Should I eliminate 2 Choices for Solving NEET (AIPMT) MCQs?

Students swear by the elimination strategy to score more on objective-type entrance exam questions they are not too sure about. To know whether it is as good exam day strategy for medical aspirants or not, you need to first take a close look at the format of the All India Medical Entrance Exam 2018:

• Total number of questions that will be asked in NEET (AIPMT) question papers are 180 which are distributed across sections in the following manner:

  • Physics - 45

  • Chemistry - 45

  • Biology - 90

  • Type of questions asked in NEET (AIPMT) is Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) with four options each. Only one option is correct.

  • Each question carries four marks.

  • There is negative marking in the exam too to discourage guess work. For each incorrect answer, 1 mark is deducted from the total score of a student. No marks are deducted for un-attempted questions.

How to prepare for NEET (AIPMT) ? 

It does not really matter how you solve NEET (AIPMT) 2017 MCQs. In the end, you will net scores if you choose the right answer for a given question. If you are not able to guess the correct answer to a question, try eliminating the wrong choices for the question.

Understand the fact that if you are guessing an answer out of four options, you have 25% chance to guess the correct answer. If you can eliminate two choices that you know are definitely wrong, you will have a 50% chance to pick up the correct answer. 
 

5 Tricks to eliminate options ‘sensibly’ in NEET (AIPMT)

1. Equal distribution of questions among four options

In any major competitive exam, answers are equally distributed among the four options – a, b, c and d. So, if you mark all ‘a’ options as correct, you will have at least 25% correct answers.
It means in NEET (AIPMT), there should be 45 questions with ‘a’ as correct answer, 45 with ‘b’ as correct answer and so on…

So, at the end of the paper, when you have already solved all the NEET (AIPMT) questions you are sure about, you can quickly count how many a, b, c and d answers you have. If you have already marked 45 ‘a’, you can eliminate ‘a’ as an option for the questions you have not attempted yet.

2. Stay away from the extremes

In questions that have numerical values as the answer, stay away from the highest and lowest numbers. Experience says that in 60% cases, they are not correct.
 

3. Pay attention to units, values first

Many of the questions can be solved by just looking at the units of the given options. It means that if the answer to a question should have ‘kg/m²’ as the unit, you cannot eliminate all the options which do not mention it.
Here is another tip. Say, in a question Heat or Thermodynamics, the options given are:

(a)    90° F

(b)    30° C

(c)    90° C

(d)    40° C

There are high chances that the ‘unit’ mentioned thrice will be the correct unit. That helps you eliminate one option already – one with a different unit.

Note that the value ‘90’ is mentioned twice. 80% chances are that it will be the correct value to the answer.
So, your option could be ’90 ^oC’.
 

4. Dimensional Analysis for Physics questions

An easy way to eliminate options from weird questions quickly is dimensional analysis.
For Example, in a question where you have to find velocity of an electromagnetic field and the options are given as:

(a) (2E/B)^1/2

(b) (2B/E)

(c)  (2E/B)

(d) (2B/E)^1/2

You have to reach the dimension of velocity which is L¹T^-1.  Now, dimensions of an Electric Field are (M¹L¹T^-3A^-1), and dimensions of a Magnetic Field are (M¹L⁰T^-2A^-1).
Only E/B can give you the correct dimension. Hence ‘c’ will be your option.
 

5. Working backwards and using fundamentals

For questions related to equations that have simple numbers as answers, working backwards can be a good way to check if an option should be eliminated or not.
You can also use the basics to eliminate options that are definitely wrong. This works quite well in Biology.
For example, you have to choose the feature common in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The given options are:

(a) A membrane-bound nucleus

(b) A cell wall made of cellulose

(c)  Ribosomes

(d) Flagella or cilia that contain microtubules

Now, you know that prokaryotic cells don’t have a membrane-bound nucleus, so 'a' is out. Eukaryotic animal cells don’t have a cell wall, so 'b' is out.
If you have strong fundamentals, you can keep eliminating the incorrect options until you arrive at the right answer.