The 'What and How' of the Civil Services Exam preparation.

The mains examination consists of 9 papers totalling 2000 marks.
These are 2 papers of GS and 2 of each optional.
1 Essay paper
1 English Language paper – compulsory
1 regional language paper -compulsory ( I opted for Hindi)

The last two papers are of qualifying nature only and their marks are not included in the total of 2000.

They are basically of X standard and not some thing to worry about but neither should they be taken for granted – English becomes a thorn for quite a few whose medium of instruction was not Englisgh during their school years and the regional language requires brushing up in case of the English medium students .. the best guide in these papers is the last few years question papers; they provide adequate feedback as to your readiness level in that subject- (equally true of all papers / entrance exams / professional exams e.g. M.B.,B.S annual exams) .


To boost my confidence in the language paper, I made columns on a plain sheet of paper to check my speed in précis writing for the Hindi language ..nothing should be taken for granted because there have been instances, no matter how rare, when brilliant candidates have failed to qualify in their first attempt because of failure in compulsory subjects.



General studies




For G.S , the NCERTS should be the main stay .


NCERT text books of

History ,Geography IX to XII,
Polity ,Economics- XI and XII
Science – IX and X


INDIA year book –if you have time , its a must . Helps you in mains as well.

Although this year (2010) the paper was a bit different from the usual , so it is advisable to have a flexible strategy for GS both for Prelims and mains BUT newspapers should be the mainstay.






For mains GS I referred the class notes of Vaji Ram and Ravi and the printed yellow books.

The Current affairs portion should also be supplemented by the Current Affairs special issues of any competition magazine and/or notes of any other institute like ALS but this should be done only after mastering the core materials at hand.



But newspapers should be the mainstay again.

The NCERTS are the base. One should consider referring other material only after mastering the NCERTS and not merely reading it – You have to study the books and the newspapers and not merely read them .

While reading the newspapers ,the following things have to be kept in mind.

THE HINDU newspaper is the most preferred one and most recommended one ; next comes the Times OF India ,followed by The hindustan Times-- preferably the National edition of any of them if easy access is possible.


In The HINDU , following things have to be studied.

1)The front page news

2)You can skip directly to the Editorial page-- read the two editorial articles religiously followed by other articles on this page and op-ed page-- they will also help in Essay ,Public Administration, Sociology,Psychology,Pol.Science. Economy and may be in other mains subjects as well.

3)Read the international news,especially those relating to the neighboring countries, visiting countries or countries to which a high ranking official from our country has made a visit.
Remember the bilateral/multilateral treaties /agreements /Important legislation/partnerships.

4)The Financial review on Mondays and the Science and tech portion on Thursdays.
5)Any other news related to any constitutional matter or of urgent importance.

In short, skip all political news ./keep a world atlas and an economics dictionary with while reading.



Some recommended Books other than NCERTS are as follows.

For Indian Polity

Subhash Kashyap … Our Constitution
Laxmikanth ( Both for Pre as well as mains)


Indian History

Modern Indian History _By Spectrum publications

For Indian Economy

Any Good Economics Dictionary is a must while reading newspapers as well as reading economics. (Collins ,Penguin )

The Special edition of Pratiyogita Darpan is a very good guide But care should be taken not to lose yourself in the depths of information packed in it – Best approach is to Read the boxes first and master them.

The Economic survey (Govt. of India) --The Introductory chapter , the chapter on Human development program mes and all the boxes again are very important ---You can safely skip the factual part , or can approximate some figures and memorize them.

Statistics


The statistics portion can fetch you cent percent marks provided you master it before hand --- practice last 10 years statistics questions and do this using a graph paper simulating actual exam conditions .

Speed and accuracy are the key in this portion … even though I did practice , I was unable to attempt two graph questions due to paucity of time.

(Spectrum's guide for Statistics is a good option.)



Science and Tech


The Science and tech portion can be supplemented by any good guide like that of Wizards S n T special issue that is published about 2-3 months before mains.

Please prepare the topics that have received Nobel prize in the current/last year.
Topics that have been in the news in the recent past are usually expected as questions—for eg , this year the bandwidth spectrum auction has brought back focus on broadband, 3G ,4G etc

The Biotechnology / Genetic Engineering /Cloning portions are also hot favorites.

