Cracking NET: No Instant Recipe but Strategy

Dear Friends!

I have been sharing my views on strategy for succeeding in NET exam on this blog as well as in Facebook groups. Most of times, I am thrown the queries on "Instant Recipe" for success in NET....like:

"Do you have study material for NET exam?"

"How I can prepare in next 2-3 months so that I crack the next exam?"

I start wondering why people look for "Instant Formula" to get success in competitive exams like UGC NET? Perhaps the "successful" formulas used by them in academic exams of their degree made them to think the same way for UGC NET exam also, but sorry, it is not that easy.

Before the pattern of NET examination was changed to 100% objective, Paper-III was subjective. You were supposed to secure just passing marks (40%) in paper III and 50% in total of Paper I and Paper II. It means, there was no criteria of falling in top 15% of eligible candidates. Still, the rate of success in Computer Science was dismally low all over India.

Now, the pattern has been changed and the high ratio of successful candidates is an indicator that cracking NET is far easier now. But, still, there is no "Instant Recipe" for success in NET.

NET preparation takes planning as well as patience. Unless you are born genius and covered all important topics of NET exam with utmost sincerity as a student and started preparing while you were in 1st semester of Masters degree....it definitely takes time to qualify. How much of time? It all depends on 3 factors, which we will discuss at the end.

Previously I posted two articles: One-> Getting success in NET exam, Two-> Securing great marks. In this post, I am sharing some more ideas on planning for your goal to qualify the Exam. Your success depends much on the dedicated execution of these steps.

First:

Select the topics you can study and prepare well for the next NET exam. You better focus on only those subjects you know are important to cover and also, you are confident that you can understand and can study them in short time. One strategy to choose the topics is to select 7-8 old topics, means, the topics you have already studied in your Masters. Additionally, select one or two new topics which you have never studied but are important for NET exam. For example, I had never heard about Theory of Computation (TOC) while doing MCA. The questions from this subject are always asked in paper II and/or paper III. You will need to select around 10 subjects.
For your old subjects, make a list of books you need to study. Follow the standard and famous books.

For the new topics, it would be better either you watch tutorial videos on NPTEL website, Youtube or find a good book for beginners on such topic. In my case, to learn Automata, I started with the book by Ullman. But that was a mistake, since the language of this book is not suitable for beginners. So, I shifted to online Videos and other web-based tutorials.  I later came to know that books on Automata by Peter Linz and Mishra were better for beginners.

For now, in first step, Do not start reading/re-reading books. Do this after following the next step.

Second:

Now, download all previous UGC papers from cbsenet.nic.in as well as ugcnetonline.in. For saving your time, here are the URLs to old question papers:

1. December 2015
2. June 2015

3. December 2014

4. June 2009 to June 2014

Now take printout of all the papers if you prefer to study offline. In my case, I took printout of all question papers and binded all papers in order like an MCQ book. Study the questions of all 3 papers. Try to understand the pattern and the types of questions asked. (Right now, do not focus on solutions to the problems, just develop an understanding on the types of the questions). 

To do this exercise in a planned manner, select any one topic and study questions from that topic only - in all question papers. For example, if you choose to begin with OS, make a list of only OS related questions from previous papers. On average, you will find 5-6 questions on OS from each exam session. It means, you will have more than 60 questions in hand on OS. If you have just began to prepare for NET, it is for sure that you will find that more than 50% questions are challenging. Highlight such questions. Do the same for all other topics. (Right now, we are not focusing on the solutions to the questions, but simply developing understanding of the topics). Solve  the questions as mentioned in third step.

Third:

Now solve the questions (which you selected in previous step) in three ways:

1. Find the topics in the text book, for example Galvin, and read the text. Make notes of important concepts. If you are short of time, simply use highlighter to mark in the book itself (Don't do this in borrowed books :-)

2. If  you could not find useful information in the book, take help of Google to research these questions. You will find Tens of useful links to study.

3. Still, if you fail to find the solution, post your question if forums like Facebook groups you have joined, online blogs related to your topic etc. Someone will definitely post answer to your question in any of the forums.

Remember, solving each challenging question can take time. Sometimes, it may take even 2 hours just to find the right answer and concept behind the asked question. (DO NOT CRAM ANS KEYS GIVEN BY UGC. I too made this mistake. It consumes time but is least helpful.) Why I have asked to do this step? You are not supposed to remember the given answers, but study the concept behind each such question. If you get the concept right, you will find many other questions easy to answer which are based on the same concept. If later you read the same questions or other questions on the concept you learnt, you will realise that you can now understand the problem in a better manner before you covered the topics.

Fourth:

After covering most of previous NET questions, research more on MCQ from other resources (both offline and online). Start solving questions from MCQ book by authors like Timothy Williams and any other you consider as good book. 

You may also use web sites some of which I am listing below:

http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/

http://nptel.ac.in/course.php

http://www.indiabix.com/engineering/

Last thing! There are three factors which will decide the direction of your exam preparation:
#1. (Most Important) Your focus on your goal (means how much serious you are to crack the NET)

#2. Your previous academics, means how much and which subjects you have learnt good by the time you complete your masters.

#3. Your perseverance, means "Never Say Die" spirit even if it is taking longer than you thought to qualify the exam. I stressed on this attitude in one of my previous posts also.

These 3 factors will decide when and how you will succeed.

Readers! The only objective of this post is to make you realise that it is better to equip yourself with all necessary Armour for hitting the exam. Give yourself at least 6 months of dedicated preparation. After 6 months, you will be confident on the concepts as well as on how to solve MCQs.

Best of Luck for July 2016 exam!