Smart Strategy on How To Crack IAS Prelims Examination 2019 - UPSC CIVIL SERVICES EXAMINATION-2019

CIVIL SERVICES EXAMINATION-2019

HOW TO CRACK IAS PRELIMS EXAM

Given its immense popularity among the educated, talented and hardworking youth of the country, civil service examination is bound to be the most bitterly contested exam one can find in India.

Civil services command respect, prestige and status like no other job can offer. Besides, it provides job security and attractive perks to provide a comfortable lifestyle. But more than all these factors, it is the nature of the job to be performed in civil services that motivate many to aspire for it.

Apart from offering challenges and diversity, civil services offer some of the most socially relevant jobs which lend meaning and justification to life. Unlike the private sector jobs, where one is doing mostly socially irrelevant jobs or, even at times socially harmful jobs, civil services offer satisfying jobs in sectors such as policing, education, health, welfare etc. This is why many candidates try hard to get into civil services rather than pursuing a career in the private sector.

As is well known, it is a three-stage examination comprising prelims, mains and interview. At all the three levels of the contest (i.e., preliminary, mains and the personality test), there are challenges. But it is at the first stage of the exam. i.e. the preliminary exam, that is found to be most challenging. Although prelims is purported to be just a qualifying test to allow a candidate to appear in the main examination, the reality is that it is both scary and intimidating.

It is scary because out of a total of 4-5 lakh aspirants appearing, only 15,000 candidates have a chance to get selected at this level. Thus it actually translates into not a qualifying exam but an elimination process and even the most talented among the aspirants run the risk of getting eliminated in the prelims level itself. If one gets eliminated, he/she has to wait for one full year to get another chance to qualify and appear in the mains.

It is intimidating because there is so much to study for the exam ranging from the traditional areas like history, culture, geography, environment and ecology, polity, science and technology to current and contemporary issues.

Whereas the mains exam seeks a conceptual understanding of the issues, prelims seek both conceptual understanding and factual knowledge which broadens its scope. Viewed in this perspective, prelims preparation is a true test of one’s nerves, tenacity, persistence, and perseverance.

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COPING UP WITH THE EXAMINATION STRESS - Careers in Agriculture & Forestry

How to Overcome the Study Stress

COPING UP WITH THE EXAMINATION STRESS

Speak about examination and often what a student spontaneously plunges into is the imbroglio of anxieties, stress and confusion. Have you ever imagined why some students get so much stressed and disturbed when they are to appear in an examination?

In fact, the examination stress is caused due to apprehension and lack of confidence of not performing as per the expectation in a certain examination. But it has its firm roots in the lack of preparation and absence of chalking out suitable planning well in time for the examination. The fear of examination, generally called the 'examination phobia', not only adversely affects the psychological condition of an examinee but also his academic performance and future career.

However, the psychoanalysts across the world now have started believing that stress, to some extent, is not always pernicious for students; rather it works as a motivation factor that keeps on preventing them from deviation and procrastination. We need to learn following techniques to keep stress under control.

CONSISTENT HARD WORK HAS NO SUBSTITUTE: Consistent hard work has no substitute for accomplishing any task. Passing an examination with marks and results expected is not at all different from this truth.

Who can deny that hard work works like a magic wand in transforming the status of a student?

It bears the miraculous power of converting poor-achievers into highly brilliant students. Diligence hones the inherent talent and unharnessed potential of a student and enables him or her to become confident to face the of examination. The great Chinese teacher and philosopher Confucius had once said, "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." Despite failures galore we must keep on studying sincerely and labouring hard for achieving what we have dreamt. Thoroughly and intensively study the subjects of syllabi and practise more consistently to retain the lessons. This ends up calming and strengthening us to cope up with the pressures of examination, if any.

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Strike the right balance For CAT Preparation - How to Prepare for CAT Examination ?

Strike the right balance For CAT Preparation

How to Prepare for CAT Examination?