India's Space program me / recent satellites etc.

One can also buy any 2 marker guide available in the market ; helps in a quick review/overview.



Essay


You are the best judge of how good an essay you can write.
A candidate with good writing skills need not bother for essay; the 10 or 12th std essays can be used to gauge ones ability in this aspect.

The material that one reads for the GS paper is sufficient to write a good essay.
Nevertheless , the following points have to be kept in mind.

1) An essay is different from the subject matter i.e. DO NOT write too much of facts and technicalities in an essay, it becomes tempting to do so esp if you know a lot regarding the essay topic.


2) An essay should be have multiple perspectives – you can easily begin with a brief introduction and add historical perspectives . Later social/economic cultural /geo political /psychological etc as many perspectives as possible throwing light on the topic from various angles. Do not express contradictory viewpoints ; if you are taking a particular stand, justify it with sound reasoning and logical explanation supplemented with few good examples. You can use a couple of quotes if you can recollect any but do not over do it.

3) Spend the first 30- 45 minutes in topic selection and making a brief outline of how you will begin the essay ,what all imp points you will be including and how the conclusion would look like. Do this at the back page using pencil. Think of all the possible points in this time only and org anise your thoughts coherently – use the TOPI (??!!)funda here … ( .TOPI is an abbv for THINK ORGANISE PLAN and IMPLEMENT.....:)


4) Give special attention to the presentation --

Avoid overwriting .
Each page sgould have atleast two paragraphs.
Underline sentences that you feel are important (Do not underline words!!)


WORD LENGTH -- In my opinion .1000- 1200 words are more than sufficent for a good essay - got 130/200 and my word length was around 1100 ; It is the quality that matters rather than quantity.

Make sure that your grammar/spellings are correct.

As far as I know, the essay papers are evaluated by English professors ; implies that they need not be 100 % factually accurate but the expression must be lucid and strong.








Public Administration

Laxmikant was my mainstay ; though I had done a casual reading of Awasthi Maheswari and Mohit Bhattacharya as well.


Sharma and Sadana can be considered as a base book but it is not sufficient; in fact there is no comprehensive book for public admn

New horizons of PA - Mohit bhatacharya
Indian Administration - Ramesh K.Arora and Rajini Goyal ….very important.
Pre guide for Public Admin - lakshmi kanth for mains too

IGNOU notes are also considered to be good/should be referred if candidate has enough time at hand.

Selected topics can be referred from issues of IJPA
( Indian journal of public administration)
but I personally feel that this should be done only when one has mastered the subjects concepts and some amount of factual matter.


Printed material of Vajiram and Ravi
Internet for topics not available anywhere.
Compact guides like Super 50 by Shubhra Saxena.

(This reading list is not at all comprehensive and is only indicative esp for those who have no time at their disposal )

The class notes of Mohanty Sir ( Synergy ) are quite comprehensive in them selves and those who refer it need not go for any other material .




Kindly note that the amount of study material available for Pub Ad. is so exhaustive that many aspirants tend to get lost while deciding what to read and what not ... Remember the "KISS" principle -- Keep it short and simple...

Read the same material 100 times rather than reading 100 different from 100 different sources.


The game changer for Pub Ad. is Answer writing practice for those who are not sure of their answers ----

Practice previous years questions and try to answers them in a comprehensive and lucid manner by not deviating from the main theme asked at the same time including as many different aspects as possible.




For Psychology--




Study material -


I referred to the class notes of Mukul Pathak Sir ; those who cannot attend his classes for any reasons, they can get his notes which are available at many xerox shops (Old Rajinder Nagar, Mukherjee nagar and Jawahar Book Depot Ber Sarai ..all in New Delhi )– although this amounts to piracy , but I believe that knowledge cannot be the preserve only of the moneyed classes.

The NCERTS should also be referred.
Refer Baron or Cicerrelli for topics which you are not able to understand.

Internet is a useful supplement provided it is used economically.



This is all that I recollect now, more will follow soon.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

All The Best!!