With D-day just a fortnight away, The Hindu Education Plus spoke to experts to put together pointers to help guide you through this apparently gruelling process. For those who have put the JEE for admission to IITs, AIEEE and other national entrance examinations behind them, experts advice some serious re-orientation. Y.K. Jayaramappa, professor at BASE, a leading coaching institute, recommends solving several CET papers to get an idea. "Students who have seriously prepared for IIT and AIEEE or AIPMT (for medical seats), read too much into the much-simpler and largely straightforward CET questions. Solving 15 to 20 papers will help you familiarise with this," he says. Usually, the national exams are based on the CBSE board syllabus, which is quite different from the Pre-University course. However, there is not much difference between the CET and UGET (conducted by the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges-Karnataka) patterns.
New line of thought

While the CET paper may not offer any surprises, experts say that it is likely that the percentage of questions from subjects taught in 11th Standard or the first year of the Pre-University course will increase. With the Department of Pre-University education focussing on increasing the importance of first year syllabus with the introduction of centralised exam for the course, it is likely that the CET paper will reflect this line of thought. The CET exam, when it started in 1983, restricted itself to the II PUC syllabus. Over the years a few questions from first year portions surfaced; however, five years ago, the board decided to put all speculations to rest and declared that 25 per cent questions in each subject paper will be from the first year syllabus. Prof. Jayaramappa points out that this is likely to increase further this year.

Prof. Jayaramappa says that students must practice papers under simulated conditions so that they can understand what the hurdles could be. "Pretend this is the final exam, and time yourself. Try to sharpen your skills on two counts: speed and accuracy," he says. The selection of questions is crucial, so classify questions into four: easy, moderate, little difficult and blank (which means you are completely unfamiliar with this type). In the first round, stick to easy, moderate and the unfamiliar ones. "Take a guess with the unfamiliar ones. Either B or C is safe, A or D is seldom the answer!" he says with a chuckle. "Round off fractions before you calculate if you see that the options are far apart. Find during the course of the next two weeks intelligent options to make your job easy."

Jaideep Singh Chowdhary of Triumphant Institute of Management Education points out that the last week is no time for new topics. "Never open a new book during the time. Spend the last day going through material and take the last three model examination papers to understand the flow of the paper."

With seats in 140 engineering colleges and over 30 medical colleges on offer, there are plenty of seats for everyone. However, with the recession ushering in a slump in placements, students will be cautious about the courses and the colleges they choose. This has only increased the pressure on students to perform.
Keeping options open

Anita Gracias, who works with Sahai, a suicide prevention helpline in Bangalore, says that though the number of calls has not increased, there is considerable tension among students. Once the board exams are over, the profile changes to those attempting various entrance exams, after which the anxiety attacks move towards result-related issues, she explains. This reaches its crescendo around the entrance examination time.

"With parents the anxiety is related to fees and gathering funds for education. A lot of students bank on management seats which are expensive, so a lot of worried parents call us," Ms. Gracias explains.

"Please have contingency plans. You may never need to follow them but it is important to have them in place so that you can see the bigger picture and also reduce your stress levels. Once you stop seeing this exam as the end-all, you will relax and even perform better," Ms. Gracias explains. The most important thing is to keep plenty of options open, so that you don't cave in under pressure.