Topper Story: 99 Percentile in Chemistry — Lakshmi

Lakshmi Venkatraman was scoring 45 out of 120 in Chemistry mock tests in August 2024. By January 2025 she scored 113 — 99.3 percentile. This is not a story about genius or luck. It is a story about a systematic rethink of how to study Chemistry for JEE Main, executed with discipline over five months. We interviewed Lakshmi about her journey so that you can replicate the approach.

The Diagnosis: What Was Going Wrong

"I was studying Chemistry by reading my coaching notes and doing the practice problems at the end. I was spending 3 hours a day and still scoring 45. The problem was that I was treating Chemistry as three separate subjects — Physical, Organic, Inorganic — and studying them in isolation. Every time I did an Organic question I forgot my Physical Chemistry, and vice versa."

After a mock test debrief in August, Lakshmi identified the specific failure points: Physical Chemistry numericals — she understood the concepts but made unit errors and formula-selection errors. Organic Chemistry — she was memorising reactions as isolated facts rather than understanding the mechanism that explained them all. Inorganic Chemistry — she was not using NCERT at all, only coaching notes, and was missing several facts that appeared in papers verbatim from NCERT text. The diagnosis took one week of honest error analysis. The fix took the next five months. Take a free Chemistry mock test to diagnose your own pattern.

Month 1-2: Physical Chemistry Overhaul

"I restarted Physical Chemistry from scratch — not the formulas, but the units. I made a table of every quantity in Physical Chemistry with its SI unit, dimensions, and the formula it appeared in. Moles, concentration, pressure, energy — every unit. Then I went chapter by chapter: solutions, equilibrium, electrochemistry, thermodynamics. For each chapter, I did 10 NCERT Exemplar problems and 20 past JEE Main questions before moving on. No coaching module until I had done those." The unit table took two days to make. In mock tests, Lakshmi's Physical Chemistry score went from 15/40 to 30/40 in six weeks. See our Chemistry score 100+ strategy for the full framework she used.

Month 3: Organic Chemistry — Mechanisms Over Memorisation

"The turning point in Organic was when my teacher told me: there are only four types of organic reactions — substitution, addition, elimination, and rearrangement. Every named reaction is just one of these with a specific set of reagents. Once I categorised everything, the number of things I had to 'memorise' dropped from 80 named reactions to 4 mechanisms." Lakshmi spent one month systematically doing this — classifying every named reaction she encountered into one of the four types, understanding why the mechanism worked, and then deriving the product without memorising it. For mechanism-based Organic study see our organic reaction mechanisms guide.

Month 4-5: Inorganic — NCERT Line by Line

"Inorganic Chemistry is all about NCERT. I read the Class 11 and Class 12 NCERT Inorganic chapters three times — not skimming, but reading every sentence and asking 'is this exam-worthy?' I made a separate notebook for JEE-relevant facts: oxidation states, colours of compounds, anomalous behaviours, preparation methods, uses. That notebook had 40 pages. I revised it every Sunday." Lakshmi went from 15/40 to 37/40 in Inorganic Chemistry in two months purely through NCERT reading. She did not use any supplementary inorganic reference.

Her final study breakdown in the last month: 1 hour Physical Chemistry numericals (past papers only), 1 hour Organic reactions and mechanism revision, 1 hour Inorganic notebook review, 1 full mock test alternate days. Total: 4-5 hours daily. Less than her August study load, but far more targeted. The lesson she wants to share: "Diagnosis first. Effort is useless without direction." For the complete Chemistry preparation road map, see our Chemistry 9-months plan and our Chemistry strategy guide.