This varied as we went through the different ‘stages’ of preparation.

• To give a general idea, I can describe how a general day looked like while we were still gaining course material, which comprises most of 11th and start of 12th. I have to distinguish between 2 types of days.
  • Days when I had school : I used to wake up at around 6:30am, have breakfast and go to school. In school, I used to study some other non-school related stuff and I didn’t focus much on classes (this helped me a lot). Then by 2:30pm, back to the hostel, then lunch, then some rest and then studying from 4 to 7:30pm. By 8pm, I ate dinner and played table tennis or chess for a while. Then I used to check emails or do some random ‘explorations’ over the internet and then, probably tried to complete the targeted amount of ‘study’ by 10pm. Then, I used to call my parents while drinking milk and sleep by 11pm.
  • Days when I didn’t have school: I used to wake up around 7:30, have breakfast and head on to coaching classes. We had just 3 lectures (PCM) which used to last till 2pm (having a fruit break in between). Then lunch and an almost similar schedule as school days. Although, sometimes I used to attend doubt sessions, or some extra classes which happened between 4-6pm. I also used to sleep by 12 on these days.
  • However, most of my days weren’t spent on ‘focused’ JEE preparation which is pretty much evident from my timeline and the above schedule was only ‘in effect’ when there was not any major exam (NSEs, KVPY, INO, etc.) in sight.
  • Whenever there was a major exam near, we used to have classes and mock tests on alternate days, which start a week or a fortnight before the actual exam depending upon the new topics and complexity.
• While we were in the stage where we had full syllabus tests each week (aka after October 2019 until boards)
  • School continued as normal, but I usually analyzed the mistakes which I made in previous papers or solved some question banks of Aakash while in school. We had 2 JEE-advanced tests and 2 JEE-Main tests each week. The rest days of the week were filled with discussion of challenging questions of the test. These were some of the most hectic months of my life because the schedule ran from morning to evening. I didn’t take all the tests like my classmates because I had to prepare for the SAT and research ‘about MIT’ for essays and other stuff. Also, I went for the DHRUV in between.
• Just before lockdown, when I came back to Pune
  • We had completed the whole syllabus and given so many tests, so we could only do ‘revision.’ I was part of the Spotlight session of Aakash, which is similar to focused study of a topic for 3 days. (for anyone curious, students are selected on the basis of their performance in previous AIATS). So, we were given pre-read assignments at the start of the 3-day session, then we had classes about in-depth discussion of the topic till 12 noon. After that it was lunch break, but we had to complete in-class assignments during it. Then, another doubt solving session at 4-7pm ish time. Then, we could complete the in-class assignment or do the pre-read assignment for the next day. This went on for 3 days and then we finally got a post-read assignment which we could solve to ingrain the concept. These sessions went on for various major topics in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. Out of these sessions, the days were sprinkled with FTS(Final Test Series) and other CoE specific tests, which I just gave on-the-go. I didn’t do much other than these tests and sessions because I had just been admitted to MIT and that euphoria led me not to focus much on JEE. However, my classmates would have been completing other question banks and some problem books at this time.
  • In the month of September, I realized the importance of taking JEE and it is better not to discuss the schedule of this month as MIT classes and JEE preparation do not go very well together for a person :’).