The Ins and Outs of BCS Examination + IBA Admission Test

(On the 12th of July, 2014, at an event called “Career Adda” held at the Central Auditorium of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, I delivered a presentation lasting approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes on preparing for BCS Preliminary + Written + Viva and IBA Written + Viva examinations. I am sharing this presentation in the form of notes for my friends.)

The Tale of a Nobody

• Those of you who are here, who haven’t even begun your careers yet—are you truly lagging behind? What does it mean to be ‘behind’? The way I began. I started working at least 4-5 years after my friends did.
• The story of constantly changing life’s direction. The tale of indecision. Never it’s too late to realize it’s already getting late.
• I had no Aim in Life, except on exam papers. Someone once asked me, what’s your 10-year plan for life and career? I replied, I’ve never been able to make even a 10-minute plan in my life. Still I’m happy. No regrets! How much does a person really get in one lifetime? I’m someone who lives in the world of each moment. What’s the point of living as such a careerist?
• What is a career? What constitutes a good career? I believe there are three things.

Social recognition, Solvency, Time to spend your earning in your own way

• Better to live a short life without regrets than to live a long one with sighs. Yes, you can be a part of the popular rat-race. Run run and run only to stop peacefully. The problem is, even if you win a rat-race, you still remain a rat. Fact is, your career offers much to others compared to you and your family. Most people say goodbye to the hell they’re living in early before they dream to say hello to the heaven they’re dreaming to live in. I really don’t want to build a castle where I myself can’t live.
• To create something beautiful doesn’t necessarily require a lot of time. I believe that to create something beautiful, emotion matters more than hard work or intelligence. Knowing how to accomplish much in little time is truly a great art. …No one kept their word. You fill up my senses. Dostoevsky’s story.
• Looking back. The story of remaining a nobody. The story of the boy with the worst results; who at one point wasn’t even supposed to complete his honors, about whom no one ever dreamed. Not getting recognition from anyone is a terrible kind of pain. Days of humiliation, nights of tears. What does it mean to ‘achieve something’? The defeat of the cup of poison and what followed. Even just surviving accomplishes many things. Have you read ‘The Swimmer and the Water Nymph’?
• Your passion pays!! Books, movies, music & of course Facebook!! No matter, whatever it is!! Basically, you’re what you love!!
• Not living someone else’s life, not compromising with life—the story of a happy, unsuccessful, accidental engineer, the story of a frustrated entrepreneur. Happy to be derailed! Thank you God, you didn’t listen to my prayers!
• One thing is very true. Being academically good doesn’t necessarily mean one’s career will be good. Try to have the last laugh. Let some time in between be spent in tears, neglect, contempt.
• Before starting your career, ask yourself what you truly enjoy. Others cannot answer this. They know, at best, what you should enjoy. The major disadvantage of thinking like everyone else is that your actual capability gets trapped in a predetermined framework, and your achievement becomes nothing special that can be distinguished or noticed. Whether you’ll let your life fall into mediocrity—it’s your choice.
• The two most difficult steps in doing any work: Deciding exactly what you want to do, how you want to do it, why you want to do it. Actually starting the work. The easiest technique to start any work is to truly begin it.
• Is confidence necessary for success, or is success necessary for confidence? I can’t do this, I can’t anymore, I quit! Shah Rukh Khan’s story.
• It always seems impossible until it’s done. The difficulty level of most of the competitive exams is overrated. — Why? Those who rank first in civil service exams are human too, right? I used to think such things.
• If you are not thinking about your dream, you are not thinking at all.
• You can never deserve success, you have to always earn it. Fact is, your success is what you think you earn, your failure is what others think you deserve.
• What’s the point of asking Bill Gates for rice-and-lentils business ideas? Be strategic.
• People have a natural talent of undermining your attempts to which they are not familiar with or don’t feel comfortable about. There are some people who can never appreciate. So, it’s foolish to judge yourself by what they say. Kind words are healthier than a bowl of chicken soup.
• Being recognized as a good student in childhood is an awkward thing—you can no longer think of yourself as small. Sometimes it’s your bad luck! People want to see you as they want, not as you want to see yourself. Still, live in your own life. Don’t listen to others, listen to your heart.
• Don’t be serious, be sincere. Not everyone can do everything. Accept this. Figure out what you do best.
• Stop overthinking. If you’re going through hell, keep going. Que sera sera — Whatever was, was; whatever is, is; whatever will be, will be. What will happen will happen.
• Life didn’t come to us with a user-manual. So, it’s our right to use and to abuse it! Sometimes, failures are just too good! To fail successfully is an art.
• Deciding what you really want matters. It took me almost 2 decades to decide what I really want. When I’d decided finally, it took me only a few months to get what I really want.
• Don’t only work hard, also work smartly.
• Success. It’s not the opposite of failure as popularly believed, it’s just living without sighs. It’s just dancing in the manner you want and making people think you dance well even if you don’t. It’s making your style others’ favourite brand even if it’s foolish. It’s sometimes making people laugh listening to your even worst jokes. It’s making others hear you even when you don’t speak. It’s taking the opportunity to tell others that meeting your previous millionth failure was essential, anyway. It’s making your failures worth-mentioning by you or by others.
• Only your results are rewarded, not your efforts. This is the way the world accepts or rejects you.

