BCS Preliminary Examination Preparation Strategy ('Kaler Kantho' Version)

(Disclaimer: I have compiled here some of my earlier writings on BCS preliminary exam preparation that were published in ‘Kaler Kantho.’ Also included is an article I wrote for ‘Prothom Alo,’ which should have been in my note titled ‘BCS Preliminary Exam Preparation Strategy (Prothom Alo Version)’ but was inadvertently left out. These articles were carefully prepared for the 36th BCS preliminary exam candidates after extensive research. I have also included my observations on the 35th BCS preliminary exam. There have been significant changes in the syllabus and question patterns since then. Therefore, the techniques in this note may not be applicable to the 38th and subsequent BCS preliminary exam candidates—please keep this in mind while reading. Good luck!)

36th BCS Preliminary Preparation Strategy: English

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Stop smoking.

Stop to smoke.

Where is the difference? Does ‘stop’ always need to be followed by verb+(-ing)? What does it take to understand this? Just grammar? No! Common sense is needed too.

The two fundamental principles for excelling in English:

One. No spelling mistakes allowed.

Two. No grammatical errors allowed.

Keeping these two principles in mind, practice writing in very simple English. Write longer status updates and comments in straightforward English on Facebook.

Why did I mention this? If you look at the English paper from the 35th BCS written exam, you’ll understand that preparing for the preliminary with the written exam in mind will make getting the job easier.

There’s one more task you must do. The most important section in the BCS written exam is translation. Very simple translations rarely appear in BCS exams. You can start preparing for this section differently from now. Regularly translate editorials from various English and Bengali newspapers. This task is challenging, but I can confidently say that if you do it regularly, it will be immensely helpful.

Now let me talk about the preliminary. The language section will have questions on grammar and usage. Practice extensively from several guidebooks and job solutions. Keep reference books close at hand: English for Competitive Exams, A Passage to the English Language, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage, Raymond Murphy’s English Grammar in Use, John Eastwood’s Oxford Practice Grammar, T.J. Fitikides’ Common Mistakes in English, and several other authoritative books. Get into the habit of consulting these books when you need answers—it will be very helpful. For instance, the word ‘entrust’ can be followed by both ‘to’ and ‘with.’ Learning this by writing it down with dictionary examples means you won’t forget it. English must be learned through writing. Put more effort into English; it will serve you well.

For vocabulary, use McCarthy and O’Dell’s English Vocabulary in Use (all volumes), Norman Lewis’s Word Power Made Easy, along with a couple of local books. Solving only the vocabulary segments from previous years’ Dhaka University Evening MBA admission tests will be helpful. Read English newspapers regularly. Read reports, editorials, and letters to the editor on various issues carefully and with understanding—this will help in the written exam too.

When preparing for literature, keep in mind that even those who have studied English at the honors-master’s level won’t be able to answer one or two questions. It’s a rule of competitive exams with negative marking that you can’t answer all questions. Previous BCS questions + job solutions + guidebooks, plus exploring English literature basics online, will be helpful.

There was a question like this in the 35th BCS preliminary: Women are too often ___ by family commitments. (a) confused (b) controlled (c) contaminated (d) constrained

Why did I include this? I often get asked: “Brother, which book should I read for English grammar?” I mention two books: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, along with some other books. But who listens? They wanted guidebook names from me, and here I am! Yet how many questions came “common” from guidebooks last time? Go to the ‘constrain’ entry in Longman Dictionary. The last example in that entry is: Women’s employment opportunities are often severely ‘constrained’ by family commitments. What do you understand? Where do questions come from? Do those who set questions have time to look at guidebooks? Or to read stacks of coaching center “sheet-marked” sheets? They really don’t. Last year’s BCS exam proved that. When we can’t answer a grammar question, we start looking for guidebooks. Different guides give different answers. Then we chase after coaching center teachers. What’s the need? Does that guidebook author or coaching teacher really know much more than you? What happens if you work a bit harder, go to the dictionary entry, study the examples, and learn? I’m not asking you to memorize the dictionary. I’m saying give the dictionary the responsibility of clearing up confusion about questions where you have doubts. This will save valuable time and help you learn the correct thing. Learning with examples stays in memory the longest. Though it might be a bit difficult initially, if you practice this way, you’ll definitely see benefits within a few days. One question is actually the birthplace of several more questions. Those books are the Bible of all guidebooks. What’s in them is correct. It’s not really difficult. You’ll practice solving questions by flipping through those two books. Initially, it might be a bit irritating, but once you get used to it, it will become an addiction. I believe in the principle “practice what you preach.” I did this work myself, so I’m asking you to do it too. If you can’t make this effort, I have only one piece of advice: learn wrong, do wrong, fail.

