A Herculean task made easy

A Herculean task made easy

Arindam Bhattacharyya who secured the tenth rank in the Civil Services examination this year chose to stay in Thiruvananthapuram while preparing for it. He explains his strategy to succeed in the mains.

At the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.

One of my favourite aphorisms regarding the Civil Services examination is this: five lakh students write the preliminaries, 5,000 make it to the mains, 500 to the interview, and 50 to the desired services. This may be numerically inaccurate even as the years go by; but to the uninitiated, it serves to highlight effectively the force of elimination by numbers. To come in as one of the 5,000 candidates is an achievement in some measure. But it is only a small measure. The successful candidate has, in effect, just jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Time management

How best to utilise the time between the preliminaries and the declaration of results gives rise to perennial doubts. This is obviously the time to build up on just one area, the General Studies paper, especially the second paper on international relations, statistics and so on, which is deceptively simple.

The first paper comprises History, Geography, Polity, and miscellaneous topics. The advantage is that the study material for this paper is readily available. And, the material is exhaustible. It should be possible for a student to complete mugging up, for cramming is all that is needed here, within two weeks. Now here lies the rub; the human brain being what it is, there is no point in mugging up these portions just after your preliminaries, you will find that you have to do it all over again just before the mains. The cost-effective solution is to leave these portions till the very end. Why?

Because, one, you will not waste time, and two, by the time you are through with your other portions, large chunks of material in the first paper would be covered or acquired effortlessly.

After the preliminaries

So then what should one do after the preliminaries? A good way to prepare for the mains is to build up the skills you need to tackle a subjective mode examination.

Irrespective of whether the paper is General Studies, or one of the optional papers or the essay paper, you are actually doing three things in common in all these - analysing a problem, presenting its determinants in a structured way, and offering a solution or a set of suggestions. Do go through the questions in the recent past, and you will find that the ideal answer to most questions needs these three things.

Now, take this for a gospel truth: one cannot develop these things either at a coaching institute or by mugging up prepared notes in a span of two three months. This could only be done by exercising your mind, either alone, or in good company.

Lateral thinking

Do a lot of free-wheeling lateral thinking in a constructive manner on relevant topics. Take down interesting ideas and concepts that you come across. This sort of thing could occur only in a pressure vacuum, and it is not possible after the results of the preliminaries are declared.

Become the member of a library like the British Council, and read voraciously from the vast resources it could provide.

Setting a target

After you qualify to write the mains, the immediate challenge is to shore up the new second optional and tone up the first one. Shoring up means targeting a mark of around 340 out of 600; by toning up, you aim at a mark of around 380. Spend about three weeks for the second optional. All you need is around 340 marks in this optional, and most of the traditional second optional papers are so easily referenced that three weeks is sufficient enough to start, get initiated and complete the portions. One needs more time for the primary optional because it would require a lot of effort to go from a score of 340 to 380-plus.

Optional papers

A lot of students pay so much attention to the General Studies syllabus that they give up vital time for the optional papers. If you look at the people who have cleared the examinations in the past years, you will find that most of them score around 350 to 370 marks in the General Studies paper.

Now that sort of scoring does not come in the last two months of intense mugging. It is a reflection of the skills of analysing, structuring and offering solutions that was outlined before.

Data crunching

The next hurdle is data crunching. Data includes all the notes that one has prepared, all the statistics, facts and so on. Data of all sorts, and not always coherent or interesting. The solution to this is again in three points: streamlining, structuring and procedure-oriented study.

By streamlining you could cut out needless, difficult to remember data. So, if there is one bit of data that you cannot reproduce, put in something else that is relevant and that you know, and can connect logically. It is as good as the original. Streamlining prevents your memory from over heating during the preparation, and makes the process more efficient. And organise whatever data one chooses to commit to memory. Make structured pigeonholes where one could slot what you have studied, so that retrieval is quick and effortless, and there is no attrition. Finally, do not ponder too much about finishing the process of memorising. Start the process, and focus on a daily quota of study or memorising (yes, one must have a daily rationing system) that has to be done.

Essay writing

A few points on essay writing. In addition to the 200-mark essay paper, you would have to write several mini-essays while tackling the mains. The reason why the powers that be have included an essay paper is to test the candidate's ability in making an intelligent structured presentation of one's own ideas. And that is what a candidate has to provide.

The word `essay' is etymologically related to the French verb for `to try'. While writing an essay, you are trying to put across ideas, and that too your own ideas. One does not have to be pathologically accurate in all the finer points. Read Francis Bacon's essays, easily available at any British Council Library and the point discussed above would become clear. Which will mean a jump from a pedestrian score of around 100 to at least 140.

Preparing for the mains and getting through it is not merely a physical task of note-making and answer-writing. It is a process of developing certain mental faculties, and all serious students should pursue it from such an angle.

Arindam Bhattacharyya