** BITSAT(Birla Institute of Technology and Science Admission Test) is an online examination for admission in its three colleges at Pilani,Goa and Hyderabad. BITSAT checks your concept of subjects,time management skills, speed, accuracy, concentration power and decision making ability. So the very first thing is that you need to know is that it is different from IIT-JEE and other engineering exams......how and why you will get to know within next 20 minutes.

** For the question paper you have 180 minutes in hand and around 150 questions to attempt (leaving aside the extra 12 questions about which I will discuss later on). A simple mathematical division gives that you have a mere "72 seconds" of time to read the question , analyse it , solve it and mark the answer. The time constraint may cause your nerves to strain but believe me ,you need not panic because a simple strategy ,which I will discuss with you , will help you achieve your goal.

**There are in total 4 sections in the paper with the weightage given as follows:

Maths : 45 questions : 135 marks

Phyics : 40 questions : 120 marks

Chemistry : 40 questions : 120 marks

Logical Reasoning : 15 questions : 45 marks

English : 10 questions : 30 marks

Inclusion of English and Logical Reasoning as examination criteria shows that this test tests your overall personality and not just the knowledge of subjects.

** Your aim is to attempt maximum number of questions in the given time frame with atmost accuracy . Here is the strategy which if followed would give you an edge above others:

First you need to categorise yourself in one of the following four categories:

a)You do perform well under pressure and have a good command over english.

b)You don't perform well under pressure infact you need a tension free atmosphere to give your optimum output and you have a good command over English Language.

c)You do perform well under pressure but dont have a good command over English.

d)You don't perform well under pressure and don't have a good command over English.

I have categorised with English separately because English is something which is not asked in any other enterance test for technical institute anywhere in India.You also need to realise that 1)English 2) Logical reasoning and 3) Your strongest of (Physics, Chemistry and Maths) sections will help you save time (you can attempt questions in these sections relatively quickly) which you can distribute for other sections.

Here performing well under pressure means your concentration, speed, accuracy and decision making abilites become better when the situation demands you to show them or as an example you belong to the kind of student community who study for the exam on the last day.Well judging the fact whether you can perform under pressure or not could be done with the knowledge of your perfomance in mock test series for various exams and your performance in AIEEE and IIT-JEE which you would have already given by the time you would be writing BITSAT.

And the judgement whether you have proficiency in English or could be drawn from your school background and the time you spent learning that language. Be it reading novels, magzines or newspapers or performing in english section of mock BITSAT tests ,they all encompass your knowledge of english language.

Once you are over with the crucial step of categorising yourself , comes the selection of strategy part, which goes as follows.....

If you fall under category d) then your aim should be to start with a section in which you feel confident (Any of Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Logical Reasoning). The reason behind this gameplan is that you would perform the best(would be able to solve questions quickly and accurately) in section of your choice and your good start would relieve some pressure off you. This in turn would give you a feel of self confidence which is very crucial for the best output. Then you should attempt the section you are less comfortable with and so on in a decreasing order priority.

If you fall under category c) then your aim should be to start with English first because, this is the section where in you don't have much of expertise or your knowledge is poor.Chances are that you won't perform good in this section. Your non performance would give you a kick to concentrate more in other sections as that is where you have to score. A sense of pressure or exam atmosphere builds in which is exactly what you want because your tools (concentration, speed,accuracy and decision making abilities) are sharpened.Once the english section is over....then you can go ahead with sections in decreasing order of comfort.

If you fall under category b) then again you should go ahead with English first, as this section will have questions which if you know the answer won't take any time to solve and chances are that you would know that answer as you feel confident in this section.You don't have to spend time to solve the question and come to any solution.(Ex- which of the following is a synonym of the word "stoicism" ? a) fortitude b)ability c) suitability d) kinship)

This just means that your status is the same as that of a student in the category d) just the fact that your best section here is English.

And if you are someone who feels that category a) would suit best for him or her then you can go ahead with any section first. You might even start with a section which you feel you have the least confidence or conceptual knowledge.

This was all regarding how to proceed sectionwise in the test.

