36th BCS Preliminary Examination: English Preparation Strategy (Prothom Alo)

Two kinds of work never bring fatigue: first, work that you love to do; second, work without which your very existence becomes meaningless.

If I place studying for jobs in the second category, then I would say that with the time you still have left for the BCS preliminary examination, if you study properly for an average of 15 hours daily without shirking, you will definitely pass the preliminary exam. I am writing for you in Prothom Alo assuming your preparation is at zero level.

During this time, put maximum pressure on yourself—as much as you can bear—and study accordingly. Solve hundreds of English questions that have appeared in various job and university admission exams. For each question, verify the answer by consulting various grammar forums on the internet, dictionaries, grammar and usage books, and various international standard grammar books. Never always trust guide book answers, because guide book writers don’t have extensive knowledge. Turn one question into a breeding ground for four questions. This means study the other three options besides the correct answer as well.

Which of the following sentences is incorrect?

All the faith he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.

The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.

The man the professor the student has studies Rome.

The rat the cat the dog chased killed ate the malt.

Don’t they all seem wrong at first glance? The interesting thing is, none of them are incorrect. Understanding this requires common sense along with grammar. And to develop good common sense, there’s no substitute for extensive practice.

Here are some suggestions for English in BCS preliminary:

1. Write longer Facebook statuses and comments, and chat in simple English. Translate one or two English newspaper editorials daily. This task is difficult, but it will greatly help with translation and vocabulary. Also, read articles on various issues and letters to the editor carefully and meaningfully, writing them out by hand. Solving the synonym-antonym sections from previous years’ IBA/EMBA admission questions from Dhaka University will be useful.

2. Practice extensively from several guide books and job solutions, focusing on grammar and usage in the language section, writing everything out by hand.

3. The literature section has one or two questions that even English honors-masters graduates cannot answer. The rule of competitive exams with negative marking is that you won’t be able to answer everything. Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions + guide books, along with exploring English literature basics on the internet, will be helpful. Study various common literary terms.

4. When studying grammar questions, for those answers that confuse you, let the dictionary resolve that confusion. For example, the word “Die” takes various prepositions. Go to the “Die” entry in the dictionary and study the examples given there, learning by writing which preposition fits which context—you shouldn’t forget this way.

5. For analogies, mentally form a simple Bengali sentence using the given word pair. Among the options, whichever pair perfectly matches that sentence structure is the answer.

6. In English, don’t learn grammar first and then practice; learn grammar while practicing.

7. To develop grammar and language sense, you can also read some simple English books. Try reading 15 pages of Harry Potter series books before bed each night and see what happens!

8. Learn 5 new words and write 3 sentences with each. At the end of each day, write at least 3 pages in simple English about what you did that day.

To excel in English, you must fall in love with a certain ‘lady’—that lady being the dictionary. Keep authoritative books within reach: English for Competitive Exams, A Passage to the English Language, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Swan’s Practical English Usage, Barron’s Grammar, Allan’s Living English Structure, Murphy’s English Grammar in Use, Eastwood’s Oxford Practice Grammar, Fitikides’ Common Mistakes in English, and several other standard books. Develop the habit of laboriously looking up answers using the indexes at the back of these books—it will be very useful. English must be learned by writing. You don’t need to be excellent in English to do well in BCS exams, but you must have the mentality to learn English through hard work without fear. For vocabulary, consider McCarthy and O’Dell’s English Vocabulary in Use (all volumes), Norman Lewis’s Word Power Made Easy, along with one or two local books.

This article was published on Friday, November 13, 2015, in Prothom Alo’s job section. The link is given below: