[AMA] Secured AIR-1 in IPMAT Indore 2026

I didn't top my class in midterms, neither was that my goal. I did well enough that I didn't raise eyebrows. Now, the answer to your question lies in what you want. If you want to get good marks in boards like 95%+, then I would recommend taking midterms rather seriously and maybe increasing focus on IIMB afterwards or if you don't care much about midterms ,then focus on IIMB from now. I personally would have chosen the latter, but up to you.

I don't have access to my IMS scores anymore, but the highest was 213, and the lowest was 14,6 but the average was 180-210 ig

For PnC and Prob, my approach was unusual, where I did a lot of work on the topics before even studying them from the IPMAT perspective. I did like 1000+ questions for PnC and prob with my JEE friend. But that's ot something I would suggest. See, a lot of the matter in PNC and prob questions is about thinking, and there will be times when you will question yourself like, how am I supposed to think this? One thing for that is to read and re-read solutions; that helps a lot in approach identification. The remaining part of PNC lies in practice: two aspects- volume and diversity. Max out both of them.

Sectionals- Practice. Mistake/Weakness identification due to higher volume. Maximizing sectional score. Give as many as possible.

Mocks- Practice. Exam experience. Attempt strategy. Balancing guesses across sections. Identifying points of exhaustion. Analyse a lot more compared to sectionals. Maximize overall scores.

I was more irregular than regular but honestly, you can very easily crack ipmat while regularly attending school. If you need to put in some extra hours for ipmat, then it is fine but otherwise being regular is totally okay.

You are welcome.

Also some information about my QA: I'm good at inequalities, logarithms, matrices and determinants. I struggle with the grade 10 topics mainly like arithmetic and geometry. Progressions and series is also something i struggle with a lot, it just does not make sense to me.

Also would you say it is plausible to leave a few topics? Like I mean not do them at all.

Watching friends I think, not even joking, I was watching friends for the first time around my mid terms. :)

For RCs, more is better. The more you do, the better your speed becomes. One more thing is, after doing 50+ RCs, you start to see the answers in the sense like you see if this question is asking P, normally the answer be X but the phrasing makes it so Y is more apt. Once you start thinking in reasoning terms like this, you are gonna kill RCs. For vocab, aftbs has flashcards, use them. Go to yt, search ipmat vocab playlists and start watching

For VA, it's a volume focused strat, see ultimately there are some fundamentals and there are questions based on that, so if you truly want to improve VA, focus on volume. But not easy ones tho, those have no return, do quality questions.

Now, parajumbles, I hate them with a passion. Even towards the end, I would be happy if I got 3/5 correct. I accepted that I won't be good at these. I just practiced enough that it was a decent ish level. But I made sure that I worked enough on the other topics so I won't lose marks there. Now, for sentence correction, you should probably watch some lecs on grammar rules and try and apply that. For sentence completion, I'd recommend trying to work on vocab because if you can even the loose interpret the meaning of words, it is easier to attempt. One more thing, sentence error and completion are things which practice helps a lot with.

Hey, hopefully we next year. Very sorry to hear what happened but I must say that you are very brave to try again. Now, the reference books you mentioned, I never used them so can't comment on the quality of questions in Arun Sharma. But honestly, if you want relevant questions, just use Afterboards, having used it personally, it is goated and has a very good question selection. The resources I mentioned is some other comment's reply. Higher math is one of those things where it is weird in terms of growth. now, if you want to improve at higher math, then one good way is pattern recognition and just reading solutions*.* other than that, just practice, if there are still problems deal with it later. as for jee questions, you can do them, they are a good soucre for practice but necessary at all. For grammar, I basically learnt all the basic rules. Then I mentally logged all the PTRs(points to remember) for any exceptions or tricky questions. One tip I give to everyone is read solutions, it is quite helpful in grammar.

Which edition do you have because the one 1 have has good questions.

