The preliminary exam is simply a pass-fail test—just a passport to sit for the written exam. Rather than studying blindly based on hearsay, if you prepare with a bit of understanding and strategy, it’s truly difficult to fail the prelims. In this case, you must abandon the habit of being overly pleased with reading everything. More important than deciding what to study is determining what to leave out. Whatever you choose to read, first decide whether it’s actually necessary to read it at all. Once you get the job, you’ll have at least thirty years to become learned—so learned that you won’t even have space to store all that knowledge. Remember this: acquiring knowledge makes you learned, but acquiring marks makes you a cadre. If you add a bit of wisdom to that intense desire and passion you have for civil service, you’ll achieve what we call emotional intelligence. You can study in two ways: wandering here and there, or sitting at home. However, I believe studying is entirely a personal matter. Buy books and guides and spend more time at home. You might sit in front of a public library from morning to evening, feeling pleased that you’ve read so much, but if you haven’t read what’s actually needed, it’s far better to study properly at home for six hours and spend the rest of the time wandering around or simply sleeping. Your mood will also remain better. The more you wander outside, the more you’ll encounter people more learned than yourself, and your mood will sour. But all those people who dampen your spirits won’t necessarily pass the prelims! I believe success is a selfish game! Forget this “together we will build our dreams” nonsense. Life isn’t a Destiny company, after all.
When preparing for General Science and Technology, don’t let whether you’re a science student or not influence your preparation. Science students who neglect this section will score fewer marks here. If you don’t believe it, just try it! The questions in this section are designed so that candidates from any background face the same advantages or disadvantages. For this section, memorize all the answers from guide books that contain many questions from two good publishers. Here’s a tip: rather than reading the discussion sections of two guides, it’s better to read the questions from a third guide—this way you’ll learn answers to new questions. Also read through the questions in a job solution book. For prelims, the more questions you read, the better. Look at the syllabus, identify the topics you need, and read only those. Guides also contain much that’s completely unnecessary. From two written exam guide books, read only the short questions and notes—they’ll be very useful. You can also study some technology-related material from newspapers and the internet.
Study strategically for the prelims. You can eat a mango after learning its scientific name—no problem with that. But I think it’s better to eat the mango first and learn its scientific name later. If you get so caught up investigating the mango’s entire genealogy that you never actually eat it, that’s trouble! When it takes all your time just to finish reading what’s necessary, where’s the time for random, useless material? Dedicate one-third of your daily study time to the written exam. However, instead of covering all written material at this stage, you can prepare two types of study. First: read through the sections that overlap with the prelims syllabus. You can cover short questions, notes, brief explanations, grammar, and several other sections. Second: identify the segments where candidates typically score low but high marks are possible, and try to prepare yourself well in those areas before entering the competition. Study short questions, notes, brief explanations, summaries, essence, idea expansion, translation, grammar, and so forth thoroughly. There’s no need to study long questions at this stage.
This piece was published in Kaler Kantho’s ‘Chakri Achhe’ (Jobs Available) section on Wednesday, September 30th. The link to the article is given below: