How do I prepare for inorganic chemistry for the JEE Advanced?

One of the most difficult topics for JEE Main and JEE Advanced is that of Inorganic Chemistry. Not only is it extremely important, but also this topic can make or break your JEE rank. It is a critical topic and many students take it for granted and skip it. That’s where an opportunity lies for a good student. Let’s go one by one and see how can we prepare for Inorganic Chemistry for JEE Advanced.

Study Material:

1. By far, the best study material for Inorganic Chemistry for JEE Advanced is nothing but the textbooks we take for granted - NCERT. In JEE, especially in JEE Advanced, it has been seen that many times, question paper setters have picked up a line or two from NCERT and made questions around it. Therefore, it becomes extremely important to study NCERT cover to cover. NCERT is especially important when it comes to p-block elements. The book covers a lot of topics exhaustively.

2. Preparing NCERT well is more-or-less good for all spectrum of ranks in JEE, especially in JEE Advanced. Having said that, there would always be a few questions that would go beyond the NCERT level and so, some additional preparation would be required. I studied these additional topics from JD Lee. JD Lee is a fat book and might look extremely overwhelming. However, almost half of that book is irrelevant for JEE. If you are aiming for a top 500 or so rank, I’d definitely suggest studying from JD Lee. Having said that, make sure that you only focus on topics that are in the JEE Advanced syllabus. You can find the JEE Advanced syllabus on the official website.

3. Specifically for Qualitative Analysis, I studied a book called Vogel’s Qualitative Analysis. It is a great book and contains a bunch of equations and scenarios. Having said that, some 40% of the book is not relevant from the JEE Advanced perspective. So, if you plan to pick this book, make sure to stick to the JEE Advanced syllabus only, or else you might overwhelm yourself with irrelevant content.

Apart from these books, I thoroughly studied the material provided to me by FIITJEE. A large part of the material overlapped with NCERT. But the good part about the FIITJEE material was that it contained a bunch of practice problems. Apart from the FIITJEE material, my chemistry teacher also gave me Resonance Kota’s material. It was quite good and quite exhaustive. I think a mix of NCERT + JD Lee + Vogel + Material from one of the reputed coaching institutes would suffice. Make sure to pick up the study material that contains a lot of practice problems also.

For practice, I used the following:

1. FIITJEE Packages

2. FIITJEE GMP - excellent problems!

3. FIITJEE RTPF

4. OP Tandon Inorganic Chemistry - this book, like JD Lee, contains a lot of material that is not relevant for JEE Advanced. Having said that, at a broad level, it is quite a good book, especially when it comes to practice problems.

5. Resonance Rank Refiner - FIITJEE material at times goes beyond the JEE level. Resonance Rank Refiner contains a bunch of great JEE level problems that are at par with what you can expect on the JEE Advanced day.

I think overall the FIITJEE material is tailored to be a little difficult and meant for those who have the potential of getting a top 1000 rank. On the other hand, resonance material is meant for those who want to get a rank in the range of 1000 to 5000. So, both materials have their own benefits. Depending on your preparation and competency level, you can decide to pick one of them or both of them. I always prepared for a top 50 rank and I felt that I had the potential to achieve the same. So, I picked up both. Also, because I attended a dummy school in classes 11th and 12th, I had a lot of time to study from 2 different materials.

Strategy to study Inorganic Chemistry:

1. A large portion of Inorganic Chemistry revolves around equations and chemical formulae that one needs to memorize. At times, that becomes overwhelming because of the large sea of syllabi. Therefore, it is important for you to plan and strategize around how would you study Inorganic Chemistry efficiently to not get frustrated.

2. The most important advice I’d give to aspirants for Inorganic Chemistry is to ensure that you do not leave it for the last few months and rather prepare it bit-by-bit throughout the 2 years. The syllabus is so huge that it cannot be done in a few months. I personally hated memorization and it took me a lot of time to cram the equations and formulae involved in Inorganic Chemistry and so, I budgeted a sizeable amount of time to prepare Inorganic Chemistry.

3. It takes a lot of conscious effort to memorize something. Over time, I learned a simple memorization trick - read the same content every day. Like really. Let’s say, there are 6 chapters in total. You might require a couple of months to complete all of these chapters initially and that’s totally fine. However, once you’ve gone through these chapters, understood the content, solved a lot of problems, and got good marks in exams, what becomes difficult is to not forget these chapters.

For this, the simple technique is to read these chapters daily. Pick up 2 chapters, and read them on Monday. Pick the next 2 and read them on Tuesday. Repeat. Because you already have spent a couple of months studying these chapters, you essentially have to “maintain” them rather than study them from scratch. So, “reading” 2 chapters a day should not take more than 30 - 45 minutes. When you are “reading” these chapters again and again and again, your mind will eventually memorize the content in a “visual” format, and on the exam day, it would be extremely easy to recall the equations and formulae. Try this technique on 2 - 3 pages of p-block elements, and do let me know if it works for you.

4. For Qualitative Analysis, one has to not only memorize the equations and formulae but also colors. The chapter is full of exceptions and so, at times the colors are counter-intuitive. A simple trick for this chapter is to buy pencil colors and color the compounds in your notebook with the same color. Once you’ve done that, apply the technique in point #3 above. After going through the equations 3 - 4 times, you’d realize that the color has settled in your “visual” memory. You’d be able to recall that on page 72 of the book on the bottom left, there was a red-colored compound.

Overall, I’d say that Inorganic Chemistry is a game of patience more than effort and intelligence. The best way to “win” over Inorganic Chemistry is to study deeply once and then repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat so as to “maintain” the memory. Don’t over-think. Don’t get frustrated. Repeat, repeat and repeat.

All the best!

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