DOs & DON’Ts for IBA Admission Test and BCS Examination

The difficulty level of BCS and IBA admission tests seems somewhat overrated to me. While it’s true that these are competitive exams, it’s even more true that there usually aren’t many real competitors. Most people prefer to intimidate others about these two exams rather than encourage them. Speak what you know; speak what you don’t know too. Let me share two facts.

50% of candidates in these exams go just for the experience, without any real reason—somewhat like attending a get-together. (Interestingly, some of them even succeed! The veni, vidi, vici type!)

Real competitors amount to only about 7%.

This means your competition isn’t as fierce as you imagine. BCS and IBA admission tests have no fixed syllabus, so 100% preparation for these two exams isn’t possible for anyone. Remember, the art lies in believing you’ve learned everything, forgetting sixty percent of it, and properly utilizing the remaining forty percent. For doing well in these two exams, knowing what not to study is far more important than knowing what to study. I’ve tried to explain this in the following slides. Use this guideline in your own way. Take what you need, discard the rest.

Strategy for IBA Admission Test Preparation

• Thoroughly understand and solve all previous years’ questions (if not all, then at least 10-15 years’ worth) from IBA’s BBA+MBA, BIBM’s MBM, DU’s EMBA, and private university MBA entrance exams. Get a clear understanding of the question patterns. This is the first step in beginning your preparation.
• Let me share a secret with you. Generally, no segment has a cut-off mark above 50%. So try to ensure you get at least 50% marks in all segments to reach the viva board stage.
• For competitive exams, preparedness matters more than preparation itself. Hold onto the feeling that “I’m the best” during the exam. It works like magic!
• Time Management. Because it does matter! Now let’s see what this means. Keep two things in mind.
• Whatever preparation you’ve done, you must utilize it to the maximum. Taking preparation isn’t the main thing; using that preparation properly is what matters most.
• You have to pass each segment separately. So you can’t put all your effort only into what you’re good at. Therefore, divide your time. In the first two-thirds of the total time, answer everything you can. Use the remaining time to tackle the questions you’ve left out.
• To do well in the IBA entrance exam, solve lots and lots of questions. You can regularly solve GRE+GMAT questions online, understanding them properly. (Not all of them, just the ones that appear in the exam.)
• Now let me talk about which books to study from and how much to cover from each.
• Verbal part: Vocabulary. For this, you can look at Barron’s GRE Wordlist, Word Smart. If you’re short on time, you can also check out the market guidebooks.
• For the Analogy part, you can refer to GRE Big Book (old edition). To make things easier, you can buy and study from a couple of guides.
• For Sentence completion, you can look at GRE Big Book (old edition).
• For the Comprehension part, studying from IELTS books will be beneficial.
• Study the Error Finding part from TOEFL books (like Cliff’s TOEFL). Make sure to read Barron’s TOEFL’s Essential Grammatical Rules.
• Mathematics: You can solve from S@ifur’s Math, S@ifur’s Geometry, NOVA’s GRE. If you have time, you can also look at ARCO SAT.
• Analytical Analysis: For Puzzle/Logical inference, you can refer to Official GMAT. You can also keep a couple of market books alongside.
• For Critical Reasoning, you can look at small comprehensions from GRE Big Book + Official GMAT.

