Junior Science Talent Search Examination (JSTS)

I’ve been wanting to write this post since a long time. I gave my JSTSE on the 31st of January 2011.

Junior Science Talent Search examination is conducted by the Directorate of Education (Science Branch) every year.  It happens mostly in late January(31st  January in my case) and mostly on Sundays (but Monday in my case). Only students of class IX in Delhi can give this exam( I don’t know what happens in other states or UTs).And to give this exam, you need to secure 65% in your previous class i.e. Class VIII.

The JSTS process starts in August/September where you have to fill in a registration form and send it to the Directorate Of Education. Dont worry about this. Your school will take care of this. Then wait till January when you get your admit card and your 5 digit roll number. Your center will most probably be a Govt.  School.

The first level  paper is divided into 2 parts. The first part is a 1 hour GK paper which tests your knowledge of GK, current affairs etc. It is a 50 marks paper.More importantly all the questions in the first level paper are MCQ type in the first level with each question for 1 mark each (except some questions in GK) there is no negative marking. It is generally easy and can be very scoring. The Gk paper is important as the GK paper can give you a little edge over the majority.(Obviously for this you have to be in tune with the current happenings all over the globe and about facts in India) . There were about 20 MCQs , 20 questions where the student would have to supply his own answers in 1 sentence or 1 word and there were 10 questions based on symbols of famous companies, government organisations, political parties, universities, sporting events etc. I advice you to go through your old history books, read newspaper daily, observe all the logos of the governmental organisations and use Wikipedia thoroughly. Manorama Yearbook may help too. All the answers have to be supplied in the question booklet itself. You can easily finish this paper in about 20-30 minutes like I did and could use the remaining time for …………     (You are free to ignore this last advice)

After this you get a break of about 5 minutes or so.

Then the tough part starts.

The next paper is a 2 and a half hour paper that tests your Maths and Science. There are about 25 questions in Maths and 50 questions each in Physics, Chemistry and Biology. 175 marks in 150 minutes. In my case I felt Maths was easy. Physics and Chemistry were fine, not too tough. But Biology was tough. As it is, I have less interest in Bio as I will be dropping it after 10th and on top of that it is difficult to remember those horrible names. You need to study Class 10th’s concepts to deal with this paper . You need to go to a higher level. It is important you understand those concepts, just reading them and memorizing the formulae won’t do. In my paper Physics section contained many questions from Motion, Gravitation, Sound and Electricity. Chemistry section had a mix of all the concepts in 10th. I dont remember biology’s questions.

I think what my school taught me the whole year helped me a lot otherwise I wouldn’t have qualified. My school organised extra classes. That helped a lot. Otherwise how would you understand topics of a higher class on your own. Try to attend those classes REGULARLY. Revise the notes and do the assignments they give you.You could also read some reference books but first read Class 10th’s NCERT. For maths go through Class 10th’s NCERT.

Now wait for about 3-4 months. The first round results come out usually in mid April and are uploaded at the Directorate of Education website under public Circulars  (edudel.nic.in)

There are about 150-155 students selected in the first level.

For the second level you have to give an interview held usually in July. Now I can’t enlighten you on the interview part as me, myself is not enlightened on this part. Wish me luck for 13th July 2011.

Feel free to comment and ask your questions