r/CUETPG

I scored around 220+ IN CUET PG ENGLISH, and I was able to get into almost all the Central Universities I was targeting. I also appeared for the Jamia Millia Islamia entrance examination with almost no preparation and managed to clear that as well.

So this is not a “I failed, so now I am giving gyaan” post. I am actually quite happy with my result. But when I look back at my preparation, there are several things I wish I had done differently. Had I avoided these mistakes, I genuinely believe my score could have been much higher.

So, if you are preparing for CUET PG English, especially if you are starting late, these are the mistakes I made that you should try to avoid.

1. I STARTED WAY TOO LATE

I started preparing seriously only in January.

Now, starting in January does not necessarily mean that you cannot score well. I still managed to cross 220. But the problem is that you never know how chaotic the last two months of college can become.

February was packed with everything except studying. There was the college fest, internal examinations, Holi, Eid, farewell preparations, and all the usual distractions that come with the final year of college. And honestly, I wanted to enjoy those things. It was my last year. I wanted to meet my friends, participate in college activities, hang out in the evenings and, yes, see the beautiful girls around me for the last time before graduation. 😂

Then there was winter. I personally become extremely lethargic during winter. I feel sleepy, lazy and strangely incapable of convincing myself that opening a book is a better idea than lying down.

The biggest consequence was that I simply did not have enough time to make my own notes properly. Instead, I had to ask someone who was already preparing for CUET PG for her notes, get them printed and study them thoroughly. It worked, but it was essentially damage control.

Had I started earlier, I could have made my own notes, revised them multiple times and given every subject the attention it deserved.

So if you have time right now, don't make the mistake of thinking that you will become serious later. The last two months will be much more chaotic than you imagine.

2. I Didn't Practise Questions or Mocks From Day One

This was probably one of my biggest mistakes.

I studied throughout January, but I didn't test myself nearly enough. I remember that around 25 January or 1 February, there was a mock test conducted by PW for its paid students. A girl I knew through a PW Telegram group had access to it, so I requested her ID and attempted the mock.

I scored around 130 out of 300.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I cried that day.

I had spent the entire month studying. I genuinely felt that I had made progress. Suddenly, that score made me feel as though the entire month had amounted to nothing. “Maine poora January padhai mein laga diya aur ye result hai?”

I could have looked up answers while attempting the test, but I deliberately didn't. I only checked things where I was almost 99% certain. If I was confused between two options or only 50% sure, I left it.

The mock was painful, but it taught me something extremely important: reading something and being able to retrieve it during an examination are two completely different things.

You may read twenty authors and feel that you know them, but when four names appear in front of you, suddenly you are sitting there thinking, “Who the fuck wrote this?” 😂

Questions force you to retrieve information. That retrieval strengthens memory. PYQs also teach you what the examination repeatedly considers important.

I should have started solving questions from the very first week instead of waiting until I felt that I had “covered enough syllabus.”

Don't study first and practise later. Study and practise simultaneously.

I Didn't Take a Proper Paid Batch or Follow a Structured Source

This one is slightly controversial because, yes, you absolutely can prepare without paying for a course.

But the problem I faced was not a shortage of material. It was the opposite: there was too much material and no clear boundary.

The CUET PG English syllabus can feel incredibly vague when you are preparing completely on your own. You keep wondering: Do I need to study this? How deeply should I study this? Should I read the entire history of this period? Do I need to know this critic? Should I memorise this author's complete bibliography?

A good paid batch gives you a framework. It tells you what deserves your attention and, equally importantly, what you can leave.

There are also pirated versions of almost every popular paid course available online. I didn't know where to find them at that time, so I neither bought a course nor followed a properly structured one.

After that disastrous 130-mark mock, I eventually asked my friend who was enrolled in a paid batch, “Please tell me what I should study and what I can leave.” She guided me, and that saved me a considerable amount of time.

So if you can afford a good course, I would genuinely recommend taking one. Not because you cannot crack CUET without it, but because guidance can save you from wasting enormous amounts of time on irrelevant material.

