started attending the AITS. The first few tests were great, top 100 ranks, all nice, I aimed for more of course, and out of nowhere I suddenly had a 2019 rank in an advanced part test (For a moment, I thought it was the year but well no, it was my rank). I never gave an AITS test again until March. Things weren’t really great.

December rolled on, I was weak at so many chapters that I didn’t realise it. I got pretty decent marks in my tests. My school was adamant for all the students to attend board prelims. We had three prelims. I couldn’t just go and fail. What I didn’t realise that, since everyone was pushing me for mains, I was good at mains. Being quick and fast. My advanced preparation was in ruins that month. The syllabus disaster, it happened, everyone in my batch was suffering. The regular classes could never complete the syllabus. I also had a few broken chapters pulling me down. Due to these and location factors, I missed many of my Score tests. But, I wasn’t ‘sad’ because of my situation. I thought it was all okay, and I definitely had my control over it.

A couple of weeks before January mains, I had a lot of distractions. Weeks passed by, rather slowly actually, and I couldn’t sleep the night before mains.

Got at the centre, and wasn’t very hopeful. Everyone had started, time was passing by and panic building up. I started worrying in the middle of the exam. I came out, felt very bad but I knew I had another chance. I, at that time, couldn’t fathom how bad it really was. Not even in my wildest dreams had I thought that I could end up with a percentile that was equivalent to 15k rank. 200 marks. I was shattered, broken, lost and totally on verge of breaking up. Yes, I had a chance in April. But what, hell. How. Can. This. Even. Happen. How much can I improve? I can get better, can I even? I knew I could, but with such disaster thinking clearly was very difficult. It wasn’t just me, it feels very very bad when at such point everyone puts you down. What can someone even say, it’s all up to ourselves. It was all beyond crying. I realised that I was too dumb to analyse myself, yet I didn’t trust anyone to judge what I was capable of. I had to remind myself that I should stop dreaming lofty dreams.

I sort of completed my syllabus properly that month. I was still weak. I completed the review packages.

I was really inspired by a few people. I went on a spree of solving, analysing and learning from papers. February consisted of that and realising that advanced wasn’t far away. My performance improved and my parents also motivated me to push myself and I had the confidence that I could achieve what I wanted to. It was quick, but I hadn’t had the time.

Next month, boards. I really did waste a lot of time this month. I wasn’t exactly ‘working hard’. Distractions can be very distracting. Had I forgotten my January moments?

The next mains wasn’t far away when my parents declared that I shouldn’t give the mains because it could shift my focus from advanced. But yet, anything could happen in the exam. So, I convinced them to let me appear. I got 6 days after boards for mains. I focused on mains for those days. I was happy and merry with my test results that week.

But well, how could I skip messing up all the time during the real exams? I scored really good in Physics and Chemistry, but my maths was torn away, and I knew that, right during the exam. I counted, 250 marks. People around me were relieved that at least it wasn’t as bad as the last time. Results came out and rank - 7119. Oh, could I cry? Maybe that’s what I deserved. Why was it that my test results didn’t reflect that? Maybe the good ones were all flukes. I thought. But, consistency is the key. I wasn’t consistent. Only a month to advanced. I was utterly confused and went lunatic. “Do people improve from such ranks?” I would ask myself constantly. Maybe they do, but most don’t. I mean, what had I done wrong? I had messed up the second time. I’m either really nuts, or really dumb.

But, it was time to be calm. Some people really played a very crucial role at this point, the most important being my parents. They still had confidence in me. I really felt very happy. Other than that, I had met some awesome people online, in fact on Quora, who I looked up to. Also, seeing and interacting with other students better than me gave me faith that I could do better too. I helped myself. I was sane. I didn’t give up.

What time had come.

I really improved in the last 20 days. I felt that my dreams weren’t dreams but real goals, achievable. I had a new found confidence. My syllabus was good, my concepts were good, I could solve so many problems. But I was lacking in two things, my exam temperament and the time I required to solve a problem. I did improve on that, but only a bit. Exam temperament isn’t a single entity but consists of work other than during the exam to improve on. To some, it comes naturally and others who struggle know how it matters.

27 May 2019. I went in to give my exam. I wasn’t feeling sleepy like the first mains and I wasn’t tensed like the second one. The paper started, and I in the middle once had the “I’m not going anywhere here.” moment. But, I brushed it away. The paper wasn’t great. The break was only for 30 minutes. I had endured all the tests. I could do better. I went in, tried not to mess up my next paper. I was very sad after the paper, but it wasn’t great for anyone. I missed easy questions that I had marked for later due to time constraints. I calculated my marks a few days later and realised how many mistakes I did. Too many actually. But nevermind, I was on a vacation and it was time to enjoy with my family.

Last week, I ended up with AIR 1832. Did not achieve my aim. During my preparation, I never thought beyond the hundreds in terms of ranks. But to come to think of it, that seems a great improvement. It’s just a matter of few marks. My rank could have been a lot better if I had more time or if I had paid more attention during the exam, but that’s mere speculation. Anyone can do anything. I have accepted that what rank I have got is a culmination of what I thought and did in the time I had, nothing more or less. You get what you deserve, rule of nature.

During this time, I learnt so much about myself, what I could do and what everyone really was capable of. It made me realise that there’s so much a person is capable of if he/she self introspects and has a will to work and improve on it. At every point of time, I reminded myself that I can do anything I wanted to. I’m happy about what I was able to experience and grow with.

Now, it’s time to move on to bigger and better things. There are better opportunities ahead. All of this was really amazing. Finally, all we can do is work hard and have faith in ourselves.