IITJEE is an exam that is totally based on
problem solving. Whether it is physics or chemistry or mathematics, hardly any theoretical questions are asked. Mostly it is numerical based questions. Because of this nature of IITJEE, students preparing for IITJEE exam should spend most of their time in solving more and more problems.
There are many students who are spending lot of time on problem solving but even though they are not able to score in exam. This is because they don’t remember
ideas/tricks of many questions in exam which they should have solved. This happens because while doing problem solving, they learn things but they do nothing to retain them in their memory i.e. they solve problems but don’t revise them. To repeat, they need to retain. To retain, they should learn/memorize the ideas/tricks of the questions, To learn/memorize, they need to put efforts and time as well as they should follow the correct approach.
To retain and repeat, I recommend a
“Four Phases Approach (FPA)” to you for doing problem solving. This is little difficult to follow as it requires you to be little systematic in your studies which most students found difficult to be. But once “
Four Phases Approach” followed properly, it will definitely help you in many dimensions like improving your speed, accuracy, problem solving ability and confidence in the topic.
Here are 4 phases of the approach.
Phase 1 – Learning Phase
In this phase, you should
(a)
Attempt the problem. Don’t jump to the solution immediately. Try at least 5-20 minutes. 5 minutes, if you don’t understand question properly and 20 minutes if you are getting ideas or almost solve it. So average time spent on each question should be around 10-15 minutes. If you have solutions, refer them otherwise mark them and refer solutions later.
(b)
Mark levels. After you have gone through the solutions, you need to decide the level of the question and mark it with each question. There can be 4 levels.
Easy : Problem is easy if you are able to solve (without even looking at the solution) it in less than 5 minutes.
Average : Problem is average if you are able to solve it by just glancing the solution. You look at the solution for less than 1 minute and get the idea. Or you could do it yourself by trying hard and spend more time to solve it.
Difficult : Problem is difficult if you are not able to do it yourself (after spending lot of time) and to understand the solution you have to spend more time on each step and finding little hard to understand the steps. But finally able to understand solution very well.
Very-Difficult : Mark a problem a very-difficult if either you are not able to understand the question or question is clear but finding almost impossible to understand the solution or you find either question is wrong or solution is wrong. Don’t waste time on such questions. May be you can tackle them later when you get time. But at this stage they are useless and pull your confidence down.
Once leveling is done, this phase is over. This is a
Learning phase as you are learning ideas/tricks to solve question which you cannot do yourself.
Phase 2 : Retaining Phase
In this phase you have to
appear for a test. The questions of the test would be the average and difficult questions you marked in phase – 1. Just count how many questions you marked average or difficult. If supposed they are x, then time for the test should be 60x/25 minutes. If time is more than 210 minutes, then you can divide questions in two parts equally and take 2 tests.
You have to take test very seriously. It should be like the tests you appear at the center. Taking these tests will improve your following abilities.
Speed : As you know ideas of most of the questions, try to be little fast in solving these questions, specially the one you know who to solve. This will improve your speed to write fast.
Accuracy/perfection : Try to be accurate as much as possible. No room for calculate mistakes. If you realize that you are doing mistakes in more than 5% of the questions, focus on it and before you sit for the test, give a strong suggestion
“NO MISTAKES !!”. If you make it a target that you have to be perfect, after few tests you will start seeing the results.
Concentration :There is a difference of concentration when you normally study or when you appear for a test. While doing a test, you level of concentration is much higher. So these
tests will help you in improving your concentration on a regular basis. So when you are doing these tests, make an environment that should resemble the environment you face at test center (I know it is possible up to a limit, but try to do as much as you can). Don’t answer phone, don’t respond to door bell, don’t get up for water, don’t give your ears to what others are talking in house, no music and no day-dreaming (living in your thoughts)
.
Sitting habit : In today’s world everybody is so restless. You know why? Lots of happenings around us. So it is very difficult to be just on one thing for a long time like sitting on a table and chair and study for hours. If you practice
FPA, it will help you in improving your potential to sit and study for long hours.
Phase 3 : Strengthening Phase
After finishing phase 2 where you appeared for a test based on the selected questions, you need to review your performance. If you could not solve more than 85%-90% of the questions, you need to repeat what you did in Phase 2 to strengthen your preparation. This is phase 3, where you take the test again. Do it after a gap of 4-5 days. You can even change some ratings before you take the test like you can re-mark some average questions as easy or difficult questions as average or average as difficult. This phase will further improve your preparation and grip on the topic.
You can even skip this phase if either topic is not important or you are short of time.
Phase 4 : Finishing Phase
Finishing Phase is very important phase as it does the last act. This is the fourth and last phase where you
revise all questions orally. This phase should come after 4-8 days of the strengthening phase.
Suppose there are 50 marked questions (average and difficult) that you want to revise them. Keep 30 second for each question. So for 50 questions, you can take 25 minutes. Go through each question and try to recall the trick/steps/concepts you applied to solve that question. If you are not able to recall in 15 seconds, mark the question and go to next question. You don’t need to use pen in this phase. Just recalling tricks/concepts from your mind orally. Repeat this for all the questions. After all the questions are finished, refer solutions to see the marked questions and try to learn their ideas.
You should be able to
recall ideas of 90% of the problems. If it is less, you need to repeat this phase after few days.
This phase is very important as it helps you in building your confidence in the topic. While doing this phase, your attitude matters a lot. After successfully recalling ideas needed to solve the question from your mind, feel like you are a master/expert of the topic. Feel it after every question done successfully. Do it with interest and full concentration, the way you watch movie or match. You can do this phase anytime anywhere like while traveling in car or bus or during your evening walk or in your school etc.
Final Note:
It is not easy to follow FPA. You need to be
regular and
systematic to follow it. Even result will start coming after you would have followed it for at least 1 month. You also need a time table to plan these phases. Without schedule, it is impossible to remember phases of various topics and subjects.
