<p>With estimated $600 billion in surplus, we need to construct better solutions</p>
<p>^ i concur :-D</p>
<p>wow we hit four pages.</p>
<p>I can assure you NO ONE memorises the entire log book. Call me a fool, but it is IMPOSSIBLE.</p>
<p>The IIT entrance examination questions are the toughest questions I have ever seen in my life. It makes the SAT test look like a kindergarden exam. Even a person who can get a perfect score on the SAT would probably, miserably fail the IIT entrance exams. </p>
<p>The IIT test can only be realistically answered and done well by geniuses.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem necessarily that hard (at any rate the level of difficulty seems to make sense for a test like this), as long as you are well rounded. By American standards, you would just need to be able to do AIME level questions, as well as Biology and Physics olympiad type of question. And probably have a high school quiz bowl level of knowledge of history and geography. It’s not some godlike test. Of course, the entrance exams would certainly be far more difficult than the SAT - the SAT is sort of a joke, though…</p>
<p>Of course nobody remembers the entire logbook, but I know that they do remember 30 - 40 values from it. </p>
<p>eternity_hope2005 - I wouldn’t go so far as to say it can only be completed by geniuses. I’ve looked through IIT Papers books, and correct me if I am wrong, there are 35 questions. I know for a fact that I can do 5 of em. Considering that most students spend day and night preparing for these exams, and go through a lot of old exams, I would be surprised if most people can’t do a lot of them(those who are good at math). And for your last statement, kindly replace the word IIT with PUTNAM.</p>
<p>River Phoenix: You need to have a very good knowledge of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. That is all you need for the IIT Entrance Exams. Oh, and a lot of students study a whole year after highschool to give it another shot.</p>
<p>eternity_hope2005 - I wouldn’t go so far as to say it can only be completed by geniuses.</p>
<p>^i agree…especially since my dad could get in…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.indicareer.com/career-related-articles/2005-IIT-JEE-syllabus.html[/url]”>http://www.indicareer.com/career-related-articles/2005-IIT-JEE-syllabus.html</a></p>
<p>Their calculus content goes to the end of Calculus AB, maybe half of BC content. Their Chemistry is pretty expansive, but Physics is comparable to Physics C.</p>
<p>Now I have completed Calculus BC this year, and am going to start Junior Year. If I was in India, I would have the next 2 years to review Mathematics and Physics, and learn some more chemistry. In fact, I could drop out of school, and prepare for these exams independently.</p>
<p>Dont go by the topic names. You really havent seen the portion of IIT. The problems are university level problems.</p>
<p>“How the hell can you expect a boy in a village to compete against those being trained by professional coaches day and night?”</p>
<p>LOL you hgave to understand one thing, the boy in the village IS the one being coached day and night by proffesionals. Most people seem to think that India is still some cowpoo and weird customs country where evryone lives in shanties. That really isnt true. A boy from Bihar could easily kick my arse in any exam, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be more uccessful, it just means he was desperate enough to slog day and night.</p>
<p>“arse”</p>
<p>^^beat around the bush</p>
<p>Uh Havaldaar, I just came from a month in India, and I know for a fact that:</p>
<p>A) Bihar isn’t a village, its a bustling city
B) You should know what kind of village I’m talking about. </p>
<p>I’m not some complete foreigner you know. Kids in cities get coaching, but kids in small villages don’t.</p>
<p>not really, thats how the poms say it.</p>
<p>kids in villages DO get coaching, Latur is called the toppers factory.</p>
<p>“I’m not some complete foreigner you know. Kids in cities get coaching, but kids in small villages don’t.”</p>
<p>Bihar isnt a city, its a state.So the above statement was kind of self defeating wasn’t it?</p>
<p>Halvaldaar, I haven’t seen an IIT entrance exam, but I’ve seen the Taiwanese joint entrance exam - which is equally hypes - and it looked easy. The test questions are no more or less difficult than they should be. Meaning that probably it’s true that 1 in 50 MIT students could take the test cold and ace it. Almost any MIT student could study for the test for a year and take it down. But why should they?</p>
<p>What’s interesting is that the American and Taiwanese systems are begining to converge (although they certainly place too high of an emphasis on education in Taiwan, and probably too small of an emphasis here). In Taiwan right now there is a huge and controversial push to move toward an application system; meanwhile I have heard rumblings in the states of moving toward emphasizing entrace exams more.</p>
<p>I’ll tell you that I opposed the recent changes in the SAT, Because of the fact that they made the test less of an aptitude test and more of an achievement test. I feel that for complete impartiality, standardized tests should measure only aptitude. Achievement, which is equally important, should be measured by a student’s actions and demonstrated drive to take advantage of what he/she is given.</p>
<p>“Bihar isnt a city, its a state.So the above statement was kind of self defeating wasn’t it?”</p>
<p>Ok OK! I’m still an NRI so cut me some slack. The point is, the kids living on the rural farms aren’t the ones topping the IIT Exams.</p>
<p>When a person works hard day and night for years to come, his mind bcomes smarter. Challenging the mind with very difficult problems continuously will make you, quite literally, a more intelligent person.</p>
<p>My younger cousin sister (by a year) and me WERE on the same intelligence level when I left her 10 years ago. Today, I’m at a top engineering school in America but she still kicks my ass regarding intelligence because she has been through a very rigorous program in India.</p>
<p>American high school rigor is a haven and a blessing compared to India’s high school.</p>
<p>Why do you think all the minority students who come from India kick ass in American high school and go to top colleges?</p>
<p>The issue here is that the IIT problems aren’t “very difficult problems.” They are standard cookbook problems. Agreed, they are at a more advanced level than the standard cookbook problems of the US AP exams. I can’t speak for the physics or chemistry exams, but I’ve seen the math exams, and they simply aren’t that difficult. Getting all of them right in a certain amount of time is difficult, but certainly won’t make you smarter.</p>
<p>
LOL!!! Hey btw sagar I’m an NRI too :p</p>
<p>
Yeah rite!! Have you even seen the questions on topics like complex numbers, intro to Linear Algebra & probablility? Chemistry is as tough as weeder orgo classes at most universities. </p>
<p>AP Physics probably comes the closest to the JEE, but it isn’t that close. </p>
<p>
We have complete Calc AB & BC. And we don’t get to use graphing calculators, everything has to be done on paper.</p>
<p>The issue is that the test is made more difficult by increasing the level of the subject matter, which simply leads to more cramming. I prefer the Chinese method, of increasing the difficult of the problems in terms of problem solving, while keeping them at a precalculus level in terms of subject matter. The AMC math competitions are far more worthwhile to study for (at least in terms of improving problem solving skills) than vector calculus is. The Indians seem to have a false concept of the need to know advanced topics. (I’m a math and economics major and I accept the fact that I’m never going to use anything I learn in class. I just take interesting courses for fun.)</p>