Mumbai’s Karthika G Nair, a student of Aakash, has obtained 720 marks out of 720

Mumbai : Karthika G. Nair, a student of Aakash Institute, Mumbai, has obtained a perfect 720 marks out of 720 and secured AIR 01 in NEET UG 2021. She attributes her success to her commitment to analysing her errors, with the support of the faculty of Aakash Institute, and her determination to not repeat the same errors.

Karthika has no plan B. She could not imagine a scenario of not cracking the NEET exam. When she scored 690 out of 720 in her first mock NEET exam at Aakash, her confidence in attaining her goal seemed so near. But she had difficulty with numbers, and therefore with the numericals involved in physics. “I used to make silly mistakes like reading diameter instead of radius,” she points out and adds that she found select chapters (such as rotation motion, and semiconductors) difficult to comprehend. Her confidence was rattled when she scored just 100 out of 180 in physics at a class test. It was then she realized the importance of doing error analysis.

“My parents told me that feeling dejected was not going to give her better marks. They made me realize that when I get disappointed, I would make the same mistake again and again, and remain in the vicious cycle. They urged me that I understand my mistakes and not to repeat them,” Karthika recollects. Her faculty at Aakash arranged for doubt clearing sessions. Her teachers and mentors reviewed her answers for online mock tests and helped Karthika understand her errors. With her commitment to not repeat her past mistakes, she made progress gradually.

She thanks Aakash also for making the printed materials (be it study materials or Optical Mark Reading sheets) available during the lockdown, as working with hardcopies – rather than digital ones, looked real and boosted her confidence.

Congratulating Karthika for her excellent performance in the NEET exam, Mr Aakash Chaudhry, Managing Director, Aakash Educational Services Limited, said, “Simple and straightforward strategies can make all the difference in competitive exams. I feel very happy for Karthika for not allowing physics to remain a sore point. She took steps to understand her errors and committed herself to eliminate them. It is heartening to note that our teachers played an important role in identifying her errors and made special efforts to help her go past the errors. This personalized attention is the hallmark of Aakash’s staff. I thank her teachers for their commitment. I also thank Karthika’s parents for being with her throughout her NEET journey as a pillar of support.”

For Karthika, medicine is a calling and not a profession. She wants to save the lives of people, and be remembered for her service to society. One of her inspirations is her cousin, a doctor, who worked dedicatedly as a frontline COVID-19 warrior during the pandemic.