We’ll talk about IBA’s viva later.

 My Experience with BCS Preliminary + Written

• Solve the question papers from the 10th to 34th BCS and PSC non-cadre preliminary examinations (at least 250-300 sets if possible) with thorough understanding. Revise at least 2-3 times. Read the mind of the question setter, not the mind of the guidebook writer. One hour of studying questions is better than four hours of studying without understanding. This way, you can cover four hours of study in two hours. Apply the POE. By studying question patterns extensively, you’ll learn how to study by omitting unnecessary topics. This is the initial step to beginning your preparation. Give it adequate time. Shake off the notion that you must study everything others are studying. Invent your own style.
• Most students first read reference books and then start solving questions. There are two problems with this approach. First: you don’t get enough time to solve many questions. The more questions you solve, the greater the benefit. Second: Most parts of reference books aren’t useful for BCS examinations, yet reading entire books wastes time and creates unnecessary fear about BCS. Besides, there’s no need to remember so much. So walk the opposite path. That’s what I did too.
• Stop reading random, useless material. For becoming a BCS cadre, it’s far more crucial to understand what you won’t study rather than deciding what you will study. Whether you read reference books or not, solving many questions is mandatory. One who knows may not succeed, but one who succeeds certainly knows (even if they don’t know, they know). A successful fool is better than an unsuccessful scholar. Those involved with BCS become two types of people. First: BCS experts. Second: BCS cadres… Become a cadre.
• Let me share a clever approach. A good technique for reading reference materials for any BCS subject is to read not for acquiring knowledge, but for acquiring marks. To do this, first study previous years’ questions to get an idea of what types of questions don’t appear. It’s even better to examine prelim and written questions thoroughly, then read reference books by ‘omitting and omitting.’ For instance, if someone wants to read Mahbubul Alam’s History of Bengali Literature (just an example) for Bengali literature, first map out in your mind what types of literature questions appear in prelims plus short literature questions in written exams. Then read. The best way to perform well in competitive exams isn’t to read reference books first and then solve questions; rather, read reference books while solving questions. Control the natural greed to read everything. Read necessary topics repeatedly rather than reading an unnecessary topic once.
• For prelims, stop reading books like Current Affairs, Current World, Today’s World, Economic Survey. At most 2-3 questions come from very recent topics that are found only in those books. Of these, at least one can be answered by reading newspapers. What happens if we forgive the remaining two?! I can’t fathom why people take such pain for these 2-1 marks. Actually, reading those torturous books gives a false sense of studying. This falls under the category of very sophisticated deception. Let me share a fact. There are some difficult questions that don’t stick in memory even after repeated reading. Stop trying to remember them. Because such questions push several easier questions out of your head. Preliminary is not an exam for scoring the highest marks; it’s simply a pass-or-fail exam.
• Performing well in BCS examinations largely depends on four subjects—English, Mathematics, Science, and Bengali. Study these four subjects with greater emphasis. Generally, parrot-like individuals who are erudite only in general knowledge fail BCS examinations or achieve very ordinary results. There’s no benefit in becoming too learned in general knowledge because that segment typically yields average marks, so you won’t gain much competitive advantage over other candidates. It’s better to truly prepare rather than convince yourself and others that you’re preparing. The attitude of preparation without actual preparation. This happens in competitive exams. Remember, only your results are rewarded, not your efforts. It’s better to study wisely and pass than to work very hard and fail.
• It’s true that BCS examinations can be taken repeatedly. But the greater truth is that the punishment for not passing on the first attempt is having to read these boring, exhausting materials again. This fear served as motivation for me. SSC and HSC exams can also be taken four times. If someone had told you then, “Let the first time be for experience, do better next time,” wouldn’t that have made you angry?
• Read questions that seem somewhat difficult multiple times. Let me share a fact. There are some difficult questions that don’t stick in memory even after repeated reading. Stop trying to remember them. Because such questions push several easier questions out of your head.
• In BCS examinations, draw necessary identified diagrams and maps for subjects like Science & Technology, Bangladesh Affairs, and International Affairs. Provide various data, tables, charts, and references at appropriate places.
