Essay: How to write a good one.

A few words on how to write a good essay

Essay carries 200 marks, sufficient to shuffle your rank in the final list. Those students who have one of their optional as History or Geography or Sociology or Pub add or Psycho etc., definitely have an advantage over others in writing essay. Science background students generally lack in this.

 

Here I can share my experiences. I have got only 85 marks in essay in CSE-2008 and that figure rose to 106 in CSE-2009. I can give a few tips on this:

 

1.      Choosing the right topic: When you are sitting in the exam, there it’s the most important task and most difficult too. Reason is that you do not have much choice. Only 5-6 topics are mentioned. Moreover there wording is vague and quite general in nature. So choosing a right topic becomes very essential.

 

The main idea that one should keep in mind is that never to choose that topic which is clearly giving an advantage to a particular optional students e.g. let us say there is an essay on Indian Freedom Struggle: Process complete or not. Here I am just taking an example, so do not go into its details. The topic from its name itself is giving a fair indication that it’s a topic which will be best dealt by history optional students. If I having physics and punjabi lit. as optionals will try to do this, then I am having only that much knowledge of history which is essential for GS, which is virtually not more than 5% of that of the other person with history as optional. I hope that this point is clear.

 

Another thing is choosing that topic for which you have sufficient facts and figures in your hand. Try to substantiate as much as possible with statistics. It’s the best way to answer even in GS too.

 

Also try to choose that topic on which your ideas flow smoothly while writing the essay. Flow should not be turbulent but a smooth one, like a river.

  

2.      Think for almost 30-35 minutes on that topic. I am telling you the optimum limit of

this.

 

Never dedicate too much time on thinking otherwise you will be left with very short time to write. Use pencil to accumulate all the ideas that come to your mind for that topic and write them down on the last page of the sheet. After jotting down the points, try to make their order from first to last.

While thinking, think along these lines: Historical, Legal (related to our constitution), Social and Economical (related to market), International.

 

3.      Your start must be very effective. You can begin with a quotation or a question or a short story or anything which arouses curiosity.

 

4.      Do not make headings while writing. This is the mistake I committed in CSE-08. Of course, you have to make paragraphs but without headings or underlinings.

 

 

5.      Never miss any edition of Yojana. I started reading Yojana regularly after I got less marks in essay last year. Thereafter I did not miss any edition. Kurukshetra can also be followed but its approach is more rural and its more inclined to agriculture. But Yojana covers each and every thing. Try to remember the facts and figures from it.

 

6.      Always write whatever is the latest. Try to follow the latest economic survey. Some basic facts should be on your finger tips like our irrigation potential, roads density: rural and urban, Rail network length, SC and ST population, Drinking water stats, Primary secondary and tertiary health care centres etc. (apart from deficits that you have to remember for GS economics).

 

 

7.      Length of essay does matter. Try to cover the essay from each and every angle. Never show only one side of the picture. Try to give the best possible answer in a balanced manner. But obviously never try to write just for the sake of increasing the length. Whatever you write must be logically related to that topic.

 

8.      End of essay should also be equally effective. Believe you me, even if your body of essay is not that great, a perfect end will do the job for you. Try not to repeat the same words. Use good synonyms and show the best of your word power while concluding. But beware of using jargons at the same time. Here again, you can use some quotation or try to give the answer if the start was from a question.

 

 

9.      Practice before the actual exam in strict exam conditions. 

Try to write essay on all the possible topics. But nowadays the trend is that they are not putting those topics which are more expected. Like I was preparing an essay on global warming since last 2 attempts but they did not ask despite this was such a hot topic. Essay on our education system was also most expected, because of the changes that are proposed in both the school and univ. education system but it also did not figure in the list of five.So, try to write essay on all the topics which  are in news and also which are not that important. You can take such topics from previous 10 year essay papers.

I hope these ideas will help you while writing essay.

 

Thanks.

 

May Waheguru G make U an IAS officer.

