# Career Chats @ BSMRAU, Mymensingh (Part Two)

Before You Begin Preparing for the Written Exam

•   Before you start preparing for the BCS written exam, remember this: deciding what NOT to study matters far more than deciding what you will study.
•   Whether you’re running between coaching centers or doing whatever else, you must study at home every single day for at least 8-10 hours. If you’re already working somewhere else, commit a minimum of 4-5 hours daily to your studies alongside your job.
•   You’ve already decided you’ll do this job comfortably for the next 30 years at least. So surely you’re not foolish enough to skip meals and neglect your health for just three months of preparation!

(I’ve analyzed my own BCS written exam scoresheet and am sharing some facts with you.)

 Bengali Paper 1

•   Grammar: Go through previous years’ questions, guide books, Class 9-10 Bengali grammar textbooks, Hayat Mamud’s Bhasha-Shiksha, and Soumitra Shekhars Dorpon — cover topics according to the syllabus. When writing the proverb interpretation section across six sentences, express meanings in your own simple language. There’s no need for examples here. This section shouldn’t take you more than 30 minutes to complete.
•   Summary: Write it in 2-3 simple, elegant, abstract sentences. Allow 20 minutes for this. It’s especially helpful if you prepare suggestions beforehand and take notes from various books on this section.
•   Expansion of Meaning: You can study previous years’ questions, guide books, Soumitra Shekhars Dorpon, and works by writers from both Bangladesh and Kolkata. Write this section carefully in approximately 20 sentences, staying relevant throughout. Take your time with these 20 sentences. You can include examples and quotations. Even if it takes 40 minutes, make sure each sentence is beautifully constructed.
•   Answers to Questions on Bengali Language and Literature: Study previous years’ questions thoroughly to get a clear sense of what kinds of questions typically appear and what doesn’t. Then read selectively from guide books, Lal-Nil Dipaboli, and Mahbubul Alam’s History of Bengali Literature. You can answer this section last. Always support your answers with quotations — never write without them.

  Bengali Paper 2

•   Translation: This section appears in English Part-B as well. Total marks: 15+25+25=65. If you review previous questions, you’ll find that BCS exams rarely feature straightforward translations. Approach this section differently. Regularly translate editorials from newspapers like Prothom Alo, Ittefaq, The Daily Star, The Independent, and The Financial Express. It’s demanding work, but extraordinarily rewarding.
•   Imaginary Dialogue: You must broaden your grasp of contemporary issues. Keep a regular eye on the papers—particularly the minutes of roundtable discussions—watch talk shows, and practice writing on various topics from guidebooks in simple, natural language of your own. Make it your own.
•   Letter Writing: Look at the pattern of questions from previous years and study Hayat Mamud’s language guides alongside your reference materials. Prepare for the types of letters you feel most comfortable writing. If you choose to write personal correspondence, for instance, pay careful attention to language use. This section awards separate marks for writing format.
•   Book Review: The syllabus provides no specific guidance here. But in my view, if you familiarize yourself with 30-40 well-known and celebrated works, you should be covered. Even if a book doesn’t come up, you can still write something like “This immortal creation represents a most significant contribution to Bengali literature.” Getting 0.5 marks is better than zero.
•   Essay: When you study this section, align your preparation with English alongside the major questions on Bangladesh and international affairs. Look at previous years’ questions to identify which essay patterns appear regularly, then prepare for any three of those patterns. Gather your suggestions from the internet, guidebooks, and reference materials. Use mind-mapping to organize your points, and write as much as you possibly can. Cite generously and often.

 English

Stop smoking.

Stop to smoke.

Where lies the difference? Does “stop” always take a verb in the -ing form? What does it take to understand this? Grammar? No. Common sense.

The Two Cardinal Rules for Excelling in English

  One. Never misspell.

  Two. Never make grammatical errors.

  Keep these two things in mind and write in the simplest possible language—the marks will come. If you write a few longer Facebook statuses and comments in plain English, it will serve you well.

