How Dr.Jagriti scored AIR 5 in NEET PG 2018 with 8 months of focussed prep!
The Marrow team is proud of Dr.Jagriti Nahata, who secured All India Rank of 5 in NEET PG 2018 after acing a score of 892. She has also achieved Rank 95 in AIIMS 2017, Rank 77 in PGI 2107 and 140 in JIPMER 2017.
Dr.Jagriti Nahata
She sat down with Marrow for an exclusive discussion where she has dived into the finer aspects of her PG preparation and has shared some of the insights into her experiences with NEET PG 2018.
1) Hello Dr.Jagriti. Please tell us a bit about yourself.
Hi. I’m Dr.Jagriti. I did my UG from Bangalore Medical College. I belong to 2011 batch. I used to be consistently above 70% marks in my MBBS exams. I got Rank 95 in AIIMS 2017, Rank 77 in PGI 2017, 140 in JIPMER 2017. I have a passion in pursuing MD General Medicine but I’m also considering MD Radiology. I took up NEET PG last year during my internship and got 17,000 rank. I got a score of 892 in NEET PG 2018 and an All India Rank 5.
2) So how long was the duration of your PG prep? Were you happy with it or did you think you should have started earlier?
My prep was from April to December 2017 for around 8 months. I felt I could have started a bit earlier whenever I got free time during UG days because towards the end I felt the pressure of not having enough time for revision. Early start is always better.
I was never serious about entrance exams during my UG days. Internship was hectic at Victoria hospitals and I wasn’t able to prepare for PG then. During my UG days I focussed on just establishing good concepts for myself and I think that helped me a lot now to score in AIMS, PGI and NEET PG. So the basic knowledge acquired during those 5 and a half years does help a lot. I started using Marrow in October. I wasn’t a Pro user of Marrow. But I used all the free content on the Marrow app like the pearls, and took the Marrow national mock NEET test.
3) How many hours of prep did you go through per day?
I never used to sit for 14 hours for studies like some do. I make sure that I use my time efficiently and so even if I set for 6 hours I’ll make sure I’ll utilise them well. When I take a break, I’ll take a complete break and enjoy it to my best. But when I study I’ll focus on only my studies.
4) On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do would you grade your level of preparation for NEET?
I would score myself 8.
5) Where do you think was the lapse in your preparation? What do you wish, you could have done better to have been more prepared?
I was worried if I had done enough number of revisions and was sceptical. But once results came I was convinced and was very happy with my prep.
6) NEET being a highly intense and competitive exam, it’s natural for students to have self-doubts and suffer dips in their confidence level. How did it affect your preparation?
Many times I went through such phases. I gave a lot of subject-wise tests, and of them some would go well and some would not. It’s very easy to get demotivated by those results. Times when I didn’t do well in Grand Tests, times when people around me are able to score better I would feel like I’m not getting the results for the work I put in. The feeling of low when I’m unable to remember something was also very bad for me. But I always try to reinforce myself with confidence and move on. If I’m feeling low for some time, then I’ll waste that time completely for say half hour and then get back to studies. And I had a really good support system in my parents. So that helped me.
7) What would be your advice to students going through such a phase of self-doubt?
Self-doubt is the biggest danger that can pull back a student’s performance. As negative marking is there, we need to be able to take risks in marking our answers and that will come only if you have confidence in yourself. Such confidence won’t pop up a week before your exam. You have to build it over months together. Do understand that failures will be there, but without failures there can’t be success
8) Were there any misleading practices regarding your prep that you that you eventually realised during the later phase of your preparation? How did you fix it?
Initially I used to go through multiple books and try and accumulate a lot of information pertaining to a particular topic. But as time went by, I realised that I will not able to remember all the information and it’s only going to waste my time. So I decided to focus on lesser volume of information, but focus on more important and high yield areas, so that with what information I’m capable of retaining I’ll be able to score the maximum.
9) Was the Marrow app useful for your preparation? If so how?
Yes. The Pearls in Marrow were very useful for me. For e.g.,I would have studied a subject a month back and when I see a relevant Pearl in the Marrow app it would serve as a mini revision for me. And if I feel like there’s a part of the subject which I’m unable to remember, I’ll go back to my notes and revise them again. I could go through the Pearls whenever I’m free or when I’m travelling somewhere and hence they were very useful.
10) Would you like to point out anything specifically in Marrow’s content that you’d like to highlight for our users?
The mock test conducted by Marrow was extremely useful for me. The answers provided my Marrow for each question was very reliable and accurate. The questions were very well-framed and did not seem like they were made for the sake of it. I went through a few of the free video lessons and I wish I had gotten to know more about them before as I would have been able to utilise them better for myself. I think they would be especially useful for people who do not wish to go for coaching classes, but want a little support. The quality of the videos are also very good. All the top faculty who I know or have heard of are a part of Marrow.
11) On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend Marrow to your fellow peers and colleagues?
I would recommend 9.
12) At what time period during preparation would you recommend they start using the materials available at Marrow?
I think Marrow can be used even during UG days. They can just solve a few questions here and there whenever they are free and go though the Image-based questions it’ll help a lot for the students to get oriented to the NEET PG exam pattern. If not then at least during internship I think it would definitely help. During internship it’s difficult to carry our books around to wards etc and using your phone is the easiest way to go through the subject and doing so will help the students not feel bad that they haven’t started preparation at all.
13) Do you have any other advice or suggestions for students who are currently preparing for NEET?
Do not run behind a lot of facts. Try to understand the concepts. Try to figure out the important topics in each subject and go to a little more depth in those topics than just collecting facts. Make your notes really well as it will help you a lot when you’re revising. And the most important of all, take your test seriously. Keep motivating yourself and try and be as confident as possible. All the best!
Books used by Dr.Jagriti for reference during PG prep:
Physiology – Soumen Manna
Biochemistry- Rebecca James
Pathology – Devish Mishra
Microbiology – Apurba Sastry
Pharmacology – Ranjan Patel
ENT – Manisha Budhiraja
Ophthalmology – Ruchi Rai
Community Medicine – Vivek Jain
Surgery – Pritesh Singh
Paediatrics – Meenakshi Bothra
She had used her Dr.Bhatia class notes apart from the above said references for her prep.
We would like to congratulate Dr.Jagriti for her achievement and wish the very best for her future endeavours!
