He studied 6 hours, slept by 10:30 pm, played sports. Now he's JEE AIR 1

Key points

• When the JEE Advanced 2026 results were announced shortly after midnight on May 31, Bihar's Shubham Kumar found himself at the top of one of India's toughest examinations.
• The student from Gaya, whose father Shivkumar runs a hardware business and whose mother Kanchan Devi is a homemaker, spent the last two years preparing in Kota.
• Earlier this year, he had already secured AIR 6 in JEE Main with a 100 percentile score.
• JEE Advanced, however, was the bigger target.
• Securing All India Rank 1 with 330 marks out of 360, Shubham says his journey to the top had little to do with marathon study sessions.