8. Timetables, persistence, breaks and hardships
My aim through this blog is to give you a perspective on how I went through my preparation so that you can do yours more efficiently. It isn’t in-depth and doesn’t involve any direct instructions that can be considered as ‘spoon feeding’. I give opinions and views to aid as a guideline for you. You can decide to utilize the information I give as however you see fit.
Timetables
If you want to
succeed at something you need to clearly define what your goal is, what are the
steps you require to achieve that and then plan for it. Planning is an integral
part without which you will just be wandering towards a goal without a path and without any
certainty that you will reach indeed. A plan will also help you measure if you
are actually achieving what you planned and how better you have gotten at it!
Timetables are important because in a very broad sense you get an idea of what all subjects/topics you need to cover and how much time can you actually dedicate to each task. Another reason why you need a timetable is so that you can restrict yourself to the task at hand and avoid wasting time.
I started APEX in the last week of Feb ’19 and I didn’t really start my preparation until June. For the first few months until June the only GPAT preparation I was doing was sincerely attending classes every weekend on time and paying full attention. Sir had also not given us any topics to study and makes notes for (called ‘follow ups’) until then so that we get primed and enter a proper state of mind before he actually gives follow ups.
1. June to October ’19
This
was the time when we were done with our summer vacation and regular college had
started from 17th June. APEX classes had also resumed and were
held every weekend from 1:30 to 5:30 pm.
I
attended every single class at APEX and never missed even one. Sir teaches very
fast and he covers a lot of information in the 4-5-hour duration that he
teaches and missing even a single class would mean that you miss out on about
2-3 topics at one go. If he has planned a crucial topic like organic chemistry,
then missing out on that class is a huge loss and never do that.
Regular
classes for Sem VII were also going on at college and I never missed any of
those classes either. Attending classes and learning the topic there and then
meant that I only needed to revise once to brush up on that topic and I would
be done studying that. This saved me a lot of time since I didn’t to study
those topics again. College is also strict about attendance and the minimum
criteria is 75%, but I also had to study for GPAT, make my own notes and revise
which needed a lot of time so I used to smartly skip classes so that my
attendance was always borderline above 75%. I used an app called “Attendance
Manager” by Vipul Gupta Apps to track my attendance. This is a double edged
sword since it is a good way to manage college if you’re a sincere student
and trying to achieve something that has a greater good. If you are using this
for wrong reasons, then you are going to harm yourself so be wise about it.
We
had practicals for the first 3 hours of college and this meant that I could
carve time out some time for studying. I used to understand the whole gist of what the
experiment was based on the teacher’s explanation and then my batch mates
helped me out. They used to be supportive and do the practicals on my behalf with
minimal support from me, while I sat down in one end of the lab with my
notebook or my phone and used to study/revise topics using Ebooks. This helped
me gain at least 1 to 1.5 hours every day in each practical that I attended.
We
had a break for an hour after practicals and then 4 hours of lectures until
college got over by 5:15 pm. I used to get home as soon as I could and
rest/timepass for a while to get my energy back up until 7 pm. After this I
used to study for 1.5 hours which involved studying and making notes for
whatever follows ups sir had assigned for that particular week. Dinner and a
little bit of timepass ensued from 8:30 to 9:30 pm after which I again used to
get back to studying for the next 2 hours after which I went off to sleep.
Saturdays
and holidays from college were an advantage since that meant that I used to get
one full day to study and during those days I used to make sure that I put in
at least 8 to 10 hours of studying through the whole day.
This was pretty much the kind of timetable I followed rigorously for 5 months and I covered 70% of all the syllabus I wanted to study for GPAT.
2. November to Mid-December ’19
November
was an important time period due to the 2 full weeks of Diwali vacation that we
get. This was a crucial time since it meant 14 full days where I had no college
but the whole day to put in maximum amount of time to study.
This was the time where I followed the same routine I did for weekends where I put
in a minimum of 10 hours of studying. The maximum time varied and was based on
how much energy I had on that particular day. I covered the remaining 20% of my
GPAT syllabus during these 2 weeks.
More
importantly by this time I had done enough studying that it was time to test
myself and figure out how well I am doing. Sir had asked us to solve past 10 years’
papers during this vacation time and I did solve all 10 of them. My entire morning used
to be spent in solving one past paper/day, evaluating them and trying to figure
out the answers behind the questions that I couldn’t solve. This gave me a real
measure of how much I was studying and how effectively I compared to my seniors
who gave their GPAT exam back then. This would be the time when I would suggest
you to download the merit lists of those respective years so that you can compare
your scores against those students and see how well you perform.
After Diwali vacations you will mostly have your university practicals and end semester examinations during which you will not be able to study much of anything for GPAT. However, this time period could be a great advantage in the sense that during this period you can study the subjects from Sem VII perfectly so that you needn’t revise them again for GPAT.