You don't, I'm very anxious as well and on some days, it will feel like the world is collapsing. But the only thing that matters is how you handle the rest of the normal days. One more thing, remember that you are a partial dropper so you already have a safety net, that means you can do your best without fearing failure.

Scores? Focus on question practice. Concepts are very good but for a partial dropper who probably doesn't have a lot of time, question practice becomes more important.

For yt playlist, I can't say much because I didn't do concepts from yt but I hear that Rodha and some mba channels are good but do your research.

I gave 15-20 mocks for indore and maybe around 30 in total. Sectionals, sorry but I don't have much idea.

For VA, I'll give main points, volume matters a lot, practice as much as you can. Give daily sectionals. Do flashcards on afterboards and youtube playlists for vocab. Do daily RCs. After doing this, then you will start to see improvement. Also, read solutions.

I didn't give too many mocks before the exam but in 3 mocks,my score was around 250. My score during the prep varied a lot and honestly it doesn't matter because of diffferent conditions and time stamps

That is true to some extent. In my experience, the minute things I wanted to fix were my relationship with parajumbles, time management and di sets in mcqs and stuff like that. But if you analyse your mocks properly, then it isn't a problem. https://www.reddit.com/r/IPMATtards/s/sDh2c9tBr6

Also , should i give sectional of everything every sunday? ( take advantage of afterboards unlimited sectionals )

Oh, the starts reminds me so much of myself in my class 11. And let me tell you, rigid schedules are the worst. Now, for time management, it's all about priorities. If a school exam is coming up, but not important, then don't pause ipmat prep. If you want good school marks then take a small pause. The hack is to compensate in advance whenever you can. My example, I knew I'd get busy with preboards and projects in class 12th November onwards, so I did all the PYQs during my Diwali break, just plan in advance.

Now, for the specific stuff-

1. In 11th specifically, I wouldn't take too much stress about acads primarily because no one other nosy relatives will care about those marks so I would recommend focusing on ipmat more.
2. Totally depends on what you want. You want good marks in school, revise regularly, you don't mind above average, leave it till end.
3. No fixed number, if you want to know what you should be doing, atleast do some practice for concepts you learn besides what was in lectures. Source can vary from afterboards to youtube or anything else.
4. For school tests, depends on which ones. Mid terms or finals, makes sense to put ipmat on hold, other than that, just make daily achievable targets like I want to do this X thing for ipmat alongside my school exam prep.
5. A fairly good amount of you genuinely like them. I participated in 2 MUNs in school, they were so fun like for 4-5 days, it was no school studies, no ipmat studies, just geopolitics. But do ECAs because you enjoy them, not for profile.
6. NOT FAIL IN ANY SCHOOL SUBJECT. And try to maintain atleast 80% in school.
7. Buy afterboards and start giving mocks sooner.

For mock analysis- https://www.reddit.com/r/IPMATtards/s/DC5J6B0l0X

Prioritize concepts fs. Mocks are very important but they're useless if you don't know what you're attempting. I only started giving mocks in class 12 when I had done most of the syllabus.

It doesn't have explicit weightage but it is very important SOPs have the potential of driving your entire. Read some guide on the wiki, it tells you in detail. But the most important thing, be authentic.

Yes, commerce with maths.

Resources, every ims module except vocab builder and practice module. In 11th I mostly did just class exercises but started doing practice exercises as well in 12th.

Afterboards came into the picture very late, but it's contribution can't be understated. It was a source for good mocks and very relevant question practice. I did topic specific practice as well.

Additionally, I did PYQs, goes without saying. I spent my entire diwali break on PYQs.

Other than that, I referred to youtube for some stuff as well. Mostly VA, especially vocab, idioms and phrases, these are the parts I did from various yt channels like iquanta, supergrads, ipmat wallah and a bunch of other ones.

Okay, so this is a very prominent issue. My approach was usually to try and avoid revision wherever possible. As for topic retention, the answer lies in your fundamental understanding of the topic.(Sounds philosophical ik) But in my own experience, if I understand the actual concept/s behind a topic, then I can easily remember for a few months and even a year, if practice it on occasion. Now, if you have afterboards, I recommend doing weekly topic tests for your revision, it's just five questions, so max to max 15 minutes, just do like 4 topic tests of previous topics.