• Identify which segments candidates typically score low in but where higher scores are possible, and try to prepare yourself well in those segments to enter the competition. Study short questions, notes, short notes, summaries, essence, elaborations, translations, grammar, etc. thoroughly.
• Read written exam guidebooks by highlighting. At least 3-4 sets if possible. But be aware that guides contain many errors. This is normal. So you’ll need to make corrections while reading.
• There’s no special need to take notes while studying. You won’t have that much time. Instead, note down which source you’re reading each question from. This will be useful during revision. Keep regular track of constitutional explanations of Bangladesh, official websites of various organizations, some international newspapers, etc. Collect information and data. Present them in exam papers with proper references as needed.
• Read newspapers regularly for BCS. At least 5-6 if possible. You can read online. During this time, don’t read entire papers; read only the portions necessary for the exam. Quickly scan for what’s needed for BCS exams, and save them in Word files if necessary. How will you understand what’s needed?
• Various references, texts, and authentic books must be read. Many questions in BCS exams don’t appear commonly. Reading these books makes answering easier. When answering questions, quoting from various authors’ writings, newspaper columns and editorials, official websites of various organizations, relevant constitutional articles, and various references will increase marks. Using blue ink for these portions will easily catch the examiner’s eye. I know, you don’t remember so many quotations. So how will you do this work? I’m sharing the techniques I followed. By the way, there’s absolutely no need to memorize the constitution.
•  
• Good handwriting is fine, but it’s not a problem if it’s not good. You have to write very quickly in exams. So practice writing one page every 3-5 minutes. Be careful that the writing remains readable. Good presentation increases marks. Writing becomes very difficult in BCS written exams. Sometimes I felt like my finger joints might come apart any moment. I thought, I’ve to really perform when I’m performing! I passed the written exam just by thinking about my parents and Tendulkar. Let me share a story. The story of a 16-year-old’s ‘Main Khelega’ attitude. The story of not giving up. The best attitude I’ve learned in life. In my opinion, to become great in life, it’s necessary to have a habitual ‘selfish’ weakness to greatness. Try to replicate the qualities of those who are successful in their respective fields. Whatever goal you want to reach, maintain tremendous respect for that goal. Otherwise, sincerity doesn’t come properly in preparation.
• Never leave any question unanswered. If you don’t know the answer, write something based on your understanding. It’s not a problem that you’re leaving questions blank. The problem is that someone else is answering them. Create your own suggestions. Don’t follow anyone else’s suggestions. Don’t listen to coaching center-like false assurances that “this question will definitely come.” I prepared suggestions at least 4 times. And keep in mind, you won’t get more than (40-50)% common questions. Even getting this much is a lot!
• Occasionally practice writing non-stop on various topics. Increase your habit of reading on various subjects. This will make your writing quality better. There’s no need to memorize any answers. Rather, read repeatedly from various sources. Develop the habit of writing from understanding.
• In which language should I write answers in BCS exams? In English? Or in Bengali? Many people have this question. I wrote in Bengali and came first in the combined merit list. In this language, one can flow smoothly by saying ‘come’… What a wonderful mystery! Right? However, you can also write in English. In this case, fluency and clarity are key.
• Many will say, “I’ve finished studying such and such questions!” Take it easy. Just because someone finishes work before you doesn’t mean they’ll have the last laugh. When I started preparing for BCS exams, I found that many people had finished studying many things. You’ve seen 3 Idiots. A friend’s bad result makes you as sad as a friend’s good result makes you angrier. When I saw that compared to others, I knew practically nothing, I did two things. First: I tried to understand whether what they knew was actually necessary to know. Second: I stopped comparing myself with them and started comparing today’s me with yesterday’s me.
• Sometimes you won’t feel like studying; I didn’t either. Always wanting to study isn’t a sign of mental health. Why so serious? Job for Life, not Life for Job. So take breaks, give your studies a holiday. Occasionally. There’s no point in feeling bad about not studying for two days and wasting another two days. Where’s the time for regret? How necessary is group study? This depends on your habits. I didn’t have this habit myself. I didn’t do group study for two reasons. First: When I saw that everyone knew many things that I didn’t know at all, I felt bad. I don’t like thinking that I don’t know something. Do you remember the dialogue from The Pursuit of Happyness? Second:

