Welcome All !
One of my student Samriddha asked about How much PYQs is useful ? He is an aspirant of IIT JAM Physics 2027.
I decided to answer his query here, so that all serious aspirants (mere pyare chhote bhai behen) can be benefitted from this.
Before giving answer straight, let me educate you about Question Paper setting, how an examiner sets the paper ?
Constraint for him is syllabus, he/she has to ask problems withing the prescribed syllabus. So syllabus is limited depth well, there limited number of concepts, they cannot ask MSc level topics like Particle Physics, and they also don’t want to ask 11-12th Level Physics, because you are an unergrad student and wants to get a seat in IITs to do your postgrad. If we count papers from 2015 to 2026, there are 12 papers, each paper consist of 60 questions, so the total questions asked is 720. If you count number of topics in official syllabus that will be nearly 150-200. Do basic maths every concept is asked 3-4 times so far. If you analyse topics you will find that some topics still not asked single time, some concepts asked only 1 time, some topics asked 7-8 times in 11 Years. So this is the introduction of paper setting, I can write 100 pages about paper setting, I don’t want you to got that deep , our question get’s diluted then.
Now, I want to educate you another thing there are various topics asked in previous year papers that are not specifically mentioned in official syllabus, what does it mean let me tell you with an example in IIT JAM 2026 paper you will see a first comer concept on Law of Mass Action , this is concept in semiconductor (electronics), but when you check official syllabus it is not mentioned, but something is mentioned I am quoting it here “Intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors, variation of resistivity with temperature. Fermi level. p-n junction diode, I-V characteristics, Zener diode and its applications,” you see it is clearly mention in syllabus about intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors, you cannot say that this topic is out of syllabus, so there are various grey areas in syllabus, exam setter leverage to use this grey area to make paper more difficult or/and unpredictable.
Now, third thing is our goal to solve PYQs, if it is clear then you would be in a better condition to understand it.
Our ultimate goal is to get a seat in IITs, specially in 7 old IITs and more specifically in IIT Bombay.
By solving PYQs only what I can assure you is that you can get under 800 rank which means if you are a General category student then you will be able to get a seat in IITs, but if your aim is High, only PYQs not gonna help you. You have to try more problems standard / prescribed / hidden.
As we go to our original question is PYQs enough for IIT JAM Physics, answer loud and clear YES, you can qualify IIT JAM and also get a NIT seat for sure, may be an IIT seat, but getting old IITs is not a walk on cake, you have to give extra efforts.
What, I found in analysing all these 12 papers, it’s cut offs, closing ranks, marks vs ranks, all stuffs, I am in position to tell PYQs has a ceiling of around 600 Rank, you can not get under 600 rank by solving only PYQs, means to say, the problems in a paper inspired from old papers problems is of only that ceiling. Giving you an example IIT JAM 20XY year 35 marks questions are of concepts asked in previous year then, the paper would be of moderate level more than 500 students will score above 40 marks, so if you solve all PYQs and learn all concepts you can hit 35-40 marks atmost. But you would not be able to solve those problems that are new (first comer) or old but difficult having hard maths or concepts asked in previous years but this time problems are tricky, you will left those problems.
Why you should solve PYQs ? First thing is to get the idea of exam, level /type of problems. Second is to get some stuffs to start with, it is the nursery of preparation, this is bare minimum, and third you can have 720 problems to learn , solve, practice that is of an IIT Prof level thinking.
I also want to aware you about one thing, there are various online platform/courses running only on PYQs, that works to get a seat in IIT, but what I believe and implement in my courses also, i used to solve standard problems of recommended books, PYQs of IIT JAM also GATE, JEST, TIFR PYQs. I give assignments not only collection of PYQ set but also other relevant problems.
If you want to know more about my courses, you can check them out here: https://physicsdost.com/new-courses
Disclaimer :- This is not for other exams, every exam has different strategy, this is for only IIT JAM Physics, do not apply these rules on JEST, TIFR, GATE or CSIR NET.
Sorry, for the English 🫣, I know it is not upto the mark, but I am learning it, what I can assure you every word is totally mine, a single word is not made up from AI, I am giving you my 12 Year expertise in a blog.
Thanks for Listening !
Sir it’s understandable that getting into iits with only pyq is quite difficult and also we need to solve other questions standard questions sir from where do we get these questions in order to prepare?
After IIT JAM PYQs, your second step should be doing PYQs of GATE, JEST, TIFR only those topics which are relevant for JAM, after this your third step is to solve problems of assignment and mock test, if you are done with this and you still have time try standard problems of Griffiths for Electrodynamics ML Boas for mathematics, Kleppner Kolenkow for Mechanics. And if you struggle to find which problems are relevant and which are not, so don’t worry, I will be providing you with all stuffs, materials just simple subscribe to my email newsletter given just below the post ends.