One of a Group member named Dharshini asked to me, about prepartion for IIT JAM from Zero to IIT Madras(her Aim), by self study mode.
I am bringing post for all, because this is a common query.
Irrespective of the time, when you are starting, I will give a roadmap, if you have 3 months or 1 year for exam, roadmap will be same, you need to fastened the process accordingly.
Day Zero :- Download official syllabus, stick near your study table find old papers from 2015 to present, understand the pattern, marking scheme, types of problems, buy a PYQ solution book.
Day 1 :- Figure out that there are 7 topics in JAM Syllabus, in exam paper you will never find a sequence in questions, means to say, first question may be of some random mechanics topic, net question may be of electromagnetic theory, next may be modern, so the paper will be random, no sequencing, total randomness. Demand is simple, topics will be jumbled, no pattern at all, what if we supply the same thing, wohooo !
If demand is clear, why not study that way, one thing is constraint to those aspirants that they cannot do this, no teacher, no course, can be like this just random topics, they teach every topic in sequence, one or two topic at a time, so here one who prepares by self study can have some leverage.
So, our Task 1 would be to make a list of sub topics or concepts, from official syllabus, previous year papers, this may cost you the whole week, just do this, we call this sheet you made yourself as topology sheet.
Week 2 :- You have topology sheet, now divide all concepts in three categories, easy medium difficult, something is less time consuming can be put in easy section and something may be time consuming can be put in difficult category.
After doing this, just start learning, any concept just random, from easy section only, best way to start is chat gpt or google search that topic find relevant theory and formula, just read it, and if that topic is in HC Verma Sir concept of physics, start solving those problems, and completing that topic, tick on that topic in topology sheet, just choose another random topic from the whole list not mandatorily from same section, may be you have choosen centre of mass first, it is not necessary choose easy topic from mechanics next, you can choose any other say first law of thermodynamics, so choice is totally yours and random, do not think of it much, repeat the same process, after completing make tick on it.
On very first day of your preparation you may be able to complete 5-6 topics in 2-3 hours only, repeat the process, in a maximum 20 days, you will be able to complete atleast 50 topics easily, and when you start checking topology sheet you will be amused by seeing that you have completed 30-40% of your syllabus in just 3 weeks of your preparation. After all these if easy topics have been completed just move to medium level topics you have marked repeat the same process, complete randomly one by one, in next 4 weeks, you will be able to complete 30 topics, syllabus will be 60% completed approximately, this took merely 2 months from day zero.
From second month along with this, you start solving some PYQs of those topics you have completed so far, for this you can refer topic wise PYQ or material if you find, repeat the same process for difficult topics, start doing it randomly, and start ticking the topology sheet.
And you should continue solving PYQs with this process side by side, if you have completed 80%+ syllabus, you can start solving problems of assignments (I will share it on telegram, no worries), along with assignment I will also share some good problems from standard books.
Continue solving more and more problems till exam, once you complete 80-90% PYQs, do not stop, do it second time, if you have still time left for exam, do it third time and continues, along with this also solve some other problems like PYQs of JEST, TIFR, GATE.
Pros of this method is, you can do it by self study, you will do it in less time, you will be able to solve numericals, you can crack IIT JAM, If you follow this method sincerely and consistently, you can give yourself a very strong chance of cracking IIT JAM. This method is totally exam oriented, if your goal is to crack IIT JAM, this method is best.
Cons of this method, may be you can solve some numericals of a concept but not fully understands the concept, this method is for numerical solving, and second thing is that you will not get a structure of the syllabus or subject, how these topics related, you will not have in depth knowledge.
Some YouTube Guru says that leave 2 topics, do only 5 topics, I do not support that idea, do not leave any subject completely, atleast do easy topics of all 7 subjects, cover medium as much as possible, and if some topics you are not able to understand or you don’t have much time you can skip those topics but not full subject, because paper is made of easy medium difficult problems, so why to risk some brownie points if you can score easily.
This is all, what I wants to say, this method is smart work to crack IIT JAM in less time , more efficient way.
I am resting my pen.
Bye, Good Luck !