Some tips:

# Stop reading books like Current Affairs, Current World, Ajker Bisho, Orthonoitik Somikha for the preliminary. At most 5-6 questions come from very recent topics in the preliminary, which can only be found in those books. Of these, at least 2 can be answered by reading newspapers and watching TV news. What happens if we excuse the remaining 4? Why on earth does the public take so much pain for these 4 marks—I can’t understand it. Actually, reading those painful books makes one feel like they’re studying. This falls under the category of sophisticated procrastination.

# Let me share a fact. There are some difficult questions that don’t stick in memory even after reading repeatedly. Stop trying to remember them. Because one such difficult question drives several easy questions out of your head. Preliminary is not an exam for getting the highest marks, but simply an exam to pass by getting the cut-off marks. Whether you pass the preliminary with 190 or with 130, it’s the same thing. Spend the extra effort for unnecessary marks on written exam preparation; it will be useful. Think less about what others can do. What you can do versus what others can do—the latter might not be more useful in the end.

This article was published in the ‘Chakri Ache’ page of Kaler Kantho on Wednesday, September 9. The link to the article is given below:

36th BCS Preliminary Preparation Strategy: Mathematical Reasoning and Mental Ability

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If you can properly utilize the time available before the 36th BCS preliminary, it’s possible to prepare excellently for the preliminary along with some written exam preparation, including topics that overlap with the preliminary. The preliminary is a passport to the written exam. Passing it doesn’t depend only on your ability but also significantly on luck on that particular day. While passing the preliminary is largely beyond your control, doing well in the written exam is entirely within your control. Therefore, prepare for the preliminary very strategically. Without unnecessarily leaving home, study at least 15 hours at home. This won’t happen in one day. Try to increase your daily study time. Study at least 15 minutes more each day than the previous day. When you can fulfill the target of completing a big study task, give yourself small rewards; such as buying books, watching movies, going out, facebooking, talking on the phone—things like that. This will increase both enthusiasm and pace for studying. Humans work with incentives. When you get tired reading one subject, pick up another easy subject. Close your eyes for some time and imagine what you want to become, how it will feel for you and people around you when that happens, how life will change. This will significantly reduce study fatigue. Sit down to study without keeping anything nearby that might distract you.

Enough talk. Now let me discuss Mathematical Reasoning and Mental Ability.

Mathematical Reasoning:

The math that comes in the exam is easy, you can surely do it; but perhaps you can’t do it in (on average) 1 minute. For this, you need to learn to solve using shortcuts while practicing beforehand. Not a single math problem appears in the preliminary that can’t be done using shortcuts. Learn the methods, and if you can create your own methods, that would be excellent—then you won’t get those types of problems wrong again. Shortcut methods have no grammar; your invented method might not match another person’s method, as long as the answer matches, that’s fine. Write shortcut formulas next to questions on book pages and solve by substituting values. If you can acquire the ability to solve all math problems using only a calculator and the small space next to questions, then I’d say your preparation is quite good. Almost all preliminary math can be done using the backtracking method. That means, you can solve by substituting the answer options into formulas or questions. You can also use the POE method. This involves eliminating the 2 answers out of 4 options that are less likely to be correct and thinking about the remaining two. If you can properly utilize these two techniques, you can solve math in very little time.

Many people read board textbooks for math. The problem with this is that you’ll end up reading a lot of extra material that you don’t need to read at all. You won’t have that much time either. Instead, you can solve all the math from at least two good guidebooks or job solutions. Good books mean books with many questions for practice. Once you start a chapter, don’t leave the table without finishing it. Preliminary studies must be done continuously, without leaving home, without leaving the table. After this, take all the tests from two model test books. You may know all the math, but if you can’t solve very quickly, preparing this way is the same as not preparing at all.

Mental Ability:

Questions in this section are supposed to be a bit tricky. You need to answer with a cool head, reading questions carefully, and giving full attention. Questions in this section will be easy, so easy that they’re harder than difficult ones. Buy 3-4 sets of guidebooks, along with 3-4 IQ test books. Apart from these, solve previous BCS written exam questions and Dhaka University Evening MBA admission exam question banks. Don’t prepare for this section expecting full marks, keep this in mind. Guidebooks, IQ test books, and regularly solving ‘verbal/abstract/mechanical reasoning/space relations/numerical ability/spelling and language practice’ or ‘verbal/abstract/mechanical reasoning/space relations/numerical ability/spelling and language test’ by searching on Google will be helpful. Questions in this section shouldn’t come “common,” so to do well, there’s no alternative to practicing a lot more. Common sense will be more useful than knowledge for doing well in this section.

This article was published in the ‘Chakri Ache’ page of Kaler Kantho on Wednesday, September 16. The link to the article is given below:

36th BCS Preliminary Preparation Strategy: Bengali

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The difficulty level of the BCS exam seems somewhat overrated to me. While it’s true that this is a competitive exam, it’s even more true that there usually aren’t too many real candidates who come to actual competition. Most people prefer to scare others about these two exams. They talk about what they know; they also talk about what they don’t know. Let me share two facts.

