Each year, thousands of students are obliged to compete against one another to clinch their spot in public universities. Specifically in science, very few students are able to constantly put in the hard work and get the fine tuning of luck, clarity of concepts, strategy, and emotional control to claim the first spot.

Md Nafis Sadik Sifat is such an exceptional student who managed to get 1st position in the RU C (science) unit and topped KU science unit as well. His exceptional result is a combination of consistency, patience, and believing in preparation when the expectations are sky-high. His journey sees no dramatic ups and downs but rather a consistent push that delivered him over the line.

Building the foundation
Sifat completed his SSC at VJ Govt. High School, Chuadanga, and HSC at Chuadanga Govt. College. Most high-performing students are expected to be from a top institution in Dhaka. While many students choose to relocate their college to Dhaka, Sifat does not follow along.

For most, moving to Dhaka means access to better resources, coaching, and institutions. He shared his reason behind such an act: “The move to Dhaka would increase distraction, as I would have to stay away from my parents. I didn’t want to lose their care and support. So I chose to stay home and fully concentrate from here.” This helped me increase my mental strength and concentrate more on my studies.

“I never relied on elite institutions or exclusive resources. Rather, my main focus was always to ensure my steady focus and practice lead to my progress,” adds Sifat.

When asked about his primary focus, Sifat shared, “My main focus was always engineering universities.” But this did not stop him from participating in other university tests. He says, “My mindset was to keep my options open while staying focused on my primary goal.” This reflects his confidence along with strategic thinking to achieve greater output.

Mindset
As Sifat was preparing for his academics, one thing really stood out for him. He saw his main strength as mathematics. He shared how he was able to find out his strength. “From the beginning, my main idea was to ensure consistent practice for the duration of my HSC and admissions phase.”

This enhanced his problem-solving capability and logical thinking. He has different mindsets for each exam. He knew that HSC and college exams required writing skills with properly structured knowledge to ace the large creative questions within a decent time, while admission tests require a deep understanding of important topics and being able to finish each question accurately within a very short time.

He says, “The most difficult part of the admission journey is keeping your nerves calm under extreme time pressure.” He added,

“No matter how much you study! You will always face questions in the main test that you will not be able to solve. The strategy is to immediately know what to skip and what to answer fast.”

To clear his concepts, Sifat relied on online courses from ACS and Udvash to ensure that he saved time. He says, “The best part about online coaching is that it is cheaper but offers the best teacher from Dhaka to all the students throughout the country. It reduces financial constraints a lot for my parents.”

It helped him to improve his concepts for each topic. He also tried to attend as many offline exams to ensure that he understands his position and his shortcomings. He shared, “The main motive behind offline exams is to simulate real exam conditions. This hybrid approach helped me clear my fundamentals from the best teachers in Bangladesh and also understand my position across the country.” This approach can be really useful for students from middle and lower-class areas to get quality education on a budget.

Training
As he knew his strengths, it was time to prepare himself for accuracy and speed. While maths was his strength, his biggest challenge was chemistry. As chemistry had topics like organic chemistry that relied extensively on memorisation, it was hard in the beginning. He shared his technique for facing this challenge.

“The best way to ace the challenge was to face it repeatedly. I practised again and again and made proper notes to properly revise these topics until reactions and mechanisms began to form a pattern.” He adds a significant realisation that will help aspirants: “The way to solve difficult concepts is not through talent but rather patience and practice.”

Based on his mock exam performance, weaknesses, and strengths, he created his time strategy. He stated, “I started with physics, then moved on to chemistry, and finished with mathematics.”

He added, “My exam starts with solving each question in order, leaving only the hard ones aside. After completing all the easy questions, I then come back to solve the hard questions for a second attempt.”

As maths was his strong point, he wanted to solve it at a later stage.

He shared an important realisation after completing his admission journey. He shared, “The best results happen when I face the least pressure. Before RU, I already stood 3rd in Butex, which really eased my anxiety.” He urged the aspirants to keep their nerves calm and not to take on significant pressure. He reflects, “I saw many of my fellow aspirants underperform due to the high burden of pressure.” He entered the RU exam calm and cool and produced such an exceptional result.

The turning point
“The results were published, and I opened the merit list with a level of anxiety and excitement. I was so mesmerised by the results when I saw my name at the top of the merit list. The feeling was unreal.”

He informed his parents, and the pride in his parents’ voices made the entire experience more memorable. Sifat, the young boy from Chuadanga, has made his parents proud. It wasn’t about being 1st but the years of hard work and struggle for consistency. This was followed by another milestone.

He again stood first in the KU admissions test. We asked him what the most important factor was to be a topper in public university admissions tests. He answered, “There are multiple factors that can influence the outcome.

I believe consistency and intelligence are important foundations. But at the peak level, strategy and even a bit of luck play crucial roles.” This shows his humility and balanced perspective.

Sifat shared the biggest reason why most students fail to get a decent result in the admission test. He warns, “Appearing for the admissions test without completing the proper syllabus is a recipe for disaster.” “The idea that some topics should be skipped before appearing relies extensively on luck.”

He adds, “Sometimes these topics produce easy questions in the test, while the familiar ones are filled with harder questions. So, leaving your result on this kind of analysis will not bring most people a good result.” This is so true and can cost someone a seat at their desired university.

For students who are average at physics, chemistry, or maths, Sifat has some advice. These focus points can drastically improve the results of any average student. He advises, “First build a solid foundation of basic concepts. Then move on to practising previous years’ questions.”

For engineering aspirants, he urged them to focus more on mathematical problem-solving. This is extremely necessary for most engineering subjects. The biggest skill to learn during the admission phase, in Sifat’s view, is time management.

For this, continuous mock exams should be given in offline centres to mimic real-world exam pressure. A proper revision strategy can be utilised by analysing the notes built throughout the journey.

Despite his outstanding results, Sifat remains grounded. We asked about his extracurricular activities. He states, “Coming from Chuadanga, there is not enough scope for extracurricular activities. There was not much time for me or scope.”

For Sifat, his character is much more significant than his achievements. His goal in life is to be a good human first and foremost above everything. In a world obsessed with achievement, that aspiration speaks volumes.

Only hard work and dedication across the journey can make an ordinary boy from Chuadanga an admission sensation and an inspiration to thousands who aim to achieve this high in life.