In India being in the medical profession is the most sought-after career with students opting for medicine after class 10th, though students tend to go to other professions as well, being a doctor is the main focus for most students. India’s medical education holds a great reputation in the world and is known for producing the best of doctors who have served humanity in the most selfless ways. India offers one of the best education in the field of medicine in the world which makes the medical profession a dream career for the Indian youth today. To achieve this dream of being a doctor and serving humanity does not come easy to the students; it requires dedication, hard work, and willpower to go through the preparation of the nationwide exam called the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). In order to crack NEET, students have to go through thorough preparation, and due to the immense competition, it is required that the efforts you make are sincere enough that it can land you into a good and reputed medical college of the country. There are almost 16 lakh aspirants that appear for the NEET exam every year throughout the country.
Cracking NEET and having a shining medical career is a dream for all medical students in the country, but while it is important to get through NEET, it is also equally important to get through your board exams by scoring good marks. You must not neglect your board exams as preparing for boards will help you prepare the basics and will also help you be on a safer side or serve as a plan B and it is a known fact that if you are preparing for an exam like NEET board exams are not as difficult. So, you must focus on both boards and NEET, and to do so below are some tips on how to manage both of them with ease:
Research before starting
The very first step while you prepare for any competitive exam is that you should know about your syllabus, so the same goes for NEET and boards as well. You must categorize your topics into most and least important, which is usually based on the number of questions asked from each topic in the previous years. You must analyze the syllabus for all subjects thoroughly. Check out the NEET Chemistry Syllabus PDF here.
Sketch out a plan
After you have figured out the important topics, you must plan out your entire strategy on how you are going to proceed with both the boards and NEET. It is ideal that you prepare simultaneously for both exams. When you look through the syllabus of class 12th boards you will find that all the chapters are covered under NEET, so you will not have to prepare for it separately. So, you must work smart, and when you prepare for your common topics you must prepare according to the format of both papers; i.e. you must practice both objective and subjective type questions, then only you will be able to master the topics and will be able to deal with the different format of boards and NEET.
Follow NCERT textbook
You must always follow only NCERT for NEET as well as boards because this will clear up your basic concepts and help you do a strictly exam-centric preparation as you cannot afford to give any extra time to irrelevant topics which will not benefit you in your exams but instead would waste your time. NCERTs are extremely important when it comes to biology and chemistry sections, however, you may practice extra questions to clear your concepts with NCERT as a base.
Manage your day
It is extremely important that you manage your daily timetable such that you can devote your time to studying as well as on your own peace of mind. There must be a specific time in a day where you are not studying and devoting your time to re-energize yourself. This will help you concentrate more on your studies because your mind will regain its energy after short breaks. It is recommended that you should take short walks or do physical exercise so that you remain healthy throughout your preparation.
Revise your old topics
It is usually seen that when you are preparing for NEET and boards simultaneously, you tend to lose your focus upon the topics from class 11th which you had studied earlier. You must keep revising older topics of class 11th so that the important concepts remain in your memory and you may not end up getting confused at the time of NEET. Once you are ready to move towards new topics, you must always revise all the old topics through the short formula sheets that you would have prepared for revision.
Self analyze through Previous Year Questions (PYQs)
It is very important that you must practice using previous years’ questions as this gives you an insight into the pattern of how the questions are usually asked in the case of both NEET and boards. Doing PYQs simultaneously when you prepare your theory will make you more comfortable with the exam format. It is advised that you must always revise your previous years’ questions as well as other important questions to be more confident during exams.
Do not be rigid
You must realize that it is essential to be flexible with your plans. It is sometimes observed that students tend to devote more than needed time to a specific topic; this happens when they lack interest in that topic and struggle with completing it on time. It is important to mold your schedule in such a way that the hard-to-cover topics do not interfere with other important ones which carry higher marks in the exams.So, we can now say that it is just a game of time management and consistency to crack exams such as NEET. The NEET aspirants must be consistent in their preparation and must keep on revising the syllabus and the consistency and continuous efforts would definitely result in a good score in both NEET and boards.