• About 50% of candidates go to this exam just for fun, without any reason, somewhat like going to a get-together. (The funny thing is, some of them actually succeed! “I came, I saw, I conquered” type! There’s no point in being hurt by their success.)

• Only about 7% are real candidates who come to actual competition.

This means your competitors are not as many as you think. The BCS exam has no specific syllabus, so 100% preparation for this exam is not possible for anyone. Keep in mind that believing you’ve learned a hundred percent, then forgetting sixty percent of it, and properly utilizing the remaining forty percent is an art. For doing well in this exam, knowing what to study is far less important than deciding what to skip while studying.

For Bengali, read all the language and literature questions from previous BCS exams and job solutions with emphasis. You might not find much in common from there, but you’ll get an idea of what types of questions you should skip while studying. Understanding this question pattern mapping is very, very, very important when preparing for any competitive exam.

Language.

What to study from?: Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions + 9th-10th grade grammar books + Hayat Mamud’s Bhasha-Shiksha + guidebooks

How to study?: Look at the syllabus carefully. Write down what topics are there on a paper. Then read the relevant chapters from grammar books and guidebooks thoroughly, marking and re-reading them repeatedly by topic. Stop trying to remember questions that don’t stick in your memory even after repeated reading. One difficult question gets 1 mark, one easy question also gets 1 mark. It’s better to spend the same time on 20 marks’ worth of easy questions rather than pursuing 5 marks’ worth of difficult questions. Study with intelligence, not emotion.

Literature.

What to study from?: Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions + Soumitra Shekhar

Nine. Read more questions, spend less time on the discussion sections.

Ten. There’s no need to read newspapers or listen to news during these ten days.

Eleven. Don’t attempt confusing questions in Mental Skills, Ethics, Values and Good Governance. Common sense will give you many answers.

Twelve. Don’t bother reading anything that doesn’t stick in your memory even after repeated reading.

Thirteen. Don’t inquire about what others are studying. Don’t discuss the preliminary exam with those who are well-prepared during these ten days.

Fourteen. For science, only read from preliminary question banks and job solution guides.

Fifteen. Practice mathematical reasoning excluding arithmetic.

Sixteen. For Bengali and English literature, only study government job exam questions.

Seventeen. For Bengali and English grammar, just review what you’ve studied before once more.

Eighteen. Take a quick glance at general knowledge from the past five months (excluding December) from any guide or book.

Nineteen. For Geography, Environment and Disaster Management, you can refer to the secondary Social Science textbook.

Twenty. Stop worrying about questions you haven’t been able to answer for a long time.

Now let me tell you what you can do from the evening of the 7th until you leave the exam hall on the 8th.

One. Watch a movie like Three Idiots. You can listen to some soft instrumental music or Rabindra Sangeet.

Two. Spend time completely free from mobile phones and Facebook.

Three. Pack all necessary items for the exam hall the night before.

Four. Have a light dinner and sleep by 10 PM. If you can’t sleep, take nerve relaxants to help you sleep. Not sleeping well the night before preliminaries greatly increases the chances of a poor exam, no matter how well-prepared you are. Sleep at least eight hours.

Five. Wake up on exam day and pray for fifteen minutes. Then freshen up, have a light breakfast, and leave for the exam hall with plenty of time (definitely not with books and papers). Before leaving, check once more that you have everything you need.

Six. The most magical mindset in the exam hall is “I am the best.” Believe that no one is taking a better exam than you.

Seven. Fill in the set code and other information correctly on the answer sheet. If this is wrong, it’s all over.

Eight. Start with the section you’re best at. But carefully match which question number you’re answering with which circle you’re filling.

Nine. Not all questions are meant to be answered. Greed leads to sin, sin leads to negative marks.

Ten. Some questions require intelligent guessing rather than leaving blank. It’s better to get 1.5 marks by answering half correctly than to get zero by leaving six questions blank.

Eleven. Generally, our ability improves when we think about any subject a second time. Mark questions you can’t answer at first glance and move on to the next. There’s no time to waste.

Twelve. Don’t worry about whether questions are right or wrong.

Thirteen. Getting tired of filling circles? Take a little break. Imagine how your life will change when you get this job, visualize the happy faces of your loved ones; the fatigue will disappear.

Fourteen. There’s no rule about how many marks you need to pass. Answer the questions you know. Then, excluding the ones you absolutely don’t know, answer 60 percent of the remaining questions.

Fifteen. Don’t give extra importance to any question. Easy or difficult, all questions carry one mark.

Sixteen. Don’t look at how many questions others around you are marking or which ones they’re marking. This might cause you to mark several known questions incorrectly.

