Why you should focus on Optics as well:
Ray and Geometric Optics is one of the most interesting and important chapters with a significant weightage in the JEE Advanced entrance exam. In school and for Main preparation this topic isn’t given a lot of attention; however don’t neglect this chapter for Advanced as it gives you an upper hand if you understand the concepts very well. The problems that feature under this topic can be cracked very easily with due practice. Hence, a focused study of Optics for JEE Advanced will almost certainly fetch you those extra 10-12 marks which might eventually affect your All India Ranks!
Preparing Optics for JEE Advanced:
First of all, strengthen your basics using NCERT material and H.C Verma. The problems put forth are of beginner and intermediate level. Solving them will give you confidence and motivation to touch higher concepts and advanced problems. Now, if you feel your doubts aren’t cleared you can also watch Pradeep Ksheterpal videos on Optics for clear and simpler learning.
Note: Always start studying the examples and then proceed to the unsolved problems. Once you’re able to solve 70% of the problems in the fore mentioned books you can move ahead to Advanced level preparation.
This involves studying from DC Pandey for more complicated problems. Don’t feel nervous and abstain from trying out these problems. Initially it’s a bit complicated but once you get a knack of the concept, the questions asked in the exams on similar lines and can be solved in a jiffy with this practice. To clear your doubts on conceptual problems, refer to Optics part of MTG Physics series. With regard to conceptual problems a thorough revision of the derivations will help you understand and solve better.
The usual weightage pattern observed for this Chapter after studying the past ten years’ papers is: Wave Optics- 5% and Ray Optics- 6%. Around 3 to 5 questions on an average appear from Optics both, wave and ray optics. So, try to not spend too much time on this topic.
Tips
- Try to get a clear understanding of the sign convention. Never get confused with respect to sign convention. Most problems are tricky only until you figure out the sign convention.
- Try to visualise the problem. While this advice can be extended to any engineering problem, it definitely helps in studying optics. With an image in mind you can focus on the finer details which you would miss out while using just formulae.
- Practice old JEE Advanced and Mains questions. This will not only increase your speed of thinking and solving, it will hep you get an idea about the kind of questions that have a chance of appearing in the paper. Don’t waste time on problems that involve a large number of steps. The general questions test your concepts and hence, most problems can be solved in a few steps itself.
- Try to take quizzes and if it helps study with interactive apps and videos.
I hope this helps you improve your preparation in Optics for JEE Advanced. All the best, work hard and keep faith!
Mechanics is another huge portion of the physics paper for JEE Advanced. Although not a subject best learnt in a classroom, find the strategy to approach mechanics in this article.