3. End of December to January ’20
Our
last university paper was on 18th Dec and GPAT exam was scheduled on
28th Jan. This was a very big advantage for our batch because our
university exams ended early and GPAT exam was push pushed to an even later
date and gave us precisely 35 days/5 weeks until D-Day.
This
was the time period that I had my most intense study sessions and I pushed and stretched
myself to the maximum limits that I could. The pressure during this time is the
most intense.
During these days I had time to cover only 10% of whatever syllabus was remaining for me but this 10% covered the most intense and complicated topics. Most of these were subjects from Sem VIII and some were topics that I couldn’t cover so far but I knew that I would be at a great loss if I didn’t do these and some topics that I remember covering during that time are:
- Microencapsulation
- Medicinal chemistry aspect of steroids, opioids and prostaglandins
- Stereochemistry in depth
- Conformations of cyclohexane, butane and ethane
- All name reactions under organic chemistry
- Pharmaceutical engineering
- Energy and transitions in UV
- Cosmetics
- Pharmacology of antivirals and hormones
- Plant biotechnology
- Some parts of biotechnology
- Plant hormones
- Calculations under MDP and Biopharm
- Glycogen and lipid storage diseases
- Viral inclusion bodies
- Bioequivalence studies
I
woke up at 8 am and had breakfast, read news and freshened up until 9 am to actually
start my day.
9 to 11 am I spent in solving the MCQs from Inamdar book. I had calculated the total number of MCQs in the whole book and I had divided my time accordingly so that I finished solving each and every MCQ in there by the end of January and I had accomplished that and solved the whole book!
11 to 1:15 pm I used to spend in reading and revising the "GPAT summary" that I made (It’s there on my google drive). This summary was essentially a gist of whatever I could remember and felt was an important point that I needed to study and remember. I started that summary during the end of Dec and I used to keep updating it every day based on what I felt was important and any related information.
Lunch
and a short break I took until 2 pm.
2
to 4 pm I used to revise the notes that I had made during class at APEX. This notebook
that you will maintain of all the lectures and classes of Mohan Sir is a very
important treasure of sorts. You will find it very easy to revise from here
towards the end of your journey. Sir gives a lot of random but related information
and key points in the middle of the lectures and going over these comes handy
at the last moment revision. Don’t miss any lectures and note down everything
that sir says and teaches nicely in a big fat 400-page book (I needed two of
those)
I
napped or did timepass for an hour after this.
As
soon as I woke up I used to go through 1-2 drug classifications from Vikas
Sheth.
5
to 8 pm was the time where I covered the 10% of my remaining syllabus and some
of the topics I had enlisted above.
8 to 8:30 pm I used to go over each and every small sticky note that I had stuck on my wall (these are also there on my drive too). These were essentially the important points, charts, tables, values, mnemonics, details, etc that I needed to by heart and glanced over on a daily basis so that I don’t forget them. I used to stick them on a wall in my room. Some of these are:
- Solubility terms
- Color codes for cylinders
- Standard drugs
- Vitamins
- Formulae for all types of calculations
- Important NMR and IR values
- Vaccines
- Cranial nerves
- Microbiological and immunological identification tests
- Biosynthetic precursors in Pharmacognosy
- Acts and their enactment years in Jurisprudence
- Blood clotting factors
- Woodward Fieser rules and values
- HLB values
9
to 11 pm I used to do a quick revision of at least one notebook that I had made
for follow ups. I had a total of 12-13 notebooks that I had made that had
all the follow ups I did through the whole year. Most of them were organized
into different subjects. This revision was key because this was the time when I
was cutting down on words and highlighting the key points in my notes. I always
had the full description of each point if I need to quickly go over them but
mostly it was a quick overview.
11
to 12:30 am I used to revise topics from Pearson and solve the MCQs it has at
the end of each chapter. This is helpful during the very end because you have
studied 90% of what you wanted to study. At this stage this guide acts as a
helpful way of quickly revising and also going over any gaps and points you
might have missed out on.
Those
5 weeks of studying were the most intense session and the most difficult time
of my life because I had put in over 14-15 hours every single day and never
broke my flow by taking a day off.
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| My gallery towards the end |
I continued this until 26th January and 27th January was the only one day where I slowed down my pace so that I had enough energy to appear for the paper on the next day.
Persistence, patience and hard work
Being
consistent, persistent and putting in the hard work is secret formula to what
it takes to be successful and accomplishing things that seem rather impossible.
Start at a slow
pace and gradually increase your duration and intensity of studying but do not
break your flow. Don’t do bursts of studying where you do 5 hours on one day
and then do nothing but timepass the next few days saying, “I studied 5 hours today
so I will rest for the next 2 days”.