 

How to prepare Sociology by Dr. Eish Singhal

I thank Dr. Eish Singhal for accepting my request to give some valuable tips on how to prepare Sociology. Dr. Eish has got All India Rank 161 in UPSC civil services 2009 exam (CSE-2009). You can ask your queries on Sociolgy directly to him on his e-mail.

dreishsinghal@rediffmail.com 

How to prepare Sociology

Sociology is good even if one has not opted it in graduation. I did it after graduation in MBBS. So one can surely do it. The advantages are it is easy to catch up as it relates with topics like caste, religion, marriage, family work etc. which we see in daily life. Sources and good notes are easily available. But disadvantages are that one has to be expressive and write eye catching stuff and try to be different from others despite reading same reading material. I would further elaborate on topics

Sociology paper 1

Thinkers- Haralambos, Morgan Abraham, George Ritzer and lewis coser, it is very scoring n must be read with full sincerity. You can use these thinkers quotes in other topics and it shows you can apply your knowledge. Haralambos must be read by heart. Topic of religion is scoring. Short notes must be practiced by writing repetitively and each time trying to improve on past. Rest upendra notes are good enough.

Sociology paper 2

Thinkers-indian sociologylogical thougt by Nagla. It is very scoring and must be thoroughly read. Views on caste is also a must topic.Social transformation is a topic which is important, one must correlate it with contemporary real life situations. Try to give examples from real life. For other topics research methods by Ram Ahuja, social change in modern India by M.N.Srinivas, modernisation of Indian tradition by Yogendra Singh
Rest upendra notes are good enough.

Read Yojana and Kurukshetra 4 topics of poverty, slum, employment etc. Must read the hindu magazine section every week 4 recent developments. This would be sufficient to give you atleast 300 plus marks. Rest can be one’s own innovation. Good luck to all :)
 

May Waheguru G make U an IAS officer.

How to prepare Physics

How to prepare Physics

I have scored 273 marks in physics in CSE-2008 and the figure was 312 in CSE-2009. An improvement of merely 39 marks. But only I know how much extra efforts were done for this to happen. Physics is an optional which demands a lot of hard work. Actually this statement is equally applicable for all the optionals. But here what increases the difficulty is to reproduce what you have studied. A derivation is simple to read but requires a lot of effort to memorize. In arts optionals, the advantage is that you just need to memorize the important keywords and the rest you can write in your own words but in Physics (or in general for any science optional), you can not use your own words but have to write exactly in the same form as is written in books. So, in these optionals one requires a lot of practice. You need to do all the derivations with your own hand al least 10 times before the actual exam, so that in the exam it should flow like a river. In exam you just do not get any time to think. If you know it, you will be able to write it otherwise nothing. So, its complete digital, either 1 or 0 but nothing in between.

 

I am not discouraging the aspirants with physics as an optional, but this is what the reality is. At the same time, one can get high marks if one’s efforts are focused as Mr. Supreet Singh Gulati (CSE-2007, 2^nd rank) got 378.

 

So not to worry.

 

Here I am mentioning resources that have to be followed religiously:

 

For Paper 1:

 

Mechanics: First follow A.K.Sikri’s book on mechanics. Then you should move on to Gupta Kumar Sharma. No need to follow J C Upadhyaya as this is based on Hamiltonian approach which is no longer in the syllabus. For Fluid dynamics one can follow D.S.Mathur’s book.

 

Waves and Optics: Here choice is limited one. Only two standard books are there. One is optics by Ajoy Ghatak. The other is optics by Lal and Subramanium. Follow both books in a coherent manner. Some topics are better covered in Ghatak and some in the other. But practice numericals from Lal-Subramium only.

 

Electricity and Magnetism: Here books are

D.C.Tayal electromagnetism

E.M theory by Chopra-Aggarwal

Electromagnetics by Satyapraksh

Griffith .

Now, follow Chopra-Aggarwal religiously. Moreover either follow chopra-aggarwal or satyapraksh as they are more or less carbon copies of each other. I like Chopra aggarwal.

Rest of topics which you are not getting from chopra-aggarwal, can be gound from tayal or Griffith .

 

Heat, Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics: For Heat and thermodynamics follow two books

Heat Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics by Satya Prakash

Thermal Physics by Garg/Bansal/Ghosh

 

Actually I was following Satyapraksh book only till I met Mr. Supreet. On his advice I read Garg Bansal Ghosh during my 3rd attempt. I found it better than Satyparaksh. So you can go for Garg Bansal Ghosh 1^st and then if needed, go for satyparkash

 

For Statistical Phyics I have followed one book of the Statistical Physics by A.K.Sikri. That’s more than sufficient.

For paper 2

 

Quantum Mechanics: It’s the most difficult part of physics which can be most scoring too, if sufficient amount of practice is done. The books are: First follow H.C.Verma’s Quantum Physics. It’s the best book on this. It clears the fundamentals in the best possible manner.

 

 Then one should also follow Gupta Kumar Sharma. This covers some good derivations which HC verma misses. At last, if one could solve some unsolved examples from Ghatak Lokanathan’s QM, then nothing like that.

 

Nuclear Physics: Basic book is S B Patel (Nuclear Physics), Then go for D.C tayal’s Nuclear Physics. Then follow Pandya Yadav (for Particle Physics and other selected topics). The book is titled Elements of Nuclear Physics.

Patel is a good source for most topics. I particularly like the way it deals with Liquid Drop model, semi empirical mass formula and mass parabolas, deutron problem and non-central forces.

Mossbauer spectroscopy is in Chapter 9 of Patel. Nuclear fission is done well in Eisberg. Eisberg is also a must for nuclear fusion, role of quantum mechanics (barrier penetration) and energy production in stars.

For Elementary Particles do the Chapter in Pandya Yadav and follow Tayal’s book too. Physics of neutrinos is done in Patel.

 

Solid state physics: Follow S.O.Pillai first and then go for Kittel. S.O Pillai does not deal with reverse lattice in detail. But its very important topic. Do follow Kittel for this.

At the end, I just want to say that do the ten year papers strictly in exam conditions. Do feel the heat of limited time, changed pattern and unseen questions. If possible, do solve the ten year physics papers of Indian Forest Services too.

 

For Electronics: As I have done B.Tech in Electronics and Communications, so have many books for this. If you are a student of electronics engineering, then never leave electronics but if you are not, then choice is yours.

Do follow J.B.Gupta’s book for oscillators whose questions generally come, also other analog electronics topics are done well in this. The digital electronics questions are easy and can be done from any good book e.g. Anand Kumar’s digital electronics is sufficient. Microprocessors can be done from Gaonker’s book.

 

 

That’s what I can tell you

May Waheguru G make U an IAS officer.

 

How to prepare GS for mains (continued)

4.5.6 National, International and Economy: For these three, the best resource is “The Hindu”. You do not have to read it but to study it. Understand the difference between read and study. While reading you just do not care about the things but while studying you try to retain them.   

Here I will tell you how to read The Hindu. First read the very 1^st page. Then go to the last page. The starting from last page move towards the 1^st one. The order will be last page, sports page, economy section, science and tech. section, International, National and at last editorials page. Do not read after editorials as page no. 2 to 5-6, just contain local news of some states. Now, please do one thing: do have a pen/pencil in your hand and underline every specific information you feel, will be helpful. Then cut all the important news with a knife. Have 5-6 files with titles like national, international, sports, awards, bilateral etc. Then put them accordingly. Initially it will take much time. Only newspaper studying will and should take 4 to 5 hours per day. Cutting and putting them in files will take another 1 hour. But slowly you will realize which news are important and which are not. Then this combined exercise will take only 1 hour. At the time of exam, you will see that this effort of yours will put you much ahead of others in GS score. 

Besides The Hindu, one monthly magazine is must. You can use any of 3-4 magazines that are available like civil services chronicle, competition wizard, civil services times etc. The magazines are to be studied only to remain updated with respect to current affairs.

Another important thing is analysis. After reading news, do analyze them at your own and try to make your view on that topic. This really helps when you are writing the mains. For analysis, the editorial and op-ed page is must. Just drink it.

In economy, some technical terms are there which one has to understand to fully understand the news. So, do purchase one good dictionary of economic terms. Also, the special issue of Pratiyogita Darpan (Known as PD) is very helpful.

Another important question is whether to make notes or not. The answer is Yes. For GS notes making is really helpful. I made notes just 10 days before the mains only for national and international issues. My Bilateral issues ( India and the world) were very good. At last time, I did nothing but revised my own notes and in paper, wrote only and exactly what I have written for myself. I have included all the valuable information in that e.g. just 5-6 days before the mains our defence minister visited Russia and India-Russia defence agreement was renewed for another 10 years (which was to expire after 2010). In that accord many new deals including some airplanes, warships, marines etc were decided. I noted every bit of information including their names, cost, delivery date etc. and mugged up the facts and thankfully reproduced exactly in the exam. So, notes making really helps but please remain updated in your notes.

Another thing is to mug up all the international treaties for all the issues like disarmament, global warming, economic meltdown, IPCC, Ramsar convention, G5, G8, G20, NAM , SAARC etc. Here again, do remember their history, year of treaty, purpose and most important current updates.

7. Misc. (Statistics, Sci. and Tech.): For statistics, there are two resources. One is a book which is for M.Sc. students (whose author is Mr. Gupta, sorry exact name, I am unable to recall and title is statistics). This book clears the fundamentals in a very nice manner. The other one is Spectrum statistics book, which contains previous 10 year papers also. Do read Mr. Gupta’s book if you have time in plenty. If in hurry, spectrum book is more than sufficient. But please note, statistics requires lot-lot-lot of practice. You have to take all the arms to solve the problems like calculator, protractor, scale, pencils and graph paper. Practice as if you are sitting in the actual exam and try to reduce time and increase accuracy. 

Also note that in exam, never follow the strategy of: Stats question first and others last. Doing stats first will kill your precious 1 hour. Moreover, stats weightage is decreasing (already from 40 to 30).Instead do the stats questions at the end. Give half an hour for this. And make sure that you have so much practice to complete it in half an hour.

For Sci. and Tech.: There are 2 lines of preparation. One is to prepare all the traditional topics like Nanotech, Biotech, Indian space missions, DRDO military weapons etc. You can prepare these topics from any conventional book or monthly magazine. Special issues of monthly magazines are really helpful.

2^nd is to prepare the latest in Sci and Tech. Now it is a very-very vast field. Here, again The Hindu is most reliable resource. Never miss the Thursday special Sci. and Tech. issue of the hindu.

This is what I can recall about GS preparation. I will add some more points, if necessary. In GS, the approach is not that which resources are to be followed but which have to be left because it is such a vast field. Try to reduce the resources but not to that extent that in exam you start realizing that your preparation was not up to mark. What I have mentioned here is just the optimum. Neither they are too much nor too small in number. This much is must.

Thanks

May Waheguru G make U an IAS officer

How to prepare GS for mains

GS preparation is the most tedious task. The reason is its vastness. GS literally covers everything under the sun. And other difficulty is abundance of resources. For GS, so many books/notes are available in the market, that a candidate gets confused which one to follow and which one to leave.Overall GS has 7 parts:
1.History
2.Geography
3.Polity
4.National affairs
5.International affairs
6.Economy
7.Miscellaneous (includes Statistics, Science and Technology etc.)

Here I can suggest some resources from where preparation can be started. Remember this is not a closed set. One has to add resources depending upon one's preparation.

1.History: In mains, only modern Indian History comes. For that, Bipin chandra's book (Penguin Publishers) is a good start. It will give a broad idea. But it should be read as a novel. For remembering the things, follow spectrum history book by Rajiv Ahir. Also a novel way of remembering the things is to see some good movies like Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, The legend of Bhagat Singh, Subash Chandra Bose- the forgotten hero. But while watching movie should not be done purely for entertainment. One must remember one's aim of getting into IAS. So, do the see the movie with a copy and pen.