May everyone have a respectable job. Welcome to the civil service.

This article was published on 25/12/2015 in Prothom Alo’s job section. The link:

35th BCS Preliminary: Some Observations and Analysis

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My personal observations and analysis of the 35th BCS Preliminary examination:

# By arranging the sequence A-B-C-D vertically instead of left-to-right, many candidates marked at least 3-4 known questions incorrectly. No one could have imagined that PSC would play this psychological game. Even 0.5 marks matter a lot in such questions! If you fell for this trap, there’s no reason to consider yourself ‘unique.’

# The question paper wasn’t a ‘let’s do it ourselves’ type. So I’m certain there was pin-drop silence in the exam halls. When talking wouldn’t help, even filling ‘wrong circles’ deliberately would be better.

# Reading coaching center materials and guidebooks won’t help much unless you have something in your own ‘headquarters.’ What you’ve accumulated in storage matters more than what you’ve stored. Taking a good exam is more important than good preparation. (This is how civil service entry exams should be.) It seems time to think anew about preparation strategies for how to get jobs through BCS exams. The days of saying ‘such and such coaching center’s suggestion was so many percent common’ or ‘so many questions from this guidebook were common’ are coming to an end.

# This exam reflected both democracy and socialism. Democracy why? The exam-scripts were the mistake-banks of the candidates, by the candidates, for the candidates. Socialism why? Those who studied hard had the same fate as those who didn’t study hard. Studying means studying, whether it’s for one week or one year.

# If you think “This one was so-so, I’ll absolutely ace the 36th,” and you believe you’re the only person who spent most of the 2+ hours in the exam hall thinking just this, then I’d say you’re wrong. I’ve had the privilege of talking to many people (most of them BUET-Medical students, meaning ‘good students’ in our eyes). I assure you, that thought was universal. In special circumstances, all people think the same way. PSC can make everyone ‘fall into the trap’ en masse if they want.

# ‘The days of showing off are over, let Bangladesh run on merit’ – I know this thought isn’t in PSC’s mind. I just said it. Well, if it’s there even subconsciously, meaning if PSC wants to bring reforms in the examination system through the ‘Kaizen method,’ then I would applaud them. At the same time, I’d tell those taking exams, “Brother, it might not be right to think that you can pass the written exam by studying the same way everyone has been passing all these years.” Think a bit about how to prepare better. Time is short! If you can’t think for even 3 months about a job you’ll do comfortably for 30 years, how does that work? By the way, ‘Kaizen’ means continuously improving a system gradually (not overnight).

# In this exam, first person, second person, and third person – everyone’s condition was more or less the same, meaning a terrible condition. If someone scolds you saying “What kind of exam did you take! You don’t know anything! You’re such an idiot!” I’m sure they either didn’t take the BCS preliminary or didn’t take the 35th BCS preliminary. Don’t mind what they say, forgive them for their own qualities. Ask them to take an exam like this. You’ll see they won’t find anyone nearby to wipe their runny nose.

# Don’t say anything to those friends who are cheerfully boasting, “Plus-minus, I’ll have at least 150.” Let the results come out. You’ll see many of these are cheerfully sitting there having failed.

# There were slightly more questions this time where thinking differently gives different answers compared to other years. PSC deliberately plays this game so no one answers them. Whatever PSC considers the answer will be correct. I know, still you don’t want to leave them. Greed leads to sin, sin leads to negative marks. No problem! Everyone knowingly drinks poison.

# If you look at the question paper carefully, you’ll notice that regardless of your academic background, you don’t get any extra advantage. Job exam questions should be like this.

# If exams continue in this style from now on, the reign of question banks, digests, job solutions, and coaching centers will diminish, or they’ll have to change their service style. The days of blindly believing whatever anyone says as gospel truth are over. We want no one to enter the bureaucracy based solely on rote learning.

From yesterday until today, I’ve received countless questions. I was a bit busy with easy tasks, so I couldn’t answer them on time. I’ve tried to answer the questions above. If you still have any questions, please ask. I’ll try to answer them.

“What might be the cut-off marks for the 35th BCS preliminary?” Million dollar question!!

Honestly, if I had taken the exam, I would have worried whether I’d pass at all. After seeing the questions, I thought, “Ah! Good days gone, bad days come. I’ve been saved by a hair!” So you might think, “Alas! What will happen to me!” Well, have you noticed something? Your story is more or less the same as everyone’s. What does this mean? If you get low marks, most students will also get low marks. If ‘ten together fail together,’ there’s no problem, right? So will PSC fail everyone deliberately? That’s not possible. So your chances of participating in the written exam aren’t zero. If I were a candidate this time, I couldn’t have imagined that this year’s preliminary cut-off would be more than 95, regardless of how my own exam went!

Good luck friends!! Good luck friends!!