Yugantar Gupta, a 27-year-old IIM Ahmedabad student, recently created a stir by declaring he earned a top grade for an assignment he prepared using ChatGPT at the country’s top management school.

The young man has always believed in working smarter than harder, a strategy he shares in his book for aspirants.

Gupta, a qualified chartered accountant and a company secretary (all-India rank 12), scored a 99.58 percentile in the CAT exam held in 2023 and is pursuing MBA from the prestigious institute.

His book– ‘STUDY SMART- The Ultimate Exam Guide’– came out in 2024 to provide a “complete clarity” to students who are vying for their deserved place in the world by succeeding through a variety of competitive exams conducted in the country like JEE, CLAT, NEET, CUET, UPSC, CA, CS and even the school boards. The volume runs into 50 chapters with just over 200 pages.

It talks about a host of topics ranging from ‘how to study specifically for exams’, ‘managing distractions’ to guiding students on diet, sleep, physical, emotional and mental health, preparing and sticking to the timetable with certain segments that guide them to deal with people’s comments and also their own thoughts.

Gupta says he spoke to “hundreds of people” across the exam spectrum–those who are currently studying, those who have succeeded, those who failed, those who succeeded after failing etc.– before penning his thoughts.

“Through this process, I’ve come across insights that can transform your exam journey completely. This research covered almost every exam in India. The strategies given here are a compilation of the exam preparation strategies of rank holders in UPSC, CA, CS, JEE, NEET, CLAT, CAT, CUET, 10th and 12th,” he writes.

The book, according to the author, tries to cover “every possible mistake” students can make in their exam journeys and it gives specific, practical and actionable advice. How to maintain concentration, improve memory, manage time and score higher are discussed across the headers.

A full chapter is dedicated to creating an ‘Accountability Partner’ who can be any person close to a student– someone who can motivate them, give them rewards and punishments, and can be handed over their mobile phone in order “to keep all distraction away”.

His suggestions to the aspirants and students are straight: Keep things simple. Trust your knowledge. Trust your preparation. Trust your hard work.

“Trust is the sole important thing today. You won’t even remember what you got in a couple of years,” he says in the book.

The book also goes in detail to discuss the otherwise mundane-looking subjects like choosing an appropriate table and chair for studying and ensuring proper lighting in the study room apart from the pros and cons of joining a coaching class.

The young achiever created news about a month back when he posted on his LinkedIn that he used the ChatGPT AI tool while preparing his project on cosmetics and got an A+ in assessment by his professors.

Plagiarism is completely prohibited but AI (Artificial Intelligence) use is allowed (at IIM Ahmedabad), he posted on the social networking platform while explaining why he did what he did during the assignment.

While AI tools are there to help a researcher, he said, no one is going to pay you anything anymore for researching or writing reports off the internet.

“One can only add value if you can get something that’s not available on the internet – personal experiences, expert interviews, original surveys, observational studies and talking to stakeholders,” he posted on the social networking platform. Gupta concluded that post by quoting American entrepreneur Steve Blank, who said “Get out of the building”.

Also read: Patram: India’s first vision-language model for document launched by IIIT-Hyderabad