When studying
with everyone else,
I would feel
an urge
to chat
more and more,
and it would seem
that what they
were doing
was right,
and my own way
was wrong.
I don’t like
blind
imitation.

Viva: the art of selling yourself

BCS + IBA

• Actually, there’s no pattern to viva exams. Viva marks matter, and I’ve sat through this kind of viva in two places so far: IBA viva and BCS viva. I was in the IBA viva board for 18-20 minutes, in BCS for 4-5 minutes. How long they kept you there, what they asked, what you could answer, what you couldn’t—these things aren’t as crucial as we think. All’s well that ends well.
• I’ve come to feel that viva is far more subjective than objective. What does our experience tell us? Some people, when you see them, you have to think carefully before speaking. Others make you want to slap them twice. If you can’t manage that, you feel somehow uncomfortable. For doing well in viva, preparedness matters more than preparation. Everyone practices, yet the century goes to Tendulkar’s collection. Whether that day is yours depends largely on your fortune.
• What impression I form about your knowledge matters far more than what you actually know. Generally, within the first 20 seconds of seeing someone, an impression forms—it could be positive, it could be negative. Make this work for you. You will never get a second chance to make the first impression. You can’t tell everyone everything, nor do you feel like it. Some people make you want to ask how the Taj Mahal carries the signature of love; others make you want to ask about the number of bricks in the Taj Mahal. Some people’s appearance and attitude make you want to ask about the length of the Padma River, while from others you want to hear stories of floating in boats on the Padma’s breast, touching the moonlight. Or tales of walking hand in hand with a lover along the Padma’s banks. Or something else entirely—things that require no knowledge to tell, yet convey everything so easily.
• Those who sit on viva boards are truly far more experienced and expert. They understand very well what you’re saying, what you’re hiding. A clever man knows how to cheat, an intelligent man knows how to make others let him cheat.
• Experience says there are at least a hundred techniques for doing well in viva, none of which work. What you’ve accumulated will serve you better than what you accumulate. Present yourself beautifully as you are. Don’t listen to or do anything that breaks your confidence or doesn’t let you be yourself.
• Maintain eye contact during the viva. Looking elsewhere while speaking isn’t useful. Besides, this is essential for reading the teachers’ instant expressions.
• The things I believe are observed in viva boards are: Positive Attitude, Mental Maturity, Ready Wit, Thought Clarity, Decent Appearance, Etiquette, Common sense, Cool Temperament, English Fluency, Situation Handling Capability, Analytical Skill
• There will be nervousness—this is unavoidable. It will be there. Leave some responsibility for overcoming it to the situation itself. In my case, nervousness actually helped me get good marks. A knife kills. Well, a knife saves too! If you’re treated badly in the viva board, don’t take it personally. Everything done here has a purpose behind it—to judge you.
• There’s no rule that if you put Foreign Service as first choice in BCS, the viva will be in English. Many in Foreign have become cadres giving more than 50% of their viva in Bengali. My first choice was Customs, yet 85% of my viva was in English.
• Talk to those who’ve given vivas before, get a fair idea about what types of questions are asked. Arrange your answers a bit differently from how everyone else says them. Presentation matters! Try to read the mind of the interviewer. More important than what you want to say is whether you can say what they want to hear. Not what you said, but how you said it matters. Hiding is an art. Learn euphemisms. For instance, if you’re asked about a weakness of yours, answer in such a way that it doesn’t show anything too negative about you. (I was asked this at IBA.) Or, when asked about problems in Bangladesh, try to mention things for which solutions are already being undertaken.
• If someone else asks a question while you’re answering, you must seek permission from the first questioner before answering the next question.
• You can listen to Ted Talks sometimes, hear job interviews available on YouTube and many sites. You can listen to BTV’s 10 PM English news. Listen to CNN, Al Jazeera. You can watch American accent movies with subtitles on. Practice English conversation with friends sometimes. But never do this with some pundit who only points out mistakes.
• Sometimes not showing smartness is smartness itself. The first impression formed within the first 20 seconds of seeing you largely determines your viva pattern. Present yourself as a gentleman/lady.
• Any viva exam has two types of questions: Informative and Non-informative. Usually, teachers emphasize more on the style of answering the second type. In viva, there’s no such thing as “answered this much, will get this many marks”; rather, marks are given based on overall performance. Just because you can answer many questions doesn’t mean you’ll get many marks.
• When answering in English, if you notice any mistake in what you say, don’t stop to correct it. Words are like arrows—once shot, trying to stop them will bloody your hands. Perhaps the teachers didn’t even notice your mistake. What’s the need to point it out yourself?
• Keep a fair idea about civil service, your subject, and first and second choice of cadre. For IBA, keep ready your answer about why you want to do an MBA.
• Don’t worry too much about what you don’t know. Maybe you won’t even be asked about it. And if you are asked and can’t answer, what’s the harm? If answering questions earned more marks in viva, many parrot-type people would get jobs.
• Show yourself as an enthusiastic listener. Bring a decent, gentle expression to your face that would make it painful to scold you. This really works.

