A Guide to Mains Preparation

If you’re feeling overwhelmed about your first Mains attempt, or if you’ve just started your preparation journey, this guide is for you. We’ve attended numerous strategy sessions and have distilled the essence of these into a comprehensive study plan. Even if you’re not a fan of strategy videos, this guide will help you ensure you’ve covered at least the bare minimum.

Physics: Essential Topics

• Heat and Thermodynamics
• EM Waves
• Ray Optics
• Semiconductors
• Error and Instrument Analysis (2nd Part of Units and Dimensions, also very important for Advanced)
• Wave Optics
• Gravitation
• Modern Physics (Photoelectric Effect)

Mastering these topics can potentially help you score 30-40 in the Physics section.

Physics: Additional Topics

• NLM
• Oscillation and SHM
• Rotation
• Electrostatics
• Current Electricity and Capacitors
• Magnetic Effects of Current and Magnetism
• Waves and Sound
• EMI and AC
• Properties of Matter
• Bohr’s Atomic Model (Studying the Atomic Structure nicely will help significantly in Modern Physics because it is basically the same thing again)

Acing both the essential and additional topics can fetch you 60-70+. If you still have time, do cover the remaining chapters.

Chemistry: Essential Topics

• Mole Concept/Stoichiometry
• Atomic Structure
• Chemical Bonding
• Chemical Kinetics
• Electrochemistry
• General Organic Chemistry
• Name Reactions in Organic- Stephens Reduction, Friedel Craft Alkylation-Acylation, Markonikov Additions etc. (The list is long, but these reactions can straight up fetch you marks in the conversion questions of A to B to C type)

This block is more like an added extension of Chem Block A, just do this after completing the Block A.

Chemistry: Additional Topics

• Coordination Compounds
• States of Matter/Gaseous States
• Thermodynamics
• P-Block
• Equilibrium (Ionic and Chemical)
• Environmental Chemistry
• Chemistry in Everyday life
• Bio molecules and Polymers
• Practical Organic Chemistry
• Special Orders in S Block
• Metallurgy

Our advice to anyone would be to always aim for 100% of chemistry. Chemistry is a honeypot and you can easily score the most amount of marks, in the least amount of time. Maths and Physics are time taking and also drain your brain energy. If you do Organic and Inorganic well, you will cruise through the Chemistry part of the paper.

Mathematics: Essential Topics

• Probability (Binomial+ Mean/Variance)
• Limits, Continuity and Differentiability
• Vectors and 3d Geometry
• Sequence and Series
• Circles
• Straight Lines
• Definite Integral and Area Under the Curve (Application of Integrals)
• Functions
• Determinants and Matrices
• Conic Sections
• Quadratic Equations
• Binomial Theorem
• Mathematical Induction and Reasoning
• Complex Number
• Application of Derivatives

Following this guide might help you get something in the range of 150+ in your mock tests. We hope this helps.