New IIT-JEE format from 2006

Thanks, Varun, for your mail to the group regarding the new format.

The pattern applicable for JEE 2006 is available here

IIT JEE Format and Rules for 2006

As per the latest notification from the Joint Admission Board of the IITs, the students who have passed their qualifying examination in 2005 or earlier will be permitted to appear in JEE 2006.

A long story whose sweet and short summary is that as far as JEE 2006 is concerned, there is no change in the pattern. Not even as far as the format of the question paper is concerned. It remains same as of last year.

Full news can be read at NDTV news item.

More information about JEE 2006 can be found at the IIT Kanpur JEE website.

The Group made a news - A hell lot of news

Thanks to the dedicated team of volunteers from whom the group has become a passion and may be on way to becoming an obsession, the Free JEE Coaching Group has made a news in newspapers.

A couple of citings are given below:

• Deccan Herald
• Digital Oppurtunity

Back in Action - Trip to Tricks resumes

I should be seen back in action starting next week. I planned last week but had to rush out for a week and this weekend too... I'd be flying away. Would be back with some more books from home.

btw, I'm working on a (currently background) project -- putting all problems and solutions of JEE since 1982 online!!! Let me see how much success do I get in this.

Participate in discussion forum at YahooGroup. Chill out with your friends. Take a break before we start for an intensive JEE preparation. Ok!

A Comment between T&T

I have been asked to write about Physics and Chemistry also. There has been a lot of Maths and also that I haven't written for about a month now. Aise to naheen chalega, boss!

Chemistry... I admit that I don't remember even a single word of it except for the C-H-O things. Physics was my strong point and I'll write on it.

I will start with mechanics and start with efficient use of vector in mechanics. In my opinion, as soon as you see something in motion - be it mechanics, electro-magnetics or a combination of them - make an origin, make 3 orthogonal axes, make vectors and then start putting the values as you read the question.

Of course, more details on it... but later.

11. Tip - Don't join the most popular coaching in town

I beg, DO NOT do this blunder. Well, it's under condition that that the coaching has more than 20-25 people in a batch / class. If not, you may join.

I know if the coaching people read this, they'd be behind me. But it's a fact. More often than not they would attempt to coach more than 100 students in a class. What if you have any doubts? I bet, you won't get an answer in the class. What more... if you get your basics wrong, they will always remain unanswered. Complex questions may be, sometimes, answered.

Join some correspondence test series, like of FIIT-JEE, Brilliant Tutorials etc. A lot more have come since I joined in 1996. The national scale test series give you two benefits:

• You get an idea of the examination room. Your heartbeat will run fast in first paper and soon get normal. It will run normally when you sit in real exams.
• You know, right from first test, where you stand nationally. If not precisely, at least approximately.

Oh yes... if you need to join coaching, join a small center where the batch will not be big, the teacher will be enthusiatic to talk and work and your queries will be duly attended.

10. Tip - Don't listen to what your mother says!

No... I am not talking about taking food but about her worrying about your board exams or JEE screening. Believe it or not, more often than not, you will be pressurized by your mother or grandmother or some other relative to qualify JEE. If you pay more attention towards JEE, you will get scolding on not studying for your board exams. It happened to me also.

Luckily, for me, my father was with me. He said to me just one thing, which I still remember and probably will never forget. He said, "If you qualify in JEE and pass boards with even 33% marks, nobody will complain. If you don't beat JEE, your board marksheet if everything." I always kept it in my mind.

I still remember it was January of 1998 and my board exams were to be in March / April, 1998. I had some idea of English course but a very little idea of Hindi. I took the board exams with no more than 15 days of exclusive study of these subjects and passed with handsome marks.

But who looks at them. All I have to say now is - "I am an IIT Kanpur Graduate / B.Tech.". That's it.

So, don't listen to anybody on this topic. But also don't overlook them completely. After all, you'll be giving your internal examinations.

