CBSE Topper 2018: AIR 3, Kshitij Anand wants to pursue Aerospace Engineering

CBSE Class 12 Topper 2018

Kshitij Anand, a student of Seth Anandram Jaipuria School scored 497/500 marks in CBSE Class 12 exams to secure AIR 3. As per CBSE Class 12 results, his scores in different subjects are Physics – 100; Chemistry – 97; Mathematics – 100; English – 100 and Painting– 100. Recalling how his family reacted to his achievement Kshitij said, “My dad was in tears for the first time as far as I’ve seen him in my life, especially when we had a TV interview. My mom was very happy and showed no hesitation in expressing her excitement just as a child does”.

With hobbies related to reading about political activities and painting, Kshitij is not just the regular Class 12 student you would come across. He aspires to become an Aerospace Engineer.

In a candid interview with Shiksha the very confident Kshitij Anand shared his year-long prep strategy and offered tips to CBSE Class 12 aspirants. Read the complete interview below.

No! The biggest irony of my result is the fact that Chemistry was the only subject in which I was expecting a perfect bingo of 100 but I scored 100 in every subject except Chemistry.

There is no such great road to success, it is just utilising your time as efficiently as you can and it depends on how determined and focused you remain. My primary motive was to encapsulate all important points of my class lectures in a small notebook. I thoroughly went through the chapters from the NCERT books once before it is taught in the class and once after it is taught. I attempted all NCERT questions properly and made figurative crisp notes for every chapter.

I had no schedule. I cannot handle boredom in my life at all. I used to wake up each day only when I had a perfect sleep even if it exceeded 7 hours some days, because you might think that you save time by getting up two hours early but if you didn’t have a good sleep, you will ruin the efficiency of your remaining day.

Eight hours of work with 50 % efficiency = 4 hours, whereas 6 hours with 75% efficiency is 4.5 hours. See the magic!

Assuming that the preparation time refers to a few months before the exam, I suggest anyone should devote more time to topics they are weak in and lesser time to easier and well learnt topics. Also give proportionate time to things which you need to mug up like Inorganic Chemistry.

Two words - Tuitions and Guidebooks. Stop using them and start building your own brain. Even if you are weak and feel that you are repeatedly failing at a topic try reading it through new books (textbooks) and finally ask some spare time from your school teacher.

I used the following stress busting pills. Many are available in the world free of cost. Some of them are:

• Spend time with family
• My best friends- Akshita, Nilay, Saksham
• Bhuvan Bam’s Videos
• Painting
• Walter Lewin’s Lectures

Textbooks of NCERT and trust me nothing else. Stay focused in the class. But for Physics I would recommend using University Physics or Physics by Serway for a deeper understanding.

Revision is very important in the exam, its equivalent to checking your score. I firmly believe that a 100 marks in English was purely a result of revision. I never started revising my syllabus as such, it was always on and it’s a yearlong process. When exams are near I revised using question papers posted on cbse.nic.in.

Never Jump to answering questions. In the reading time figure out which questions are your strengths and which questions are time consuming. Then decide if spending a certain amount of time on certain amount of marks is wise or not. Finally, start answering and leave space for later answers.

A few things- don’t mess with the organisers and invigilators, it will cause damage only to you, be polite but demand whatever is required for you to get comfortable, don’t try recalling formulae and all just before the exam, instead think about the happiest moments of your life. And finally say it out loud in your heart – “I Will”.

Don’t try to copy any board ranker. Every human being is different. My parents always asked when will you have a time table. But I knew I can’t run on the bounds set by a time table. So, try to figure out what is the best and the optimum conditions which suit your mode of preparation.

I have appeared for JEE Main and JEE Advanced along with BITSAT.

I will be taking up Aerospace Engineering as my UG programme either at IIT Bombay or IIST Trivandrum depending on my JEE Advanced score. I wish to study at MIT, Cambridge and then contribute to the Aerospace Industry of India and ISRO, making ISRO the greatest space agency history has ever seen.

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CBSE Class 12 Topper Profiles 2018