NEET: How I increased 17.2 Percentile In My Second Attempt

Nowadays exams like NEET are getting more competitive day by day. To emerge as a topper amongst the competition every student has a different game-plan and therefore every topper has their own success story. There is a famous quote that a wise man learns from his own mistakes but a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others. Let's discuss an inspiring NEET success story of Matilda Victor and learn from her story.

Here I’d like to share my journey from 453 marks i.e 62.9 percent in NEET 2021 to 577 marks i.e 80.1 per cent in NEET 2022. I want to share the mistakes I made during the 2021 NEET exam and how I corrected them due to which there was a boost to my score in 2022. I want to share with you how to improve an overall 17.2% in the NEET Exam.

In the NEET exam, there are three subjects namely Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. Let's discuss them one by one.

Physics

This was the toughest and least favourite subject of mine. No matter how many times I went through the formulas, it was hard to solve the problems. The mistake I made here was, I thought only learning the formulas and reading the theory would help me solve problems and score well in physics. This was not true. Also given the vast NEET syllabus, it was easy to forget the formulas.

However, I realised later that more exposure to numerical is the only way to gain confidence in the subject and more importantly to remember the formulas and apply the correct logic to the questions asked in the exams. Thus, my marks increased from less than 40 to 140+ in NEET.

Chemistry

The major struggle for me was organic chemistry. Initially, I read the textbook, memorised the reactions and tried to solve questions. But I would mix up the reactions and end up not solving the questions. The video lectures in organic chemistry really helped me a lot in this as the reaction mechanisms were taught. This way I understood the use of various reagents and why they are used in particular reactions and how we obtain the products from the given set of reactants.

Knowing the mechanism behind the reactions made it easy to understand, and remember, more interesting to learn, and really helped in solving questions confidently.

Biology

Out of the three subjects, biology is the most exciting and easy too. In botany, however, there are not only many things to remember by memorising but a lot to remember by understanding the topics. The chapters on Plant Physiology as well as the Anatomy of Flowering Plants were quite difficult for me.

Watching video lectures of these chapters and then practising the diagrams and various cycles like Kreb’s cycle including the net gain of substances etc., on paper improved my memory in these topics a lot.

Above all, for NEET or any exam, practice is the key. I spent the final month of my preparation doing one question paper each day. Although these were online tests, I marked the answers on printed OMR sheets as well (this improved my speed in the actual NEET exam as I didn’t have to spend a lot of time filling the circles) and after taking the test I would go through the paper and correct my mistakes by working the problems out with the help of the answer keys given. Although I took a lot of tests, the marks scored in these tests were in the 300-400 range and very rarely above 500- yes it was very frustrating and a lot of times I just wanted to quit.

But the more marks you get, the more you learn. One day the test score could be high and satisfying, close to your goal and other days it would be very disappointing. The key to getting through exams is perseverance. by not quitting when things don’t go the way you expect they should or when you don’t get the results you expect despite working very hard. And till you sit down to write the exam it feels as if you forgot what you’ve learned but, it will come into memory once you see the questions so be calm, as it actually helps you to perform a lot better in the exams.

Start your day with a prayer as only God can give you the wisdom to learn and the strength to endure. Learn from my mistakes, study hard joyfully and create your own success story.