Triple products and coplanarity appear as 0-1 questions per year in JEE Main, with higher frequency in JEE Advanced. They are often embedded in 3D geometry problems rather than appearing as standalone questions.

Most common question types: (1) Volume of tetrahedron/parallelepiped — direct STP computation. (2) Coplanarity condition — set determinant to zero, solve for parameter. (3) Shortest distance between skew lines — STP in numerator, cross product in denominator. (4) Simplify a VTP expression — apply BAC-CAB.

High-frequency sub-topics: Determinant evaluation for STP, coplanarity of four points, shortest distance formula, BAC-CAB expansion, [a+b,b+c,c+a]=2[a b c].

Typical difficulty: Medium. The main challenge is careful determinant computation without sign errors.

Time management: STP problems take 2-3 minutes. The bottleneck is the 3x3 determinant computation. Practice expanding determinants quickly.

Key formulas to have ready:

1. [a b c] = 3x3 determinant
2. Volume of tetrahedron = $\frac{1}{6}$|[a b c]|
3. a x (b x c) = (a.c)b-(a.b)c
4. SD = |[a2-a1,b1,b2]|/|b1xb2|
5. [a x b, b x c, c x a] = [a b c]^2
6. |a x b|^2 = |a|^2|b|^2-(a.b)^2
7. [a+b,b+c,c+a] = 2[a b c]
8. [p q r] = det(coefficient matrix)*[a b c]

Exam tip: In MCQ format, verify your answer by checking units/dimensions and by substituting simple vectors (like i, j, k) to confirm the identity holds.