Let the Discussion End with Stories ……..

First Story:

A crow was sitting idly on a high branch of a tree, doing nothing. Just then, a rabbit was passing by that path. The rabbit asked the crow, “Say, brother, can I also sit under this tree doing nothing like you?” The crow said, “Of course you can!” The rabbit did just that. After a while, a fox was passing by that path. Seeing the rabbit sitting there, the fox quickly grabbed and ate it. What’s the lesson of this story? The lesson is: when you’re sitting on such a high seat that no one can touch you, then you can sit with your hands and feet folded. But before that, you must work hard to earn the qualification to sit on that seat. Think about which seat you’re sitting on right now.

Second Story:

To escape the harsh winter, a small bird was leaving Siberia. Suddenly the bird froze and fell to the ground like a piece of ice. Some time later, a cow walking by that path defecated on the bird. After a while, the warmth of the dung melted all the ice on the bird’s body. The bird then began singing joyfully. A cat was sitting nearby. Hearing the song, the cat pulled the bird out of the dung and ate it. What are the lessons of this story? The first lesson is: Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy. This means that not everyone who throws dirt on us—that is, scolds us—is our enemy; many of them wish us well. This group includes our parents and seniors and teachers.

The second lesson is: Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend. This means many people offer to help us out of trouble, extending their hands only to plunge us into greater danger. This group includes those great scholars around us who say, “What’s the point of taking the BCS exam? Do something else instead.” Or say, “You can’t pass BCS.” I believe, If you cannot help a person to do something, you have no right to demoralize him/her saying that he/she cannot do it.

I think the third lesson is the most important. It is: When you are in the shit, always keep your mouth shut!! This means when you’re in trouble, always keep your mouth shut. Success talks the loudest. Success can buy silence. Your success can silence everyone. So, throw challenges at yourself; not at others.