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Majority of CAT aspirants are either college students or recent graduates with one-two years of work experience. Since the exam isn’t as knowledge-intensive as others like UPSC or JEE, most aspirants prepare for it alongside their college or work, as the case may be. This makes sense, especially if you have more than four-five months at hand. The trick then is to be able to balance the requirements of CAT preparation with the obligations at your college or workplace.

Draw out a plan

A good way to plan your CAT preparation from now till November end, when the CAT is typically scheduled, is to see it as 45-week time period, and have a weekly schedule in place. It should allow you to balance your CAT preparation with your other engagements. One must understand that CAT is more a test of skill than knowledge. The skills that one needs to develop are how you think about problems, simplify them, make use of options by either selecting the right one or eliminating the wrong ones and get to the right answer in as less time as possible. Even when it comes to other skills like painting, acting, sports or music, you only get better with regular practice and not with sporadic bursts of effort. Two hours a day would take you farther than 14 hours dedicated to studies in one single day of the week. You can study regularly alongside your college or job.

Know your strengths

A thorough CAT preparation would require around 800- 1,000 hours of time investment, depending upon when you start, your strengths and weaknesses. Usually, one third of this is spent inside the coaching classes. There you will learn various topics, cover syllabus and use of shortcuts. You will also develop lateral thinking and learn test-taking and strategic inputs to maximise scores. At the same time, you must ensure that you make the best use of the remaining two-thirds of the time on your own. For this time that is roughly around 600-650 hours, it is imperative that you have:

1. A weekly plan that ensures the discipline that skill-building needs.

2. A knowledge of your stronger and weaker areas that ensures optimum investment of time.

A BREAK IS IMPORTANT Day-seven should ideally be the rest day – that allows you to take a break and re-energise. A good performance in CAT requires you to be fresh in your mind rather than being exhausted and jaded by the time the CAT arrives.

CHANGE THE STRATEGY WHEN REQUIRED Your plan will need to change once you start getting closer to the CAT, with more focus needed on mock-CATs, analysis and temperament. But remember, a beautiful building wouldn’t last long without a solid foundation. That is exactly what you need to focus on right now — maintaining the right pace and peaking at the right time. And while you are at it, don’t forget to enjoy the process

Add self-study to coaching

Assuming that you are engaged with a formal coaching for two days a week, which for most regular college students and working professionals might be the weekend, you essentially need to plan for the remaining five days for two hours a day. For the first few months of your preparation, this time should ideally be invested in getting basics right in various topics. This will prove invaluable later when you practice mock CATs and also when you actually appear for the CAT, because it allows you to select questions or leave them as per your strengths and weaknesses.

The right start

In the initial stages of your preparation, you could look to devote 90 minutes to VARC (verbal ability and reading comprehension, which is basically English), DILR (data interpretation & logical reasoning, which tests your logical ability and ability to infer from data) and QA (quantitative ability, which revolves around mathematical concepts) in rotation on fixed days of the week. The remaining 30 minutes daily should ideally be devoted to the areas such as reading, listening, watching, writing and speaking. Language as a skill proves invaluable not only during the written test i.e. the CAT, but also during interviews, written-ability test and group discussions that form the final step in the selection to various top MBA colleges.

Reading from as diverse sources as possible regularly improves performance in reading comprehension portion at the CAT, which has been the single biggest component of CAT, with 24 questions out of a total of 100, over the past several years. A day of the week should be devoted to the weakest areas of VARC, DILR and QA. Weakest areas allow for the maximum scope of improvement.

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STEP BY STEP GUIDE FOR GATE EXAMINATION 2019 - MAKE THE RIGHT ATTEMPT FOR A SUCCESS

GATE Exam 2019-way to success

TESTING TIMES: GATE

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Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is a premier examination for graduate engineers who are aiming to secure a job in the PSUs or proceed for higher studies in IITs/ NITs, etc. These career defining goals of each aspirant are achieved with rigorous preparation and practice for more than 100 days. The GATE exam pattern comprises 65 questions and is divided into two sections — general aptitude (GA), which includes 10 questions and technical section, which has 55 questions.

