My Journey to AIR 45 in JEE Advanced 2024
As told by Rohit Sharma, currently pursuing B.Tech Computer Science at IIT Bombay.
Where I Started
I come from a small town in Rajasthan. My father is a school teacher, my mother manages our home. We don't have the money for premium coaching institutes. When I started Class 11, I knew virtually nothing about JEE. My mathematics was decent, but Physics felt like a foreign language and Chemistry was just memorization to me.
By the end of Class 11, I had burned through two coaching modules, attended 200+ hours of lectures, and scored a dismal 48% in my annual exams. I was close to giving up.
The Turning Point
A friend showed me SmartTutor in July 2022 — just as I was entering Class 12. I was skeptical. But I tried the AI quiz feature for Mechanics (my worst topic). The AI generated questions at my exact difficulty level and gave me detailed step-by-step solutions for everything I got wrong.
For the first time, I wasn't just getting answers — I was understanding why I was wrong.
My Preparation Strategy (Class 12)
August – November 2022: Foundation Building
I solved H.C. Verma chapters 1–10 (Mechanics) slowly and completely — every exercise, every concept. This took 3 months. It was painful and slow. But by November, I could solve any JEE Mains level Mechanics problem.
I used SmartTutor daily: 45 minutes every evening, testing myself on the day's topics with AI quizzes. The performance analytics showed me my weakest chapters week by week.
December 2022 – February 2023: Acceleration
With Mechanics solid, I moved to Electromagnetism, Calculus, and Organic Chemistry simultaneously. I had 3 study sessions per day:
March – May 2023: Mock Tests and PYQs
I solved every single JEE Advanced paper from 2012 to 2022. That's 22 papers. I timed myself strictly. After each paper, I spent 2 hours reviewing every mistake.
My mock test scores (on SmartTutor):
JEE Mains Result: AIR 312
My JEE Mains result in January 2023: 99.2 percentile, AIR 312. I was thrilled but knew JEE Advanced was a completely different beast.
JEE Advanced Preparation: The Final 3 Months
After JEE Mains, I had about 3 months before JEE Advanced. I shifted focus entirely:
1. Solved JEE Advanced PYQs (2012–2022) — all of them, multiple times
2. Focused on multi-concept integrated problems
3. Cut down on new topic learning — consolidation only
4. Increased mock test frequency to 3 per week
The hardest part was Chemistry. JEE Advanced Chemistry in 2023 was brutally NCERT-heavy. I read NCERT Chemistry cover to cover three times in those 3 months.
The Exam Day
JEE Advanced 2023 — Paper 1 was okay. Paper 2 was shocking — the Physics section had questions I had never seen before. I kept calm, skipped the unsolvable ones, secured the ones I knew.
Final Score: 312/360 — AIR 45
What Worked: My Honest Advice
1. Consistency beats intensity. I never studied 15 hours a day. But I never missed a study session for 18 months.
2. PYQs are the most valuable resource. Solve them all. Solve them again.
3. Understand your mistakes. Every wrong answer is a lesson. Never skip error review.
4. AI-driven personalized practice helped me target my weakest areas without wasting time on topics I already knew.
5. Health matters. I slept 7 hours every night. I ran for 30 minutes every morning.
Final Words
IIT is not reserved for the elite or the naturally gifted. It is for the consistent, the disciplined, and the determined. If a middle-class kid from a small Rajasthan town can do it, so can you.
Use every tool available to you. Work smart. Stay consistent.
See you at IIT.