 English Part-A

Reading Comprehension:

•   A) You will be given an unseen passage. It may concern contemporary issues. Read English newspaper articles extensively, particularly the editorials. This practice will serve you well across other sections of the written exam. The key to answering comprehension questions lies in a simple strategy: read the questions first, at least three times, before touching the passage. Identify and underline the keywords or key phrases in what each question is asking. Only then should you read through the passage quickly to locate where the answers lie. One crucial thing to remember: do not stop to look up difficult words or idioms in the passage. These are placed deliberately to waste your time. After this, answer the questions in your own words. This section benefits tremendously from practicing with IELTS reading techniques. Start acquiring and working through reading books available in the market.
•   B) Questions will appear on grammar and usage. Practice extensively from several guide books. Keep at hand authoritative texts like the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage, and Raymond Murphy’s English Grammar in Use, among others. Make it a habit to leaf through these books to hunt for answers—it will prove invaluable. For instance, the word “entrust” can take both “to” and “with.” If you learn such distinctions by studying examples in the dictionary and writing them out repeatedly, you won’t forget them.
•   Summary: You will be given a passage. Read it at least five times, very quickly. Do not be intimidated by difficult words. The hard passages rarely contain the main ideas. Mark where the essential points actually lie. Divide the entire passage into three or four sections. Then condense several sentences from each section into a single sentence of your own. Do not lift sentences directly from the passage. Paraphrase and rewrite in your own style. Do not include examples or quotations here. And do not forget to give your summary a title at the very start. To prepare for this section, make a habit of summarizing editorials and articles from regular newspapers.
•   Letter: You will be given a passage or a statement. Based on it, you must write a letter to the editor of a newspaper on some issue. To prepare for this section, read the “Letters to the Editor” column in newspapers regularly, and consult some guide books. This section carries marks for adherence to formal conventions. The language of the letter must be highly formal.

  English Part-B

•   Essay: Write a composition within a specified word limit. Stay regularly informed about the Constitution of Bangladesh and its interpretation, official websites of various organizations, Wikipedia, Banglapedia, the National Web Portal, and certain international newspapers. When answering the question, strengthen your marks by drawing quotations from works by various authors, newspaper columns and editorials, the internet, official websites of organizations, relevant articles of the Constitution, and various references. Using blue ink for these sections will make them stand out to the examiner. Do not even think of writing an essay without quotations. Keep in mind that essays do not come as common topics—prepare your suggestions accordingly. Practice writing continuously on various topics in simple language of your own. Make this a regular habit.
•   Translation: I have already discussed this.

 Logical Reasoning

 You will be given 12 questions; you must answer any 10 of them. Buy any three guide books. Every single night, do not go to bed without practicing some mathematics. Do not take shortcuts in math; show every step in detail. Let nothing slip through—not a single side note, not a shred of relevant information. Pay attention to the small things; for instance, when writing a side note, place a semicolon before the third bracket. If you prepare properly for mathematics, scoring 49 out of 50 in this subject is hardly difficult. If you lose even 1 mark, you will be among the rarest of the unlucky candidates. Study with a little understanding, and there is no need to be a science student to get full marks in mathematics.

•   Simple: Previous years’ questions, guide books. Attempt simple problems last of all.
•   Algebraic expressions, algebraic formulas, factorization, linear and multidimensional equations, linear and multidimensional inequalities, solution finding, mensuration, trigonometry: Previous years’ questions, guide books. If you wish, you can solve the relevant chapters from Class 9–10 general mathematics.
•   Unitary method, averages, percentages, interest calculations, LCM, GCD, ratio and proportion, profit and loss, lines, angles, triangles, theorems related to circles, Pythagorean theorem, corollaries: Previous years’ questions, guide books.
•   Indices and logarithms, arithmetic and geometric progressions, coordinate geometry, set theory, Venn diagrams, number theory: Guide books and relevant chapters from Class 9–10 general mathematics.
•   Permutations and combinations: Guide books, relevant chapter from Class 11 algebra.
•   Probability: Guide books, relevant chapter from Class 12 discrete mathematics.

 Mental Ability

The questions in this section are bound to be a bit tricky. You must keep your mind calm, read each question carefully, and answer with complete focus. The questions here will be easy—so easy, in fact, that they become harder than the difficult ones. Buy 3–4 sets of guide books, along with 3–4 IQ test books. Do not expect full marks in this section; keep that in mind as you prepare.