Now if you are someone who finishes all 150 questions before time then you have the full authority over those extra 12 questions.But most of us are'nt in that category. So it is better for us to focus only on those 150 questions and forget the extra 12 questions completely. For few of us who are able to cross the mark of 140 questions, arises a dilemma wherein we have to choose whether to attempt those extra twelve questions or not.

This is where BITSAT checks your decision making abilities. There is this risk of getting negative marks in questions above 140(which we compusorily have to solve to get those extra 12 questions) and there is this benefit of getting 12 extra questions or a potential to score 36 more marks.

Let us do a small calculation. Suppose you are able to solve 140 questions and have few minutes left in hand. And you choose to go ahead with attempting the extra 12 questions then....first you have to attempt the rest 10 questions left. The best strategy in this case where you have no clue about the answers,would be to mark the answers in same sequence. This would mean either all a or all b or all c or all d.(And for your kind refernce I would like to add that a research by a renowned firm says that in multiple choice questions there is 29% probability that the answer is option C) .

The reason behind this methodology to follow is that there are fairly high chances that out of 10 questions few questions have a as the answer few have b as the answer and so on. If you mark random answers, chances are that you might even get all wrong or a net of (-10 marks) which you cant afford to have when your career is at stake.The strategy which I have discussed with you would yield that even if you get 3 out of 10 answers correct which you have a VERY high probability of getting as you mark all the anwers with the same option......

In such case you have a positive total of 3*3 = +9

and a negative total of 7*(-1) = -7

the net of which is +2

And say if you have a hard day and manage to get just 2 out of 10 correct then you have (2*3=6 and 8*(-1)= -8 which gives a net total of -2). In any case you dont have much to loose but you get to gain 12 extra questions where you can score a maximum of 36 marks and thus get your net score booming. The point to be noticed here is that I have taken only the worst case scenario. If the day is yours then you might even get 4 or 5 out of 10 correct in which case your score goes rocketing.

Few other general tips would be like going to the examinatinon centre well in time to get yourself comfortable with the centre. Most of the BITSAT examination centres are air conditioned. So in any case if you feel yourself uncomfortable with the cold temperature , you can ask the people over there to adjust the temperature. Yeah there is hardly any scope for cheating as there is a webcamera placed right infront of each cabinet/seat......so you should not try to get involved in such activities. The questions on the computer of the person sitting besides you also will not be in the same order as questions on your computer.

If in the first 60 seconds you are not able to solve a question leave it at that particular moment and come back when you are done with other questions.You must read all 150 questions... coz who knows the 150th question may be the easiest for you. Prepare the topics which are extra from IITJEE and AIEEE course after the gap of AIEEE exam. BITSAT would start sometime around 11th of may and AIEEE would be over by the end of April. So in the gap of those 11 days, cover all such topics. And mostly these extra topics are from chemistry where the answer is memory based....that means solving them would not only get extra marks but would also save time for other questions. Set your target high, cause if you think of getting 325 then chances are that you would end up below that so aim for the highest and you will reach where you are destined to.....

Choose a time slot for the test when your brain is the most active. Some people who have a habit of sleeping late at night tend to be sleepy and lazy in the morning time ,for them the afternoon or the evening slot would be better.Some have a habit of sleeping during daytime , for them it is advisable to choose a morning slot. And moreover it is a myth that the difficulty level of questions increases as the days progress. The questions are totally random and the difficulty level can't be judged or decided at all beforehand.

What I believe is that a 3 hrs test is not at all a true test of the level of your knowledge but sadly this is the only optimum method availabe with our education system till now to test an individual when the number of students applying is in lakhs. So various factors such as our level of confidence, concentration, clarity of mind affect our performance.

I hope my suggestions and experience of BITSAT would help you achieve the best on the D-day. If you have any queries you can post here, I would be glad to help you out if I can. :-)...... and the most important thing to note is that there is no alternate to hard work . These strategies work better when you have done the ground work of studying well.

All the best for your exams and BITSAT ofcourse....

Thanks & Regards

IIT is not only crack from maths you should better in all subject ................

for math you should more attention on CALCULAS,TRIGNOMETRY,GEOMETRY,MAXIMA AND MINIMA........

These are scoring topics in which you can got better marks........

you complete must ALL NCERT books............

because syllabus is totally covered by NCERT bo
Thanks & Regards
Rinkoo Gupta
AskIITians Faculty