Did Aman Goel always top his FIITJEE exams?

It depends on what you mean by FIITJEE exams.

FIITJEE Kanpur? Yes, mostly, except once. FIITJEE All India? Never.

I remember starting my preparation on the 29th of April 2011 (my parents’ anniversary falls on the same day), struggling with even the most basic concepts in the very beginning. The biggest issue was shifting from the school-level cramming mindset to the JEE-level problem-solving mindset. While in school, you can score high by memorizing NCERT/ICSE textbooks, in JEE you need to know how to solve concept-oriented problems in a limited span of time.

End result? 153/240 in the first All India FIITJEE Phase Test when the country highest was 232/240. I had scored some 70/80 in Maths because I had studied basic calculus in class 10th. Rest 83/160 was divided between Physics and Chemistry. Scores could not have been worse. However, I had topped FIITJEE Kanpur with a margin of 2 - 3 marks.

There were many other exams where I performed poorly. However, there was one key point that I took care of, after each exam - learning from the mistakes and making sure that I do not repeat them. After each exam, I used to sit down and do an analysis of the problems where I made a silly mistake, problems where I did not know the concept, problems that involved lengthy calculations, etc. That way, I was gradually able to reduce the number of mistakes I committed in exams. For instance:

• Problems where I made a silly mistake - to handle these problems, I made a note of the type of silly mistake. Calculation error? Wrong value of the moment of inertia? Wrong formula used? Then I used to solve 4 - 5 problems of that type until I could eliminate the mistake completely.
• Problems where I did not know the concept - I used to go back to the books and read the theory and solved problems relating to the concept to make sure that I understand it well.
• Problems that involved lengthy calculations - to handle these problems, I memorized a few standard calculations. For instance, the value of RT (R is Universal Gas Constant) for T = 273K and 298K (0 degrees and 25 degrees) which occur very commonly in JEE problems. That way, I could avoid wasting time on unnecessary calculations. The last thing you want to happen is that you knew the concept, but did not have time to do the calculation.

So, to answer your question, “Did Aman Goel always top his FIITJEE exams?” No. But I made sure that I learned with every mistake and that resulted in a great JEE rank.

Further readings:

• Which book should I follow to get a under 50 rank in IIT JEE?
• How do I get a under 50 rank in IIT JEE? I have full 2 years?
• How did you score 100/100 in the 2013 physics CBSE? How did you prepare for it along with preparation for the JEE?
• What is your advice for a person going to start his preparation of JEE from class 10 in FIITJEE?
• How hard did you work to get into IITs?
• How is the life of an CSE student at IIT?