•   Verbal Reasoning: You’ll encounter questions posed through somewhat convoluted dialogue. A statement related to history, geography, literature, science, or any other subject will be presented, and you’ll need to read carefully to identify which part is missing. Here, common sense, grammar, and language skills will serve you well.
•   Abstract Reasoning: You’ll be shown diagrams depicting how an object or idea transforms or evolves. Your task is to carefully observe the pattern of change and indicate the object’s or idea’s next position or state.
•   Space Relations: When an object shifts in different directions or changes position, you may encounter qualitative or quantitative questions concerning its intermediate or final location—or using various examples, questions about the positioning of letters or numbers within them.
•   Numerical Ability: This is essentially mathematics, but of a different sort. You’ll need to find missing numbers in a series, table, or diagram. To do this, you’ll rely on simple math and common sense.
•   Mechanical Reasoning: You’ll be shown pictures or diagrams with accompanying text describing them. Questions can be of two kinds: those solvable through straightforward mental arithmetic, or those requiring you to imagine various positions of the diagrams and reason through the answer.
•   Study guide books, IQ test books, and practice regularly by searching online for “Verbal/Abstract/Mechanical Reasoning/Space Relations/Numerical Ability Practice” or “Verbal/Abstract/Mechanical Reasoning/Space Relations/Numerical Ability Test.” Since this section shouldn’t feature common questions, there’s no substitute for extensive practice if you want to excel.
•   Spelling and Language: Words or sentences with incorrect spelling, faulty grammar, or misused punctuation will be presented. You’ll need to correct them. Alternatively, you may be given scrambled letters or words and asked to form meaningful words or sentences. English grammar skills are essential here too. Studying guide books, IQ test books, and taking regular online tests will prove invaluable.

 General Science and Technology

 For this section, begin by thoroughly studying previous years’ questions and the suggested questions from guide books—take your time and read through them several times. As you prepare for science, don’t let it matter whether you’re a science student or not. It’s best not to weave flowery literary language into your science answers. If you can include necessary diagrams, symbols, and equations in this section, your answer sheet will stand out from the rest. These things must be learned by writing them out repeatedly. Answering three questions worth 4+3+3=10 marks is preferable to attempting a single 10-mark question.

 Part A: General Science

•   Light, Sound, Magnetism: Guide books, Class 9-10 Physics, Class 11-12 Physics Part 1 and Part 2
•   Acids, Bases, Salts: Class 9-10 Chemistry, Class 11-12 Chemistry Part 1
•   Water, Our Resources, Polymers, Atmosphere, Food and Nutrition, Biotechnology, Diseases and Health Care: Guide books, Internet, Class 9-10 General Science, Class 9-10 Geography
•  Part B: Computer and Information Technology: Guide books, Internet, Peter Norton’s Introduction to Computers, Higher Secondary Computer Science Part 1 and Part 2
•   Part C: Electrical and Electronic Technology: Guide books + Class 11-12 Physics Part 2

 Look at the syllabus and identify which topics you actually need—then read only those sections from the recommended textbooks (guides often include plenty of material that’s frankly unnecessary). If you want, you needn’t buy the entire book; just photocopy the portions you need. And here’s the thing: googling each topic online and reading around it helps tremendously.

Bangladesh Studies

•      Acquire at least 3–4 sets of guide books. Work through various reference texts: Mozammel Hoque’s Higher Secondary Civics Part II, Mahbubur Rahman’s Bangladesh Affairs, annotated editions of the Bangladesh Constitution, books on the Liberation War, Nihar Kumar Sarkar’s Politics for Children, Akbar Ali Khan’s The Economics of Altruism, and similar works. For BCS preparation, adopt a strategic reading technique: read not for knowledge alone, but for marks. Study previous years’ question papers carefully to identify exactly what types of questions appear—and equally important, what doesn’t. Once you’ve thoroughly examined the recurring patterns, move through your reference books selectively, skipping irrelevant sections. Don’t read everything; read what matters.
•   One hour spent studying question patterns beats four hours of unfocused reading. Master the questions, and you can compress four hours of study into two. By analyzing patterns extensively, you’ll learn which topics to skip and which to prioritize—this strategic foundation is crucial in the early stages. Spend real time here. Shed the anxiety that you must study everything everyone else studies. Resist the natural urge to be comprehensive. Read essential topics repeatedly rather than unnecessary ones once.
•   Read 4–5 newspapers online. Read quickly, skimming for relevance. Don’t read every article; focus only on those addressing BCS-relevant topics. Most papers contain only 2–3 such pieces per issue. Save these articles as word files for later review if needed.
•   As you read newspaper columns, learn to identify which topics might surface in exams. Bangladesh Affairs questions shift with contemporary context and relevance. Pay close attention to which columnists write on which subjects and in what style. Keep a notebook list: columnist name, area of interest, writing style. This will prove invaluable when you quote in your exam answer.
•   Draw important diagrams and maps. Include relevant data, tables, charts, and references where appropriate. When citing from newspapers, always note the source and date below the quotation. Make your exam answer sheet stand out. Provide sourced references from various websites. Quote from Wikipedia or Banglapedia. Incorporate statements by important national figures, contextually placed. Learn formal presentation style from newspaper editorials.
•   Handwriting quality is a bonus, not essential. Written exams demand speed. Practice writing one page every 3–5 minutes. Ensure legibility. Neat presentation adds marks.
•   Reference books, texts, and authoritative sources are non-negotiable. Many BCS questions don’t follow predictable patterns. Having read these materials gives you an edge. When answering, cite authors’ works, newspaper columns and editorials, internet sources, official websites of institutions, relevant constitutional articles, and various references. Such citations boost marks. Use blue ink for these sections—they’ll catch the examiner’s eye. Aim for at least one quotation, data point, table, chart, or reference per page. One final note: memorizing the entire Constitution serves no purpose. Instead, deeply understand and study those articles from which questions frequently arise.