The technical section has about 20 questions in NAT format, while the remaining are MCQs. In all, candidates have 3 hours to answer the exam. In the GA section, question one to question five carry one mark, while question six to question 10 carry two marks. In the technical section, question one to question 25 carry one mark while question 26 to question 55 carry two marks. Negative marking for MCQ is 0.33 for one-mark questions and 0.66 for two marks questions. NAT questions do not have negative marking. Candidates should follow their desired method of attempting the question paper. Preparation for GATE is considered to be complete only once the exam is taken.

MAKE THE RIGHT ATTEMPT

Here are two ways to attempt the GATE exam and to maximize your score:

Common method

■ Solve the entire paper in one or two scans.

■ The procedure is: Click on each question, read the complete question, understand the question and answer it in the first attempt (without any guesses).

■ Always solve easy questions in minimum time in a single go.

■ Hard or lengthy questions can be kept for the second scan of the paper.

■ Answering any question should not take more than four to six minutes.

■ All the unsolved and reviewed questions must be attempted only in the second scan. 

Alternative method

■ Candidates are provided with a notepad, which is used for attempting and solving questions in GATE.

■ Candidates may treat this as an offline exam, where they can solve questions and answer them on the notepad with options.

■ After 100 or 120 minutes, candidates can start marking the answers on the online system in a single flow.

STEP BY STEP GUIDE

■ GATE exam includes more than 20 NAT questions, which do not have any options. So, there is always an uncertainty about the correct answer. Therefore, a candidate should spend more time on these questions, only if she is absolutely sure about the answers. Else, one can skip the questions and come back later.

■ Your aim should be to attempt more than 50 questions, which you are confident about.

■ Restrict your guesswork to a maximum of two-three questions only if you are able to eliminate two options in an MCQ.

■ You may guess the answer for NAT as these do not carry negative marks. Choice of section to attempt first: GA or technical section.

■ Generally, candidates have a tendency to begin from the very first question, therefore it is advised to first attempt GA section and secure at-least 10-12 marks from this section.

■ Also, the candidate can then focus on technical questions till the last second of the exam.

■ If a candidate is confident about technical section, she can proceed with it first, followed by the GA section.

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Basic Employability Skills List - Good Job Skills are Critical for Future Employment

Employability Skills List

Good Job Skills

Employability Skill Improvement to Grab A Good Job in Future

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In this article we are going to share some basic employability skills list with you readers to grab a good job in future. Everyone of us should know about these basic employability skills before getting ready for a professional careers.  Looking ahead at 2019 and beyond, is not just about jobs and careers of the future, but more about how we should prepare ourselves for what could be a completely different world 10 years hence! Ten years ago, Facebook didn’t exist, nor did WhatsApp! Ten years before that, we didn’t have the Web. Yet today everyone is on a roller coaster speeding ahead to a world where nothing is predictable, nor impossible. But what is apparent is that good job skills won’t disappear — they will be re-defined, requiring new skill list. The idea that you get an education when you're young and then you stop and you go and work for 40 or 50 years with that educational training and that’s over for sure now. All of us are going to have to continue to adapt, get new employability skills, and possibly go back for different types of training and credentials.

Moreover, the skills set needed for jobs in the future are changing along with the advancing technology and the digital world. In fact, soft skills like communication, problem-solving, collaboration and empathy are becoming as much valued as tech savviness. In such a world, how do we prepare ourselves for the jobs of the unknown future ? We can do that by focusing today's learning towards employability skills required for an evolving and super charged tomorrow:

Social Skills – Communication

It isn't enough just doing engineering, or some technical course, the better technology gets, the more people will have to focus on their "human skills" to survive in the workforce. As computers get more intelligent, the work that will take over will require human skills like leadership, motivation and emotional intelligence. In fact overall social skills such as persuasion, and teaching others will be in demand across industries, as will cognitive abilities, such as creativity and mathematical reasoning, communication and complex problem solving capabilities.

