The Last Mile: Some Tips for JEE 2011 Examinees

• Do not pay too much emphasis on new topic. It is quite difficult to master a new topic in limited time. It is better to practice the areas that you are already familiar with. Remember that in quality exams it is the depth that matters and not just the shallow width.
• Take care of your health. The exam is just once a year as you know. The most important thing in this respect in this season is drinking water. A negligence on this account could be very costly.
• Expose yourself to new situations. Try to do new types of problems. Do not spend time in doing similar type of problems if you are comfortable with that particular type.
• Human memory functions on the principle of repetition. It is not good enough to review two days before the exam. Have a periodic review plan in place right now. The formulae should be in your finger tips.
• If you have habit of writing every step while doing a problem, try avoiding this habit for an objective exam where it is not valued. Writing every step takes time and may not be in your interest in this type of exam.
• Brush up with some quick calculations (like taking pi square as 10 approximately) and use them often. When options are not too close, approximate calculations can be very useful.
• Some unconventional methods are especially useful in objective questions like elimination of options, boundary conditions, variable substitution, dimensional analysis etc. It may be good idea of getting used to them.
• Have an open mind about the type of paper. Do not think that last year's pattern will be repeated. Read the instructions given in the paper carefully. Remember that everyone is in the same boat as far as this aspect goes. All you can do is to expose yourself to different situations.
• It does not make sense to leave the answer(s) blank to the question(s)  without negative marking (if any).
• You have been allotted certain amount of time for the test. There is no reason for you to submit the paper with significant time left. You need to fight till the very end.
• Put yourself under time bound test conditions to get accustomed. But, too much of blind test taking may not help especially at the expense of solid conceptual foundation. Only deep understanding and the ability to face new situations can get you through JEE.
• Put aside fear of failure (if any) or negative thoughts (if any) by telling yourself that your job is to do to the best of your abilities, rest is beyond your control.
• Class 12th students writing exam this year thinking that there is little gap between the dates of board exam getting over and the JEE, leaving very less time for 11th portion revision and hence are reluctant to write JEE this year should nevertheless write JEE without thinking about, "What will others say?" If your assessment of your potential is incorrect then you may end up spending one attempt. As you know the current attempts for JEE are limited to two.

Buffer Action Application & Solubility Product

The embedded version of this class can be seen below. The fullscreen version is available here .

Introduction to Logarithm

The introductory class to logarithm.

Unified Entrance (ISEET/New JEE+Board)

ISEET – as it may possibly be called – may not itself be as controversial as the weightage of normalised board score is in the proposed new engineering entrance policy. This of course is due to the presence of large number of boards with different syllabi, testing & evaluation ecosystem. Contrary to some views that this is being done all of a sudden, a proposal of this kind was not entirely unexpected (refer this). It has been a while that reform process is on to bring in more emphasis on school education in engineering entrance process and things like min. percentage marks in 12^th and limiting number of attempts in JEE have already been implemented in IIT entrance process to achieve this. If board exams can be fairly normalised and they do not merely test the facts & memory, there would not be so much opposition to the proposal. If the new procedure for entrance comes into effect from 2013 for the first time, then some of those who are appearing for the board exam in 2012 and wish to take entrance in 2013 may be at some disadvantage since they might not have concentrated so much on the board exam in 2012. So, for 2013 entrance as a special case, the board marks need not be considered for weightage. Moreover, an exam of ISEET type needs to be conducted several times in a year. From 2014, the exam can be conducted online which can make it easier to be conducted several times in a year. The admitting institutes (like IIT, NIT etc.) that can assign up to 60% weightage to ISEET in their selection process should be allowed to choose the weightage on individual subjects also that are covered in ISEET.

Things will become clearer in future. Yesterday, i.e. on 18^th Feb., JAB meeting was expected whose outcome is not yet known. At this stage it appears that the new entrance procedure could be a reality for at least central institutes from year 2013 if there is no legal hurdle and states can join in times to come. There is a meeting with states on 22^nd Feb. one of whose agenda is to discuss this matter (the agenda is available  here) . On a side note, it is amusing to see that while it is mentioned in the agenda that the test would be of 3 hour duration, the time is given as 10 to 12 for ISEET-Main (see below).

Open Organ Pipe Reflection Q & A

Question: In closed organ pipe, the sound gets reflected from the rigid boundary. This makes sense. But, in open organ pipe there is no boundary at the end. So, how can sound reflect?

Answer: One is accustomed to seeing objects getting bounced from rigid wall and not from empty space. Hence, this may look odd if something is said to be reflected from the open end. Sound is not an object but is disturbance. The sound wave is reflected whenever medium changes or there is discontinuity in the medium. In open organ pipe when the sound reaches the open end, there is a change from a narrow region to a vast region. Because of this discontinuity in the medium, reflection takes place.