• You need not quote provisions from the Constitution verbatim.
•  There’s no need to take elaborate notes while reading. You simply won’t have the time for it. Instead, keep track of which source you’re reading each question from. You’ll find this useful when you revise. Stay regularly informed about interpretations of Bangladesh’s Constitution, official websites of various organizations, Wikipedia, Banglapedia, the National Web Portal, and certain international publications. Gather information and data. When needed, present your answers in the exam by referencing these sources appropriately.
•  Under no circumstances should you leave a question unanswered. If you don’t know the answer, write something based on your understanding—at the very least. If you have no understanding, draw from your imagination. If imagination fails you, force yourself to imagine! It’s not a problem that you’re leaving a question blank. The problem is that someone else is answering it.
•  From time to time, practice writing continuously on various topics without stopping. Build the habit of reading widely on different subjects. This will elevate the quality of your writing. You don’t need to memorize any answer. Instead, read repeatedly, from different sources. Develop the habit of writing from understanding. No one becomes a civil servant by writing everything perfectly the first time. In the written exam, everyone fabricates to some degree. That’s not the issue! The real art lies in fabricating properly. It doesn’t matter whether the cat is white or black. What matters is: can it catch the mouse?

 International
Affairs

• Get yourself 4–5 sets of guides to international affairs and work through them thoroughly. Study the previous years’ questions with care, trying to understand which types of problems tend to repeat. Some questions will lose their relevance over time—set those aside. As you read 4–5 papers online each day, pay attention to which topics remain pertinent to our current moment. Save these in a Word file for future reference. Build your own set of suggestions based on what the guides and various newspaper articles propose. You can add or remove certain questions from your suggestions as time goes on, preparing 4–5 complete sets. Then, working through these suggestions methodically, read about each topic from your guides, reference books, newspaper articles, and beyond. It helps most to search these topics on Google. If needed, search for them in Bengali as well. Google will give you answers to nearly every question on international affairs you might encounter. Looking through Wikipedia, Banglapedia, and the official websites of various organizations will save you time and help you score better marks. From the newspapers and magazines—the daily and weekly international pages, The Hindu, The Economist, Times of India, Time, and other international publications—you can select and read the articles most relevant to your studies.
• Keep a list of 15–20 writers who regularly explore different international issues. Jot down briefly beside each name what kinds of subjects they typically cover. You’ll find this useful when you need to cite sources. Dig through the internet for analytical commentaries and critiques on various subjects. Read some authoritative books as well—for instance, Abdul Hai’s work on International Organizations, Relations and Foreign Policy, or Tarek Shamsur Rahman’s International Relations; books like these. When answering questions, weave in such references naturally, and your presentation will shine. Maps, data, charts, tables, reviews, your own analysis, and the contemporary relevance of these elements—all of this will make your answer sheet stand out distinctly to the examiner’s eye.
• These questions won’t be commonly repeated. So it’s difficult to excel in this section without building a strong reading habit. You don’t need to memorize everything. Read repeatedly, marking and highlighting as you go. When you sit for the exam, compose and write in your own voice. Try to include at least one quotation, data point, table, chart, or reference per page—something to anchor your thought. You can use blue ink for these elements. Your handwriting doesn’t need to be beautiful; as long as it’s legible, that’s enough. Written exams demand speed. Practice writing one page every 3–5 minutes.
• Short Conceptual Notes: Go through previous years’ questions, reference books, guides, and newspapers to list out what sorts of annotations might appear. Then search these topics on Google and read about them online. You’ll have newspaper clippings, Word files of saved articles, guide books, and reference books all at your disposal. If you add your own analysis at the end of your answer in this section, your marks will improve.
• Analytical Questions: Write in as many points and paragraphs as you can manage. In this section, answering a 4+6+5=15 mark question is better than answering a single 15-mark question. Your opening and closing paragraphs should be the most compelling. Use plenty of quotations in blue ink………….contd.
• Explain any issue from the perspective of different columnists, and toward the end of your answer, draw your own conclusion in your own words. If you have any observations or personal views, write those down too.
• Problem-Solving Questions: There will be passages about development, security issues, trade, treaties, climate change, foreign aid, and other pressing contemporary matters in various international contexts. Or a particular problem will be posed to you.

