And miles to go before I sleep....

·    What to expect from this optional Mathematics as an optional of CSE has been doing well off-late, if we look at the higher end of the spectrum of marks obtained by candidates.  But at the same time I feel most of the candidates opting for this optional are not aware of the effort required for obtaining such high marks. If we set aside a few exceptional candidates, one would find that the top scorers of Mathematics (including myself) generally require multiple attempts at this exam before managing such high scores.  This is not merely a coincidence in my opinion, and is probably a result of the numerous challenges this optional poses for a newcomer. A few challenges which one may encounter during the course of studying this optional are : Vast syllabus which may require 6-8 months of dedicated preparation Some topics like Algebra, Fluid are difficult to master satisfactorily Huge time investment in Mathematics which can end up affecting one's ...

  In this post,  I will try to give a narrative of how I went about preparing for Mathematics across my 2 attempts at this exam. I will try to give as much perspective as I can recall.  If any questions regarding my journey still remain unanswered kindly ask them in the comments section below, and I will try to answer them the best I can. The Story of my 1st Attempt (CSE 2016) :   About 2 months before the prelims, after which I totally focussed on prelims, I had solved the standard textbooks once for about 80% of the syllabus (not covered fluid, ring theory of algebra, numerical methods, frenet's formula, Laplace, boundary value problems and a few other residual topics). Soon after prelims I realised that I was unable to recall the even the basic stuff and so I decided to prepare 5-6 notebooks containing various important problems (both from the text books and previous years compilations) and formulas. This took me around 2 months to complete, ...