Equally important is Social Intelligence : The ability to connect with others in a deep and direct way to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions ; Cross cultural competence - the ability to operate in different cultural settings; and trans- disciplnary intelligence - literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines.

Technology skills:

Starting with solid technology skills, essential for every student — Digital literacy skills. The digital transformation impacts every industry, and being able to befriend the “machine” is one of the most critical of skills. Just knowing programming languages is not enough. Even today the maximum jobs being lost are in the IT services sector, where applications are being moved to the cloud, and the focus is on machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics. The ability to embrace technology and machines is about the ability to get stuff done, about knowing the tools and how to use them. They also involve using social media, working with design or video editing software and knowing programming languages. Some skills that could be useful in a future technology-driven world:

■ Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning: AI is becoming essential for acquiring, storing, transferring and managing the huge amounts of data produced today. AI and machine learning scientists can work within a variety of settings, including private companies, technology companies, production and manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, customer service, finance, construction, government agencies and defence.

■ Coding : An increasing number of businesses are relying on computer code, particularly those involving Information Technology, Data Analysis, design, engineering and pure science.

■ Digital Marketing: More and more companies are moving their marketing into the digital space for greater reach and access to the needs of customers, their usage of websites and search engines and to optimize online marketing initiatives.

■ Design thinking: Accelerated rates of technological and social change will require more workers to focus on problem finding and problem framing, rather than simply problem solving. Design thinking introduces methods of problem finding and problem framing in the pursuit of emergent innovation. Some ways to develop or improve your technology skills include:

■ Take up a short or online course in the IT skills you wish to develop

■ Find out what technology will be used in the job you want and how it's used

■ Take up extra training at work

Tips to boost Basic employability Skills

■ Learn a new language - bilingual employees have a definite advantage in today's global world.

■Whenever possible, participate in college activities and be a part of the organising committee for college events. These initiatives will teach you values of team work, leadership skills, communication skills and will go a long way in preparing you for the future.

■ Take up a summer internship while you are still studying so that you get hands-on experience of the workings of an industry. This will be taken into account by your hiring manager and will give you an edge over other candidates.

■ It is vital to keep an open mind and keep learning, throughout your career. Maintain a lifelong learning outlook. It will certainly help improve your employability.

Critical thinking & complex problem-solving Although we strongly rely on automated technology for some parts of our work, there are some things a computer just cannot do, such as make executive decisions for us. The Information Age requires a brand-new set of skills involving statistics, probability, cost-benefit analysis, principles of cognitive psychology, logic and dialectical reasoning. You need these skills to be able to constantly analyze various situations, consider multiple solutions and make decisions through logic and reasoning.

Problem-solving is a skill we should all possess but as the world advances, we'll be faced with even more difficulties than ever before. In order to find solutions to these problems, you need to have the mental flexibility and proficiency of thinking outside the box, to see the bigger picture and come up with solutions and responses. It involves being able to use a logical process to figure things out. Start expanding your brain power and tackling a few issues that have been lingering, and you'll be fully prepared for the future.

Some ways to develop adaptability/Employability skills: Start in small ways like changing your route to work, saying 'yes' to something you might normally say 'no' to automatically, or trying a different and unfamiliar food Look for opportunities to try new things that will keep you learning- learn a new skill, make new friends, try a new type of food, take the initiative for starting something new in your college, community. Whenever you encounter a new challenge, make a quick list of some of the potential ways you could solve the problem. Experiment with different strategies and focus on developing a logical way to work through common problems Undertake exercises that encourage you to work out several COAs (Courses of action) for hypothetical challenging situations. Every one should have a Good Job skill to satisfy his/her role in the organization. So every one should work on these basic Employability Skills to increase their job scope.

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