How To Handle Tough Topics in JEE Main Mathematics

By Aman Goel

JEE is all about preparing thoroughly with all concepts and excellent practice along with speed, accuracy and pressure handling. One needs to strike a balance of all these factors to ace JEE. Having at least two subjects perfect is essential for JEE or having all three prepared decently is great too. Physics is generally the more conceptual one and chemistry always has more learning. It is mathematics that is more inclined to calculations in JEE Mains and a mix of concepts and solving in JEE Advanced.

Acing mathematics is especially important because mathematics comes with a little less ambiguity comparatively and if you understand it nicely, it will shoot your scores high. Certain topics in mathematics are easier and practice bases. For example, matrices, determinants, ellipse, hyperbola, 3D geometry, limits, etc. A few others like probability, permutations, and combinations, straight lines, etc. are bigger ones and have a lot of twists in them since they are much more concept-based than others. A good imagination power is needed to ace these topics as you need to find answers to problems that have different scenarios almost always! Here is a list of a few topics which are a bit tough and have a greater weightage too:

1. Permutations and combinations
2. Straight lines
3. Vectors
4. Definite integration
5. Probability
6. Complex numbers

Here are a few tips on how you must handle these tough and tricky topics while preparing for JEE mathematics:

Find the correct books for each unit

Mostly you won’t get all chapters nicely given in a single book and so it is best to get the best from each book. Coordinate geometry consists of straight lines, circles, parabola, ellipse, and hyperbola. Straight lines and circles are conceptual and have a good weightage in JEE. These chapters seem to be simple but the questions asked from them are twisted at times and you need to practice a lot of tricky questions to understand how to ace them in the actual exam. Coordinate geometry is best given in Arihant books and so you can go for their coordinate geometry book by SK Goyal to understand these chapters and practice them nicely. Similarly, for permutations and combinations and probability or algebra in general, Cengage books are a better choice. These chapters involve a lot of tricky word problems which might get complicated if you haven’t practiced nicely.

For vectors too Cengage would be a better choice. Coming to integral calculus, Arihant by Amit M Agarwal would be a good choice. These topics would need time, patience and a lot of practice. Thus, do a lot of problems from them and keep in touch with these chapters on a more frequent basis. Units like trigonometry or statistics are easier and can be done from either publication books.

Also read: Best Books for JEE Main 2024 Preparation

Practice to perfect your concepts

The above mentioned tougher topics are the ones that require a thorough understanding of concepts and finally exceptional practice. You should never leave a touch of such chapters. Try doing a practice sheet of them every week or so. The best way to revise your concepts for these topics is by doing subjective questions. For that, you could pick really old JEE papers where there used to be a lot of subjective questions. With such questions, you can revise many concepts in a single question. You should start with basic theory and then do a lot of solved examples to understand the concept application. Once that is done, practice a lot of mains level problems and then go for the tougher ones. This way you would be able to do things nicely.

Practice mock tests

The tougher topics often are given in tests mixed with some other topics too. You could get a question that consists of concepts from more than one chapter. For this reason, you need to practice a lot of miscellaneous questions and mock tests. Mock tests truly teach you how to handle miscellaneous problems. Not only that, but they also teach you how to handle pressure during exams which is the most important thing during the exam.

A few general tips for handling tough topics of JEE mathematics:

• Don’t panic whatsoever.
• Tough topics can also be easily solved if you have your basic concepts clear.
• On starting a question from these topics, try noting down every small detail and then proceed. Scribbling in the rough might make you do calculation mistakes.
• Try making a note of any different concept or out of the box question that you come across while practicing from any of these chapters. You should see such notes before the exam as that will help you in revising twisted concepts.
• Do solve the past years’ papers to get an idea of the kind of questions that can be asked in the exam. That will help you in preparing accurately.
• Don’t leave the tougher topics for the end. Doing them at the end will make you panic and you wouldn’t be able to give proper time to them due to the same.
• During the exam also, do the tougher questions earlier.

JEE Mains and Advanced are different in terms of mathematics. The Mains level mathematics will be lengthy and all practice-oriented. If you have practiced nicely and you know the formulas nicely, you will do well. For JEE Advanced mathematics you need a bit more. You need to have all the concepts done nicely as the questions would not be mere formula putting. You have to derive things or use them from very basics to a much higher level. Just give sufficient time to each question and you will be able to get it. Draw diagrams and imagine things nicely for coordinate geometry problems. Correlate things with real-life situations in probability and permutations and combinations. Definite integration and complex numbers can get hard at times but practice and concepts are the keys! All the best!

About the Author:

Aman Goel

Aman Goel is a co-founder at a Tech Start-up. He holds a BTech in Computer Science Engineering from IIT Bombay with a JEE Advanced AIR 33 (Year 2013).

During his free time, he enjoys writing articles/blogs. He is an Entrepreneur, Coder, Speed-cuber, gamer, and fan of Air crash investigation!

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