tips for ias preperation!!

dare!

Tips for those preparing for the IAS

Be very selective about choosing the subject for preliminaries, as you will be appearing for an objective type of paper. It might be possible for many to score high in history, mathematics, and geography. Choose subjects for which you have aptitude and availability of books, reading material and guidance. In recent years engineering subjects like civil and electrical can be chosen, giving Engineers an advantage.

G.K. will definitely be an important aspect in your preliminaries. Reading newspapers, watching TV news and of course practicing quiz is a must. If you have reached the interview stage, knowledge through books may not be the only thing you could do with. Your mental alertness will count as they ask you questions like “How many steps did you walk up to reach here?” or “What is the colour of the wall behind you ?” - So be prepared.

Enhance your personality because it will definitely be one of the criteria for selection. For IPS physical wellbeing is of great importance, you should be medically fit.

Improve your communication and writing skills.The ability to write good Essays is very important for a high scoring in the civil service examination.

IFS aspirants must be proficient at least in one foreign language. So go ahead, have your way in this political mess of our country and try to make the world around us a better place to live in. Many smart civil service leaders manage this with back seat driving without being obvious in their maneuver.

Tricks for IAS
In early days there used to be 40 to 60 thousand contenders for the coveted posts. Today, while the number of aspirants has risen by over 200 percent, many new centres have come up in almost every state capital and many other major cities for giving the coaching for the IAS aspirants. In those days smart professionals and technocrats were not attracted for these jobs. In recent years many brilliant engineers and doctors choose this path and many a times come to the top positions in the merit list.

In early days History, Sociology, Political Science etc. used to be the most popular options but today, many new subjects are tried at. Besides, many states have changed their pattern of PCS examination in line with UPSC examination.
Mathematics, Physics, Geology etc., optionals for Preliminaries must be opted for, only if one is very thorough with those subjects. As UPSC ensures that 'some' candidates from every discipline must qualify for the Mains, aspirants with a science subject must judge themselves correctly regarding their own capability to be included in these 'some'. Some of the social sciences (e.g. History, Sociology and Public Administration) opted by quite a significant majority can, however, be a much safer bet, particularly for those (ordinary science graduates) who do not have any specific parent subject or for those who are not able to develop confidence in their parental subject. In either case, the formal preparation must start from the basic fundamentals, even if a person is already a post-graduate in that subject.

General Studies (GS) has to be prepared on quite a different plane because the content of this paper is too spread out and because any issue, major or minor, can be asked objectively. Traditionally, 10 + 2 level books of NCERT or any state education board had been covering a major part of the content but, these days, the items in news during the last one year or so, are being asked quite frequently. Problems are generally faced in everyday science (by the candidates with social sciences background) or in mental ability or in the fundamentals of economics. The most important aspect for the preparation of GS Prelims, therefore, is to identify the loop-holes and plug them urgently.

Many of you prepare a subject in terms of "reading" (once, twice, thrice etc.) with or without underlining the important facts. It results not only in longer time of preparation, but also many important points may skip. Also, even if you underline the highlighting points, most of you have the tendency to read the text in full while going for the subsequent readings. It is, therefore, advisable that texts must be read once and all important points (likely to be forgotten) recorded separately so that you need not study voluminous texts again. This would save on your time and should result in greater efficiency. The Mains: For right approach, the preparation of Mains should start before or at least concurrent with Prelims. Just because you have to prepare for Essay, GS and the two optionals (English and a regional language, the one/two other compulsory, do not require a separate preparation) you never get enough time (to prepare for all these) after the declaration of Prelims' results. Further, while Prelims is only a screening test, it is on the basis of your performance in Mains, on which mainly depends the final outcome of your efforts. Strategically, therefore, the preparation for the examination should start about one year in advance and you should think about appearing in the Prelims only when you have had a strong grip over the Mains' subject matter.