Success Mantra Part II: "Strong foundation in Senior Secondary is key to a prosperous academic career"

Should you take admission to a good senior secondary school that makes it a compulsion to attend 80% classes, sit for class tests and takes internals seriously? Or should you simply enroll your ward to a casual Senior Secondary School as the end goal is to crack the entrance examinations?

These questions are keeping parents of many students awake at night. This is also one of the biggest decisions the parents will make for their kids. Is there a clear and obvious answer to what is the right track to adopt? May be not… there are ample number of success and failure in both tracks.

So, a a part of Barak Bulletin’s initiative — Success Mantra, each Sunday, we publish the point of view of three students, across streams, who have been there and done that. (If you have not read the story published last week, please click here).

Here is the second edition of the success mantra. In this edition, Swapnaneel Bhattacharjee who cracked NEET to get into IMS, BHU, Ayan Talukdar and Smita Nath, who cracked JEE to get into NIT Silchar have shared their views…

Edited Excerpts:

Swapnaneel Bhattacarjee, IMS BHU

Speaking of my preparations for the competitive exams, I basically started from scratch in 11th standard….upto 10th I didn’t do anything extra preparing for entrances. In 11th my strategy was simple – clearing concepts and not skipping any topic which is being covered in tuitions or classes in SSS (Senior Secondary School). I had tuitions for PCMB, each from the bests in the city, who were also teachers at my SSS. To mention names: Purnadeep Chanda for Chemistry, Shubhrajyoti Nath for Physics, Biswajit Ghosh for Mathematics. In the initial months, I didn’t practice much entrance oriented questions. I believed and continue to believe now – once you’ve created a strong base ,you can build glorious careers on it.

I used to solve tricky questions from references for Physics and Chemistry. By the end of 11, I started solving MCQS for the subjects also. To be honest, I never concentrated on PCB as such. I loved Physics and continued to solve harder JEE level questions too. After 11th exam, I did some research on entrances and preparations and developed an orientation about how to approach next. Solving NCERT, reading NCERT books again and again along with references were the few important strategies in 12th. I also solved Entrance Oriented MCQ books. I did these without compromising on the basic typical studies for the State Board exams.

Senior Secondary Schools are definitely a part and parcel of the education system and to be precise, constitute the most important years of an individual’s academic career. My Senior Secondary School, Ramanuj Gupta Junior College then, the most famous in the valley, rightly known for its glorious Alumni definitely helped me sail through this path. The teachers here are so involved in building concepts and puzzling you with tricky questions. They were so open to questions related to any topic – to the toughest ones and to the most illogical ones too. They love me so dearly and I feel I’m always indebted to them for their efforts on shaping my career.

Ayan Talukdar, National Institute Of Technology, Silchar

Competitive examinations are always different from mainstream exams. Different types of competitive exams require different modes of studying and strategies. My journey through the preparation period was basically sticking to basics and then trying to grab other tough fundamentals.

While preparing for exams like JEE, WBJEE, CEE, VIT and others, we need to study to whatever extent we can and at the same time, we need to develop a strategy while appearing in them. For strategic development, we need to take more and more mock tests wherever possible. In this context embibe.com has been very useful.

We have to cover the topics taught on a daily basis with extra time to revise. And yes, if you are preparing for competitive exams be sure that you are not neglecting your preparation for boards. It’s equally important.

Senior Secondary is always a crucial point in life. From here on, we get to distinguish our area of interest. Never ever take a subject on peer pressure or for other external factors. It is the senior secondary school from where we need to be well-oriented towards our future journey. Yes, there will be a possibility of disappointment at every point but think about the rewards you will have in the end. Yes, somebody may think why not skip senior secondary and go for something of a diploma. The world is changing and we have to get acquainted with that. For that we need proper guidance at the most crucial time of our life. We just can’t take up random guidance and suffer for that for the rest of our lives. The best should always be the guide. If you have another passion to follow, do that after your senior secondary because basic education is always important.

Smita Nath, National Institute of Technology, Silchar

I studied at South Point High School. I have completed my Junior College education from Ramanuj Gupta Junior College (batch 2019). I started preparing for competitive examinations along with my preparation for the Board exam. I would simultaneously read the chapters taught in the college and tuitions and solve the competitive questions related to the chapters. It was tough to manage both preparations for boards and competitive exams. At the end, I was very happy with the outcomes.

Three highlights from my preparation, time management, dedication and hard work, support of parents and college.

My college played a very important role in my achievement. My college used to conduct tests every week which helped me to keep myself updated on the syllabus. The guidance of the teachers always showed me the right path.
Senior Secondary is important. We should not neglect it. It decides our future. We should give all our efforts, hard work and dedication.

My suggestion to people who treat class XI and XII as optional: Senior secondary is one of the most important phases of our lives. According to me, you should not treat Class XI and XII as optional. If you are preparing for a competitive exam, then give equal importance to both boards and the competitive exam’s preparation. I think the Class XI and XII give us the knowledge of the concepts and competitive exams are broader applications of it. Would like to sum up by saying, “Dreams do come true when we give all our efforts to it”