I Studied Things Because They Were Interesting, Not Because They Were Important for the Examination

This was another major mistake.

I started developing a genuine interest in literary history and theory. And once you become interested in those subjects, there is no end.

You begin with literary history, then move into social history, political history and cultural history. Then you start watching summaries of major works. In theory, you start asking what a particular theory means, why it emerged, who criticised it, what came after it and how the entire intellectual conversation developed.

All of that is intellectually fascinating.

But CUET PG is an entrance examination, not a PhD seminar.

This distinction took me some time to understand.

For CUET PG English, you generally need to be comfortable with authors and their works, chronology, literary periods, movements, important literary terms, major textual associations and the central concepts of literary theories. You do not necessarily need to understand every intellectual debate surrounding a theory in enormous depth.

I was trying to understand everything, when I should first have focused on remembering what the examination could actually ask.

Studying literature and preparing for a literature entrance examination are not exactly the same activity.

If you have limited time, prioritise what is examinable.

I Didn't Take the Examination Seriously Enough

This is probably the most embarrassing one.

After seeing the 2025 paper, I convinced myself that CUET PG English was manageable and therefore did not require an extremely disciplined preparation. Somewhere in my mind, there was always this assumption that I would eventually manage it.

And this is where I have to admit something quite personal.

I was the guy who could scroll reels for hours. I watched 18+ content. I had numerous online female friends with whom I would spend hours chatting and sexting. I read manhwas and adult comics, spent time exploring my sexuality, went out with friends in the evening and sometimes stayed outside until midnight.

Basically, I wanted to enjoy my life and prepare for an important entrance examination simultaneously.

The problem wasn't having friends or having a social life. The problem was that I had absolutely no boundaries around any of it.

I knew that I had to prepare, but I did not make the necessary sacrifices. And these things were not merely consuming my time; they were consuming my attention and mental energy.

After spending hours scrolling, chatting or consuming stimulating content, sitting down with a difficult literary text became much harder.

I should have understood that preparation requires a temporary degree of isolation. Not necessarily becoming a monk, but deliberately reducing the things that constantly compete for your attention.

You cannot spend five hours feeding your brain instant stimulation and then expect it to happily sit down and memorise literary chronology.

I Wasted Time, Then Wasted Even More Time Regretting It

This was perhaps the most destructive part of my preparation.

I would waste an entire day. Then I would realise that I had wasted the day. Then I would feel guilty. Then I would become anxious about the examination. Then I would overthink my future. And eventually, I would waste even more time because I was too mentally exhausted to study.

There were periods when I felt extremely overwhelmed by the examination. I was worried about my master's degree, my career and my future. People around me often did not understand why an English literature entrance examination mattered so much. There is still this strange perception that because someone is studying English or the humanities, the examination must somehow be easy.

For me, it wasn't.

I needed a good master's degree. I needed to prove to myself that choosing English literature had not been a mistake. There was also the constant noise from family and relatives about career, money and what I was going to do next.

And instead of using that pressure productively, I often allowed it to consume me.

Ironically, I eventually realised that I had spent more days regretting the time I had wasted than actually enjoying the time I had wasted.

That is probably one of the most useless forms of procrastination.

If you waste one day, accept it. Jo ho gaya, ho gaya. You cannot recover that day by spending another day punishing yourself for it. Sleep, wake up the next morning and start again.

Finally

Despite all these mistakes, I am genuinely happy with what I achieved. I scored around 220+, got into almost all the Central Universities I was targeting, and even cleared Jamia's entrance examination without properly preparing for it.

But I know I could have done better.

And I did not get JNU.

That one still hurts. There are many excellent universities, but when you miss the one you genuinely wanted, you understand its value in a completely different way.

So if you are preparing for CUET PG English now, especially if you have your eyes on the top universities, don't repeat my mistakes.

Start early. Practise questions from the beginning. Follow a structured syllabus. Don't drown yourself in unnecessary depth. Control your distractions. And, most importantly, don't spend your final two months wishing you had started two months earlier.

I made these mistakes so that, hopefully, you don't have to.

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