• Analyze the issue from multiple angles, consider what solutions might work, incorporate perspectives from international analysts and your own views—lay it out in point form. There’s simply no substitute: if you want to excel at this, you have to read the papers regularly.

  On BCS Prelims…….

•   From the 10th to the 35th BCS—buy two or three job solution guides and work through PSC’s non-cadre exam questions (if possible, at least 250–300 sets) methodically, solving each one with real understanding. Mark them up and revise at least two or three times over. Read the mind of the question setter, not the mind of the guidebook writer. Study papers, the internet, and reference books carefully.
•   Get two sets of written retention guide books, then read through previous years’ questions and suggestions. For topics that overlap with prelims, follow the syllabus and finish them. This way, half your retention preparation will already be done. When reading references, understand whether you even need to read that book at all. More than 60 percent of retention material overlaps with prelims anyway.
•   Most students read reference books first, then start solving questions. There are two problems with this. First, you won’t have enough time to solve many questions—and the more you solve, the better. Second, most of what’s in reference books won’t help you in the BCS exam. Yet you waste time reading the whole thing, and for no reason you develop unnecessary fear about BCS. Besides, you don’t need to memorize everything anyway. So walk the opposite path. I did the same. Make each question the source of three more questions. Yes, flipping through reference books is hard work. But if you push through that difficulty, you’ll gain in both prelims and retention—and that’s an even harder truth.
•   For prelims, skip books on current affairs, current world events, today’s world, economic surveys, and that sort of thing. At most, 5–6 questions come from very recent topics in prelims, and those are found only in those books. You can answer at least 2 of them just by reading the newspapers. Let the other 4 go—what’s the harm? I’ve never understood why people torture themselves over these 4 marks. Really, reading those painful books just makes you feel like you’re studying, studying, studying. That’s self-deception of the highest order.
•   Here’s a fact I’ll share: there are some difficult questions that won’t stick in your memory no matter how many times you read them. Stop trying to remember those. Because each such question crowds out several easy ones from your mind. Prelims isn’t a test to score the highest marks—it’s just a test to pass the cutoff. Getting 190 and getting 90 are the same thing if you pass prelims. Spend that extra effort on retention preparation instead—it’ll pay off. Don’t worry so much about what others can do. What others can do might ultimately matter more than what you can do—but maybe not. Remember: a difficult question is worth 1 mark, and an easy question is also worth 1 mark.
•   Talking about preparation, telling yourself and everyone else that you’re preparing—that’s not the same as actually preparing. “The talk of preparation is the lack of preparation.” That’s how it works with competitive exams. It’s better to work hard with understanding and pass than to work hard and fail. You need to be very good or at least decent in every segment. So when you’re preparing, you can’t put all your effort only into what you’re good at. My technique is this: I take extra care with what I’m strong in, so I can gain a much bigger advantage there than others. But before that, I check whether being strong in that area is actually worth the advantage at all.

Say you’ve memorized the name of Clinton’s wife’s friend’s pet dog, but my grandfather had a black dog—writing it as “My grandfather was a black dog” won’t do the work, will it?

– Who says the first attempt never works? Someone told you that? I got into the cadre on my first try. There are countless other examples like that. *Pather Panchali* (Bibhuti and Satyajit), *Nagarik*, *The 400 Blows*, *Wuthering Heights*, *The Catcher in the Rye*, *To Kill a Mockingbird*, *The Kite Runner*—all these stories. Don’t you feel afraid thinking you’ll have to sit that tedious BCS exam again, more than once? That’s precisely why we study. Why should you take the BCS exam repeatedly like everyone else? Though it’s true, luck does play a role here too. Those who become cadres are both competent and fortunate at once.

– Many will say, “I’ve already finished reading all those topics!” Take it easy. Just because someone finishes before you doesn’t mean they’ll have the last laugh. And if someone studies more than you do, that’s not your fault, is it? When I started preparing for the BCS exam, I found that many people had already covered so much. You’ve seen *3 Idiots*. A friend’s bad result saddens you, but their good result annoys you even more. When I realized I could barely do anything compared to others, I did two things. First, I tried to understand: did I actually need to be able to do what they could do? Second, I stopped comparing myself to others and started comparing today’s me with yesterday’s me.

– How necessary is group study? It depends on your habits. I didn’t have that habit. I didn’t study in groups for two reasons. First, when I saw everyone else could do so much that I couldn’t, it would upset me. I don’t like thinking I can’t do something. Remember that dialogue from *The Pursuit of Happyness*? You can’t do something, everyone tells you that—what’s the point of hearing and understanding it? If everyone says it, you’re not going to suddenly start being able to do more; your very will to improve might diminish. Second, studying with others made me want to chat more, and I’d feel like what they were doing was right and mine was wrong. I’ve never liked mindless imitation.

– There will be days when you won’t feel like studying—I had those too. Wanting to study all the time isn’t a sign of mental health. Why so serious? Job for Life, not Life for Job. You don’t have to become a BCS cadre! Your sustenance is already written. There’s so much else to do! So take breaks, give studying a rest—now and then. Close your door and windows, crank up the music full volume, shake off every thought, and dance! Sing your lungs out! What else is there in life! Don’t waste another two days feeling sorry that you missed two days of study. Who ever learned anything without making mistakes? When do you have time to regret? You haven’t committed the world’s worst blunder! You’re not the most miserable person on earth either!

Let the chat end in stories ……..

 The First Story:

A crow sat lazily on a high branch of a tree, doing nothing at all. Just then, a rabbit came hopping down that path. The rabbit looked up and asked the crow, “Say, friend—can I also sit here beneath this tree and do nothing, like you?” The crow said, “Of course you can!” So the rabbit did exactly that.

A little while later, a fox came prowling down the same path. Seeing the rabbit sitting there, the fox pounced—and that was the end of the rabbit.

So what’s the lesson here? The lesson is this: when you’ve climbed so high that no one can touch you, then yes, you can sit back with your hands folded, doing nothing. But before that—before you reach such heights—you must work hard enough to earn the right to sit there. Think about it: what perch are you sitting on right now?

 The Second Story:

A tiny bird was fleeing the bitter grip of winter, leaving Siberia behind. Suddenly, it froze mid-flight and tumbled down like a chunk of ice, landing hard on the frozen ground. After some time, a cow ambled past and defecated right on top of the bird. But the warmth of the dung melted the ice from the bird’s body. Grateful and delighted, the bird began to sing with joy. A cat nearby heard the song, pulled the bird out of the dung, and ate it.

What are the lessons from this story?

The first lesson: Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy. In other words, those who scold us, who dump their criticism on us—not all of them wish us ill. Many actually want the best for us. Think of your parents, your seniors, your teachers—they all belong to this category.

The second lesson: Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend. Many people will come forward with grand words about rescuing you from trouble, extend their hand—and then throw you into an even deeper pit. I’m talking about those self-appointed wise men around us who say, “What’s the point of taking the civil service exam? Do something else instead.” Or worse: “You don’t have what it takes to pass the civil service exam.” I believe this: If you cannot help a person to do something, you have no right to demoralize him or her by saying they cannot do it.

But I think the third lesson is the most important of all. It is this: When you are in the shit, always keep your mouth shut! In other words, when you’re in trouble, when you’re struggling, never broadcast it. Never speak of it. Success talks the loudest. Success can buy silence. Your success will shut everyone’s mouth. So throw down a challenge to yourself—not to others.

 The end has come, yet nothing ends

The Friendship Rule:

 Here it is—the ‘block’ button!!

Uncle Cost’s story: Let it GO!! (Playing a video song now.)

 no easy day, the only easy day was yesterday

 Good Luck!

Questions and Answers