9. Trick - Yet another multiplication trick

Ok, so far we've seen multiplication of numbers near powers of 10 and a generic multiplication. In this we'd see multiplication of numbers near a multiple of 10. For example, multiplication of 37 and 39 or 42, both being near to 40 = 10*4. The key here is 4.

Here's the full calculation:

   37  -3
   42  +2
 ----------
  39  | 6
 ----------

  => 39*4 | 6
  => 156 | 6
  => 1554

Superb! Hmm... note what I did in the second step 39 * 4. I multiplied by 4 because to get 40, I had multiplied 10 by 4. And since 10 has one zero, the value on the right side consists of only one digit.

Here's another way to do the same. But I will take another example: 47 * 49. Both are near 50 = 100 / 2. We will take 100 as base and the key is 2. Point to note here is that we are dividing 100 by 2 to get 50. Watch now...

   47  -3
   49  -1
 ----------
   46 | 03
 ----------
 => 46/2 | 03
 => 2303

What more do you ask for than converting multiplication to simple additions and at max a division by 2!!!

8. Trick - Squaring numbers near powers of 10

In this article, we shall learn about squaring numbers that are near to powers of 10 like 10, 100, 1000 etc.

The sutra for this is "Yavdunam Jaavdunikritya Varga Cha Yojayet" meaning whatever the extent of its deficiency, lessen it still further to that very extent; and also set up the square of that deficiency.

To understand the sutra, let's take an example. We would square 96. One way is to do it by squaring 104. Even shorter is this method.

96 is closer to 100 (we need to take power of 10). 100 - 96 = 4.. We further reduce 4 from 96 to get 92. Square of 4 is 16. So, the answer is 9216. Since 100 has two zeroes, the square must be of two significant digits.

Let's take a few more examples:

982 = (98 - 2)|(22) = 96|04 = 9604.
1022 = (102 + 2)|(22) = 104|04 = 10404

Now, we would examine is algebraically. Let the number be 100x - y.

(100x - y)2
   = 10000x2 - 2*100xy + y2
   = 100(100x - 2y) + y2
   = 100(100x - y - y) + y2

Now, (100x - y) is our original number from which we again subtract the dificiency y.

What if y² extends to 3 digits? We add the carry over to the front. Here's an example:

892 = (100 - 11)2
    = (89 - 11)|112
    = 78|121
    = (78 + 1)|21
    = 7921

As again, if you have any doubts or queries mail me at the email provided in the contact info.

7. Trick - Division by numbers ending in 9 (Part II)

In the previous article, we learnt about division by numbers ending in 9. It's ok if you need exact value, like what I calculated for 1/19. But for JEE, approximate value of 1/19 = 0.05263 may do.

How do you plan to do it? Divide by 19 everytime? No... you don't need to learn tables of 19. How about dividing by 2 or 5 or such small numbers!

We will make use of previous sutra - by one more than the previous one.

Let's start with 1/19 as example, followed be 1/7.

one more than the previous one for 19 is 2. So, we would divide all the way by 2.

1 divided by 2 gives 0 as quotient and 1 remainder.

1/2 = 0.10

Now, we divide ₁0 = 10 by 2 to get 5 as quotient and 0 as remainder.

0.10 => 0.005

Now, we divide ₀5 = 5 by 2 to get 2 as quotient and 1 as remainder.

0.10 => 0.005 => 0.0512

Similarly, the full calculations yields:

0.0512 => 0.05206
      => 0.052603
      => 0.0526311
      => 0.05263115

... and so on.

The advantage of this method is that you can stop whenever you feel you are ok with the precision of the result. For example, you can stop at 0.053 as an approximation or at 0.05263.

We shall carry the direct calculation for 1/7 = 7/49 where divisor is 4 + 1 = 5. We will start by dividing 7 by 5.

7/49 => 0.21
     => 0.114
     => 0.1442
     => 0.14228

... and so on!

Kewl... ain't. Note that all these tricks that I have been telling you till now are what I learnt in "Vedic Mathematics".