Well, my strategy in VARC varied a lot from topic to topic. But the general approach was just concepts+practice. And yes, this is the most generic answers possible, but the most accurate ones. One thing for VA specifically, give daily sectionals even if you haven't completed the syllabus. It's something I should have done.

122

As many as possible. I wrote way too little mocks. Like 15-20 for indore and less than 30 if you combine everything. But mocks add so much value that it's advised to give a lot(preferably on afterboards) and then analyse them thoroughly.

The score is a bit low tbh. But it's still manageable if you bounce back in your 12th and do well in the ipmat and interview. If you just started then I would suggest you try to complete the syllabus before your 12th mid terms, I'm not saying a particular month because it totally depends on your speed and pace. There's no fixed number like complete syllabus in X amount of days.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IPMATtards/s/8naalaZDQE

A lot of stuff about mock analysis is mentioned here. Now, my average mocks score won't be very useful because it fluctuated a lot but the scores have been shared in other replies if you want to take a look. If the mock was particularly bad then feel sad for some time, maybe give another mock(so a good score can balance things out)

As for number of mocks, very much dependent on you. But 2-3 mocks a week may be a good number if you are done with your syllabus

I'll combine consistency with distractions since they're mostly related. See, doing stuff for entertainment is okay, I used to binge stuff for 16 hrs a day sometimes(not recommending it) but the thing is, don't let it clash with your studies. This goes for any distraction, keep it away from your studies. Like if you have X target, it doesn't matter how distracted you get, do that X target.

In hindsight, I should probably elaborate. The targets you make, make sure that you mentally remind myself that I have to do this and this. And it pops in your mind, start doing it. That's it.

Now, time management is something you have to develop. The best way is, list down everything you have to do, categorize based on urgency, then based on your preferred order, then do it like that. This is the most efficient way. If you want a more fun way, do the task you hate most first. Then the one you like. And then go from there.

For interview, prepare basic questions that you can get from past transcripts. And then list down every significant aspect of your life that you may mention in an interview. Can be ECAs, hobbies, achievements, an interesting incident. Then prepare answers for them. Also, focus a lot on acads, they are very important in interviews. One more thing, watch mock PIs on youtube, pause, try to answer the questions yourself and then cross check it, also, record these answers and see your body language when you speak and try to work on that. This last thing is a very solid interview prep method. Also, read the interview guide, it's lovely

Already mentioned in other replies I think

Thank you. My schedule for revision was very liberal, I didn't revise every topic, just the ones where I felt like I needed more work. Like in quants, I went over geometry quite a few times but not arithmetic. But as a general thumb rule, you should probably revise a topic if you can't solve questions on it.

Hello 👋 🤗 (Do I know you btw?)

Fresher. I had no fixed daily routine. It was very dynamic. Some weeks I studied for 0 minutes and some days I pushed 12+ hours. But depends a lot on person to person. I'll tell you what, I used to set and complete(mostly) targets. Used to make to do lists. Now, one thing that really matters is being very thorough in fixing your mistakes for score maximization so focus on doing that. Now, the specific were as basic as they can get, concepts, then practice, fixing errors.

Next, for the coaching part, I went to ims offline for 2 years, and that was my primary source for concept learning and practice. Afterboards was an additional source that I used. I used afterboards mainly for mocks and sectionals and to some extent of topic specific practice. But honestly, I probably would have benefited a lot if I had used it more.

For me, it was geometry, especially the polygons part. The approach to those of topic is two part. First you accept that this topic is the worst but it's a part of the syllabus. Next, just shut up and do it. Remember, it's fine to have weaknesses. You should just have strengths to compensate. If you suck at progressions and series then be good at other stuff. Just do enough series so that if you encounter an easy question, you don't get it wrong.