As per Economics Times, IIT is changing its pattern of selection both through the question paper and through the way it used to select the candidates. The changes are because of the use of RTI by candidates. Two points here are worth discussing one the changes on the nature of the question and the second one is what it really meant when IIT said "one digit cut off marks".

        Two or three years back students were dropping year by year for the examination this has many undesirable outcomes. First it made scientist like C N R Rao said that Indian science is on death bed. Secondly IIT did not get the kind of student it looks for, the situation was a fresh bright twelfth passed student competed with a student preparing two or three year with various coaching institutes. So what IIT looks for in a student? in simple word intellect, and problem solving ability. I still remember my HOD used to tell our class that "engineer can not, should not and must not say no" what ever the situation is (Though I am not From IIT). And this point is quite perceptible seeing at various areas of industry Right from managing Call center (After MBA) to designing soft wares, engineers are every where.

     So Finding out students with right kind of attitude was a tricky task and the IITs came out of the idea what they used test   few years back when the student community was away from coaching institutes . The selection procedure was simply unbelievably difficult for a fresh class twelfth passed out student. As per Economics Times one IIT official stated "Fifteen year back we had single digit cutoff " . Fifteen year back i.e. 1993 you must have seen the level of question IIT JEE had in 1993. I can bet for Physics at least, the level of question were outlandishly difficult (remember the helium atom collision problem?). I was told by one Professors of IIT that few years back IITs used have one review conference after the JEE to find out the ambiguities in the question paper and the marking scheme for all the possible answers .  The interesting part of all these was, this was the periods when IIT produced Engineers who really contributed outstandingly in bringing India to the lobby of developed Nations. (Thanks also to the economics liberalization led by Manmohan Singh). The situation turned a different route in late nineties due to various socio economic factors Indian science students made IIT a mania  Now IIT s are taking steps to carry on the magic they had created through their selection procedure.  They have decided to vary the nature of question paper every year and (Times of India). As said by Economics times ?The JEE is arguably one of the toughest entrance examinations in the world with 60-70 students vying for each of the 5,000-odd seats on offer. The competition is so intense that many coaching institutes, and indeed entire towns like Kota, specialize in training people to pass this test. This is a trend that clearly worried the wise old men at IIT. "We are looking for innate analytical abilities rather than people who have access or the money to go through the intensive system," says an IIT director    The only way to do this to keep varying the nature of the question papers in physics, chemistry and math ? the three subjects that JEE tests ? and that is where the problem of selection starts.?

         So what to do and how to go about it? For all the eleventh class student start learning the subject with the skillfully polishing problem solving techniques practicing and remembering the algorithm of solving problems won't help. And the twelfth class students, everything you have learned so far, you are confident in are the areas to help you out in the JEE. Do not panic if you know it, no entrance can stop you If you don't know no entrance can let you.