How to strengthen mechanics for JEE

Hello everyone, Aman here.
Someone posted a comment on the blog, which gave me an idea for a post.

You once posted in your blog that you were initially weak at mechanics then also you qualified for INPhO please elaborate

This points to a good set of questions: {How to be good at X?}

In 2011 when I started JEE preparation, I had a hard time with Physics. Most of it was mechanics. I remember scoring 153/240 in some FIITJEE national test, in which the national highest was 232/240.

The chapters covered in mechanics were:

• Kinematics
• Laws of motion
• Work Power Energy
• Conservation of Momentum (center of mass)
• Rotational mechanics
• Fluid mechanics
• Wave mechanics

I was miserable at mechanics. I struggled hard to solve problems.

FIITJEE All India Open test 2012: got national rank 6

The million dollar question is 'what did I do that changed things so drastically?'

What made me realize that I was weak at mechanics?

I was unable to perform well in the tests. I often made silly mistakes. It often happened that I had no solution in my mind. All of this made me realize that I suck at Physics (in particular, mechanics)

What did I lack?

I realized that I am facing 2 problems:

• I do not understand theory adequately
• I haven't solved enough number of problems

I realized that the 2 problems are connected. I haven't solved enough problems simply because I was unable to solve them! This in turn was because I lacked a proper understanding of theory.

What did I do?

I read theory in great detail from the books. I spent a lot of time reading theory from Resnick Halliday and my coaching notes. The book Resnick Halliday really helped me to understand things in great detail. Which in turn helped me to solve problems. Resnick Halliday has excellent theory. If you feel you are facing problems in Physics, I would recommend the book. It explains things in great detail. The in-text examples will help you think how to approach a problem.

While reading Resnick Halliday, I realized that its not the best book when it comes to problem. It contains problems with long descriptions and I felt that those problems are more of a test of your English than Physics :P

I Googled a bit and found that the Arihant set of 5 books is excellent for Physics. It had good reviews and since I was already using Arihant books for maths, I was sort of convinced that Physics books must also be good. I gave it a try and the books were excellent! If you want to just try, I would recommend you to buy the 2 mechanics books: part 1 and part 2.

Arihant books are excellent for so called 'tips and tricks'. They often contain shortcut tricks that will help you solve problems super fast.

Another thing that I did was that I solved zillions of problems during my summer break after class 11th. In my library of books and study material, I found a package of some local Kanpur coaching which had lots and lots of Physics questions (some 1000 or so) of increasing difficulty. They were all mechanics problems and were objective (JEE pattern). I solved them all in about a week or so. That really gave me a lot of confidence. I developed speed and accuracy and a huge confidence in mechanics.

I am sure you all must be wondering - 'what material was that?'. Well, trust me, it wasn't any magical material. I don't even remember the name. All it had was a bunch of problems (no theory) of JEE pattern. You should really pick up any such material you find from any possible coaching and solve it all.

One last thing that added a 5th star was that I solved complete Irodov mechanics (LOL, that escalated quickly?). Well, yeah. I must say that if you really want a firm command, Irodov is a *must do*. That book is for those who want a challenge. Its for those who already have a strong command. It is strongly recommended that you pick up Irodov *after* you have completed *all* of mechanics. The book contains some problems which assume that you know all of mechanics and so, it would be a bad idea to spend time solving stuff which you haven't even covered (super daring people should go ahead, I am not demotivating you!)

If you look at it, I did nothing special. Just a book reading and solving a bunch of problems. However, if you look at it carefully, you will realize that I solve about 2000 problems overall from 5-6 chapters, which is approximately 350 problems per chapter (starting from a basic book to Irodov level). This should ideally be enough for anyone to start from a 0 and go to INPhO level.

I hope this post will help you all grasp a firm command over mechanics.

All the best!