Hello future doctors. I know that Physics seems like an impossible subject to conquer. I strongly believe that before knowing what you should do, you must ask for the things that you shouldn’t do to complete a task. Here are some of the ‘do-nots’ for physics.
1. Skipping the basics:
If you have not understood ‘motion in one line’, how will you understand ‘motion in a plane’? See, this is a very obvious example. Other chapters, especially the 12th syllabus, require a very bottom to top approach. You need to complete your basic chapters, you need to know basic vectors before you get into any difficult chapter. You can’t just: ‘skip this for now and come back to it later’ in physics.
YOU CANNOT SKIP ANY CHAPTER IN 11th- most of them build a base for 12th, you need to know them before you get into 12th
2. Skipping concepts and going straight to questions.
You need to understand a concept before attempting questions based on that concept. You will obviously feel scared of the questions if you don’t even understand the core concepts that they are based on. Try to understand a concept thoroughly.
What do I mean by concepts? A concept is a ‘AHA’ moment. You will understand this feeling when you get it. It is the feeling of understanding what was being said for a long time. It hits you suddenly, a small dopamine rush, a good feeling. Some positive reinforcement to build on. Go to questions only when you get this ‘AHA’ feeling
3. Not skipping the concept for advanced questions
I know I’m saying the complete opposite thing now, but some concepts are just too difficult to understand in the first go. Remember I’m only talking about the most advanced topics and concepts of a chapter and not the basics. Advanced topics are basically those topics that are the integration of two or more concepts. You cannot solve questions based on these topics directly, they can also involve concepts from multiple chapters.
When you come across the last few topics in a chapter that you do not understand in a few tries or when you come across an advanced topic, just skip trying to understand and try to solve examples and questions directly. Look at solutions when you can’t solve, maybe you will get the ‘AHA’ moment in this question solving fiasco. As I said, you need not be a scholar who understands everything in one go. You need to be flexible and understand where you have to hold on and where you have to let go.
4. Not checking out the solved examples, or just reading the solved examples.
Solved examples are specifically curated to give you an insight on a few types of questions that will come from that particular topic. If you are skipping them, you are missing out on an information just as important as the rest of the theory written.
Also, you do not just read them and go ahead, hide the answer with your hand. Try to brainstorm, try to solve it 10 times, 15 times, as much as your patience allows. Then check the solution. The answers stick in your head for a longer time when you have spent so much time trying to solve them but couldn’t
5. Just copying down the solutions for the questions being taken in coaching classes.
Yaar, you’re supposed to learn in a class, not just fill out notebooks and registers. If you are not as fast as the coaching teachers, go back home and solve the entire question bank again. I have done the same thing, I wasn’t as fast as my physics sir either. You need to practice actively, not just read or copy. I will keep telling you this until it gets fit in your head.
6. Ignoring derivations and relying too much on memory
Deviations are an important part of understanding the concept. If you are not able to understand the derivation, there is a fault in your mathematics concepts. You need to study some important chapters in maths before you get to physics.
If you skip the derivations, you will be able to solve the direct questions but any question that demands an understanding of where the equation has come from will scare you. You won’t be able to solve moderate/ difficult questions.
7. Solving difficult questions that are of JEE level
As they say, ‘prepare for the worst and hope for the best’. We do advise you to solve some difficult questions from each chapter so that you’re prepared for anything in the paper. But if you are skipping the easy questions and going to the JEE level questions directly, you might get scared and stop solving.
There is a reason that we ask you to take small steps over a long period of time, instead of taking leaps once or twice.
Work on your basics, solve NEET level questions. When you become confident go on to JEE level questions.
8. Not using diagrams to solve questions.
When you get a question. Your approach should be like this:
- Read and try to understand.
- Next, try to simplify the question by listing down the given data and drawing diagrams to get a better picture.
- Next, understanding what the question is asking for.
- Next, attempting the question.
If you skip diagram making, the information in the question remains unorganized and thus difficult to understand. So it is important to make diagrams in Physics
9. Overlooking units and dimensions
A lot of questions can be solved by just analysing the units and dimensions of the required quantity and the options. If you skip understanding ‘units and dimensions’, you are giving away your chance of saving time in the NEET paper.
Also a lot of questions have confusing options. The numerical value of all the options will be the same, but the units will be different. This is another way that NTA tests your understanding of ‘units and dimensions’. So, don’t skip this chapter.
10. Insufficient practice with different types of problems
You should solve all types of questions from a chapter. Do not keep solving MCQs on the types of questions that you have already mastered. So solve all different types of questions to make sure that you are actually working on your understanding and not just wasting your time.
11. Not utilizing previous year question papers effectively
Do you know that almost 35 questions in physics were repeated directly or indirectly from PYQs in NEET 2023? That’s 140 marks! 140 marks is a good enough score in physics. You need to solve all PYQs and also try to understand what the frequently repeated topics are. Then, you have to make sure that you master these frequently repeated topics.
This can be your secret weapon for physics.
12. Patience and consistency
Physics is not a one day/ one week/ one month thing. Physics needs an entire year or two to master. You need to make sure that you do not give up when you do not get results immediately. It’s not as early rewarding as biology or chemistry. But when you master physics, you will have a very good competitive advantage over a lot of other NEET aspirants. This is very necessary given the insane competition right now.
13. Skipping revision
Even when you are consistent with learning new topics, you might not score well. This can be due to many reasons, one of them is lack of revision. It is very important to retain what you have learnt in order to score good in NEET.
How to revise? There are 2 methods. One is by making revision sheets full of formulas and short descriptions of concepts that you forget. You must keep revising these revision sheets, every 10 days.
Next is by maintaining a question register. This is the register wherein you are going to write down all the questions that went wrong while solving mock tests. This is going to be revised before attempting another mock test.
14. The most important mistake: Studying from only one resource.
It is not necessary that you will understand all the chapters from one resource or teacher only. This does not mean that the teacher is not good or that you are not smart enough. It just means that the approach taken by the teacher does not fit you. You need to identify this problem and look for other resources for that particular chapter.
Some of the good online teachers are Physics Wallah, Prashant sir and Ashish Arora sir.
Studying is all about understanding where you are going wrong, and working on it.
Be smart and be flexible, look for new strategies when the one that you are using is not getting you results. Just do not give up.
All the best.
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