Since last year (mains paper of CSE 2009), the trend of history questions have changed. Now they put statements which have to be designated first and then answered. So, its very difficult. Try to find more and more quotations of leaders from different books. Bipin chandra contains many of them in inverted commas. Try to underline them so that you can revise the things at last. The personality questions(2 markers) have also become difficult. So try to have a grip on that also. Try to remember more and more personalities from spectrum, bipin chandra and Manorama year book. In 2 markers, examiner sometimes ask about personalities from ancient and medieval India. For that 3 resources:

• Culture book of spectrum
• Spectrum GS book, the thick one
• History special issues of Civil Services Chronicle,Competition              wizard,Civil  services times etc.

2.Geography: Since last year (mains paper of CSE 2009), the weightage of geography has increased. The resources are NCERT books of 10+1,10+2. Try to get the old books. The new one are not that good. But beware of data, try to get the latest data based on latest census. Old books are based on census 1991. So update the figures accordingly. Remember by September end of this year, the data of 2011 census will be available, if everything go as per schedule. In nutshell, write whatever is latest, in the mains.

Besides NCERT, other two resources are a good quality Map (Oxford student map I have followed, is good one) and the spectrum general studies book. The questions asked are not very difficult.

3.Polity: Here resources are very traditional. First, read D.D.Basu and then go for P.M.Bakshi. Both these book consolidated with spectrum constitution book
(from where topical studies are to be done) will be sufficient.

About the other 4 I will write tomorrow.

Thanks
May Waheguru G make U an IAS officer.

My Score Card

CIVIL SERVICES (MAIN) EXAMINATION :2009
Marks Query:-

QUALIFIED IN WRITTEN

Roll No. : 018114
Name : PRABHJOT SINGH

Civil Services ( Main ) Examination 2009
Subject		Maximum Marks	Marks Obtained
Essay(Paper III)		200	106
General Studies (Paper-IV)		300	152
General Studies(Paper-V)		300	173
Optional I, PHYSICS	Paper-VI	300	151
	Paper-VII	300	161
Optional II, LIT.OF PUNJABI LANG.	Paper-VIII	300	167
	Paper-IX	300	171
Written Total		2000	1081
Interview Marks		300	180
Final Total		2300	1261

Remarks : Recommended.

How to choose optionals

I have begun the blog with most difficult question that the aspirants usually face.
That is "Which optionals to choose"
There are 6 guidelines that I can suggest:
1. Interest: Its the most imp. factor while deciding. UPSC civil services is an exam which generally requires more than 1 attempt to clear. So, the subject should be such that It attracts and that too for a long period. It should not be like you are taking one optional and then changing it after 1 attempt and then taking it again. I am telling this because I have suffered this during my preparation. I had to change my optional from chemistry to Punjabi literature, which thankfully clicked for me.
2. DO NOT TAKE 2 SCIENCE OPTIONALS: Its the golden rule, which I have realized from my own experience. As with Physics and chemistry my mains score in my 2nd attempt was 962, just above to give me an interview call, but finally no selection. The reason is the date sheet. In Physics and chemistry there was a leave of just 1 day. So It was not possible to revise entire chemistry.
So while deciding optionals do see that mains datesheet at least once. UPSC generally does not change the format of datesheet. For science students/ medical background students/ Engg. background students Its advisable to chose one arts and one science optional.
3. Coaching/Guidance/Study Material: Its an equally imp. criterion. e.g. for chemistry there were no quality books and almost no good coaching. So take decision based on whether you will have quality study material availability or not. Also think for coaching and guidance if required and if you can afford.
4. Take the previous 10 year papers of the all the optionals from which you want to chose e.g you want to chose optionals from physics, law, Punjabi literature, Geography, History etc. then do see their syllabus and 10 year mains papers to take decision.
5. Chose that optional in which you have done your graduation. I mean never leave that subject in which you have speciality unless you have some strong dislike for that. For those aspirants whose graduation subjects are not there in UPSC list like Computer engg. etc., Its diffiicult for them. But the path of UPSC civil services has many such difficulties. So, I think,  they have to follow the above guidelines while deciding.
6. Never Decide in haste. Take your own time. Its better to spend 1 month for deciding rather that changing it after 2 years.


I hope it will help to chose optionals.
Thanks
May Waheguru G bless you and make you an IAS officer.