Firstly, know your syllabus. NTA asks questions strictly based on the syllabus (although the marks distribution is not even). You can find a link to download the latest syllabus at the end of this page.
- Clear your basics first – Read any general text of psychology to get a good hold of the basics of the subject.
- Know what to read – I have compiled a book list and you can go through that. I used that book list and it helped me get through the exam. you can find the list at the end of this page.
- Revision is the Key – Revising is the key to crack this exam. You need to revise each and everything you read before going to the exam centre.
- Solve previous year papers – If you are reading Classical conditioning, then go through all the questions that were asked about this topic. Solve those questions and ask yourself why you choose a particular option as the correct option and why not others. Solving previous year papers is very important and shouldn't be ignored at all.
- Cover the four major portions very thoroughly: Research Methodology, Statistics, Social Psychology, Psychometrics. These topics cover the majority of the question asked in almost every exam including UGC NET, PhD Entrance exams, M. Phil. Clinical Psychology exams. If you cover these four portions very well then, your chances of qualifying for JRF increase tremendously. Although UGC has divided the syllabus and set marks for each chapter they don't ask an equal number of questions from each topic, there is always a special focus on the above 4 topics and no matter what, they will always ask questions from them (and always more questions than the marks assigned to these chapters).
- Paper One is the Key – Ignoring paper one is suicidal. If you can answer more than 40 questions correctly in Paper One your chances of getting JRF will increase. Most students fail to get JRF because they can’t perform well on this paper.
- For Paper One Reasoning and Numerical Aptitude is the Key – If you have a good hold on numbers then you can outperform other students. I recommend one should remember Times Tables (up to 20 at least). They will help you to make faster calculations and solve problems very easily. One simple trick of remembering them is to write them down up to 20 on a paper and then read it every morning before you start reading other stuff. That’s how I mastered my Numerical portion.
- I studied my paper one along with Paper Second and then spent 15 days solving paper first questions and solving reasoning and DI (Data Interpretation) questions. Thus, I completed my entire preparation in 6 months’ time.
- Try to relate Psychological concepts with your real-life and develop some ecological understanding of the concepts. This will help you a lot in going through the exam.
- After completing the booklist, you can go through my notes. Or if you don't have much time left then you can directly go through my notes. I have prepared those notes from the mentioned booklist and updated them with the most recent findings. We are now joined by other (JRF) scholars who have updated the notes and covered each and every topic thoroughly.
Contributed By: Syed Ahmed Saleem (JRF AIR #2)