Be consistent
in your efforts so that you maintain continuity and don’t feel overwhelmed. If
you break your flow, the next time you pick up you will need more energy and
efforts to pick up your pace and that going through that struggle over and over
is a very demotivating feeling to go through. Chances are that you will give up
and say that I will rest today also and pick up tomorrow maybe.
I tried my best
to remember and summarize the timetables that I had through the year but I’ve
forgotten a lot of those details now at this stage. What I will tell you is
that I was persistent through the whole one year of my preparation. I never
missed even one class at APEX and the only reason I would ever have missed is
if I was sick and was absolutely unable to attend. I used to get back home every
day single day from college and consistently put in 3 to 4 hours each and every
day. I don’t remember a single day where I let my continuity break.
You will also
need a lot of patience because there will always be distractions. You will
still have friends who aren’t preparing for GPAT doing timepass every day and
on weekends. You will have social media and the temptation to spend few hours doing
timepass or stream a show/movie on Netflix. You will have games that you play
and in general life will go on while you sit persistently and work hard. Patience
does not mean that you have to turn into a machine that only studies and
nothing else, it is about making sure you get your priorities right and spend
your time wisely between studying and taking breaks. It is about not getting
distracted by things that can wait for now since you have to do more important
things in life and making sacrifices.
I started at a slow pace too where I began by studying one hour a day. It took me so many months of continuous hard work and patience to reach a point where I could go on studying for 15 hours with all my energy and not getting burned out. The last 5 weeks of my preparation were the ones that tested my patience the most but I managed to do that because I had been stretching myself slowly, gradually and consistently over a long period.
Taking breaks and life
By this point
you’re probably wondering that I’m a machine and what I have been doing is
pretty difficult. No. I’m a human and I have been in your shoes too. Before I started
off I myself didn’t think that I would be able to reach a stage where I would
have the capacity to study so much in such a short period of time.
I love spending
time with my friends after college, bunking lectures to go out for
a movie or to eat something new, watching TV shows and movies and all those
things. I have been an active member of a Rotaract Club and I still am. I had a
girlfriend and I still have a girlfriend now. Studying hard does not mean that
you kill off everything and stay isolated. It just means that you push aside a few things for a
short while.
I used to take
an adequate amount of breaks to make sure that I was sane, recharged and had
enough energy to study. Trust me if you do not take breaks you are simply going
to burn yourself out. If you don’t have enough energy to study but you force yourself
anyway it is going to be a big unproductive waste of time!
I used to still spend time with my friends everyday but now it meant that I did that only for a maximum of half hour unlike hours before. I used to still bunk college but now it was so that I could sit at home and finish whatever follow ups I had at hand. I used to still watch TV shows but now it meant that I used to limit myself to one episode a day instead of long binge watching sessions I had before. I used to still go for Rotaract events but now it meant that I used to do only one event a month instead of as many as I could before. I used to still meet my girlfriend but now it meant that I used to see her once in two weeks instead of every few days like I did before.
The gist of what I’m trying to say is that the things you do during your break time do not have to change. You have to limit the amount of time you spend during breaks and keep them in moderation.
Hardships
It is going to
be long and arduous journey ahead. There are going to be a lot of days when you
will lose hope and question yourself and ask, “Is this really going to matter?
Am I doing the right thing and is so much hard work going to be fruitful?”.
I have lost
faith on many occasions but then I quickly got back on my feet because my goal
was clear to me. I knew that what I wanted to achieve an amazing All India
Rank that I will be proud about for the rest of my life. Qualifying GPAT was
never my concern and that was something that I knew I am going to do by
default. I do not know what your goal is – it could be to qualify GPAT, it can
be to obtain a certain All India Rank, it can to be obtain a certain score, it
can be to gain enough marks so that you get into the college of your choice,
etc.
Whatever your
goal is hold it close to your heart. Write it on your wall so that you see it every
day when you wake up. Be the source of your own motivation and be fearless in
what you wish to achieve.
There have been
times when I lost so much hope that I didn’t want to study at all. There have
been times when I was watching an episode and it ends with a cliffhanger
and I get bugged because watching the next one would mean that I’d be wasting my
time. These are all going to be sacrifices that you will make every single day.
The best part
about hardships? No matter how much low and terrible you feel right
now, all of it is going to instantly vanish away when you get you result for
GPAT 2020. Now that I have finished my one whole year of preparation I do not
remember the TV shows/movies I skipped, I do not remember the time I didn’t
spend having fun and doing timepass. To be frank I also do not even remember the endless hours I spent sitting at my table and studying and those
must be easily over 1000 hours. All the bad moments and memories vanish away.
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