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Hello everyone,
Its been again a long time that I had any post written here. Well, I have one now, an important one and something which is very close to my heart. It is like seeing another dream of mine coming true, on which I patiently worked upon for at least more than a year. But it was not before I got support from my colleagues, through a team effort that I was able to bring this out today.
Many people have asked, and been asking help and guidance regarding the preparation for the civil services examination, and we all have been doing our bit to clear their doubts and worries. Yet, these were all efforts in many directions and in bits. There was always a necessity for a consolidation of all these suggestions and ideas, experiences and strategies for the benefit of all the aspirants working for the exam. My parents at a point of time, mentioned to me that one should come up with some book which explains all the basics to all the aspirants, especially the newcomers. I had very similar feelings throughout my preparation, and so once I am done with my prep, I started working on making all the above happen. To give a directed guidance, in the form of a document.
There must have been some websites and other books/institutes doing the same job. Thanks to them, we are helpful in sharing our experiences to a wider audience than ever before. Nevertheless, this effort would find aspirants with some answers for the changed pattern as well as gearing up for all stages of the examination through a singular effort.
Please go through the document, it can help a lot. and I hope it helps as many as possible.
Please send in your ideas/strategies/suggestions/concerns/comments so that we can incorporate them in an updated version of the document.
This is not the end of the effort, but as suggested in the document, we still need to come up with a central repository of all the material that will be useful for various papers in the new pattern. Watch out for this space (and the forum : www.worthview.com/forum ) for updates on documents and resources.
Finally, Please find the document here : “Reading between the Lines: Preparing for the Civil Services Examination”
P.S. : I have updated the document with some of the latest developments, more FAQs answered and for some silly errors. Please download this latest document here : Reading between the Lines: Preparing for the Civil Services Examination
All the best !
Love playing Tennis. Love Movies
Sir I m a dental student. So which optional subject should I prefer sir. How different is it for an dental background student ?? Please suggest me..
thank you for this amazing document
@ Nikhil Kaul..
Please mail me ur query , if u don’t mind – kalyan.gnp@gmail.com . i would be able to respond faster.
Hi Nikhil Sir,
I have read your article, and I must say it is an amazing help for us. However, as you have mentioned in your booklet, I am working in IT, and the problem I am facing is:
“How do I fit multiple sources of study and multiple things to do in a week’s routine (5 Weekdays + 2 Weekend days) so that I can cover everything? Primarily I can understand allotting sometime for Core Static Subjects like Polity, Eco etc. But what about the Current Affairs sources like the PIB, GKToday, Frontline, Yojana – their present and OLD ISSUES most importantly? How do I devise a routing to cover this?”
Kindly help with the same and I will be very thankful to you.
Regards,
Nikhil
Please read the above document carefully. It mentions and i repeat, there is no need to remember all the events, and if you are not able to recollect some, it is just fine. you are not supposed to remember everything. even for the examples you took, it is easy if you can first understand the processes of salination n others, you can actually remember better.
I am not sure why you and many others are not able to find NCERT text books online, i will try and put some of them online myself and share the link.
hello sir, thnk u vry much for helping and supporting aspirants lyk me. sir, im beginner and hav some basic questions. plzz help.
sir, i hav started preparing before 5 months and hav read some basic(NCERT, Bipan chandra books on modern india, Indian polity by M Laxmikant).But after reading them once or twice still im unable to recall some events (infact many things im not able to recall). Dat is very discouraging for me.
can u please help as I dont wann give up.
we r not supposed to mug-up the things but for eg. wen i read about physical geography phenomenon “formation of landforms due to action of winds”, i made some points and its meaning such as salination, deflation, sandblast action,sand dunes, barchan etc. so whenevr question will b frm dat topic, i’ll expln those points. is dat correct way of stdying or im mugging up things indirectly.
And as NCERT has changed syllabus, in case of polity and economics, is it fine to read new syllabus books or should i go for old syllabus books?
Dear Sir, Your document is a sight for sore headlights, Thanks a million for the hard work you had put in to help rookies. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Thanks for sharing the views and really a worthy examination
Its not about crossing limits, don’t worry on that.
I am already little away from the subject, u have to realise that. in fact, i would have appreciated if you made an attempt to answer first and then asked me to go through them to suggest any changes.
anyways, to give the questions a try, here it should be.
1. there are very good examples that one can find regarding religious conversions in tribal people, especially to christianity and hinduism for want of improvement of standards of livelihood. they follow an interesting process where they still stick to their traditional ways of beliefs n customs yet adhering to the new religion. this is the expectation of the question. ensure you provide exact examples of the same, you must be able to find them from tribals of north east, odisha etc.
2. similarly, upon the interaction with the non-tribals the gender equations also started changing. there won’t be any better examples than the nambudaris (or whichever is the tribal people in nilgiris, the famous matriarchal tribal system) , which slowly is now disappearing. essentially, the question expects you to analyse the previous situation of female domination in some tribes, status of equality and how it all changed to a very downgraded position to them, imitating the caste system
That’s the max i could do. if u expect me write full answers, i am sorry!
@nikhilpavankalyan:disqus
Did I cross any limit ? Was it too specific/time taking ?
I found these questions difficult(of my level at the moment ) and wanted to know your take on this .
@nikhilpavankalyan:disqus
Sir,
How would you have been answered the following questions ? Outline of the answer will suffice .
1.Using the ethnographic example highlight the process of religious conversion in tribal India .(2012 Paper 2 )
2.Using ethnographic examples, went out of how gender relationship changed over time among central Indian tribes.(2012 Paper 2 )
Many Thanks .
thank u sir for the quick response 🙂
if you could look at the content and tell which one it was it would be of much help.
A Brief History of Modern India: http://goo.gl/VgsHzQ
Comprehensive History of Modern India : http://goo.gl/eVOCwi
thanks
Don’t remember which one i read, but from the name of it, brief history would suffice 🙂
sir which spectrum book for modern India is recommended:
A Brief History of Modern India
or
Comprehensive History of Modern India
thanks 🙂
I took test series not for evaluation as such, but for practice. It is important to realize that the more one writes, the more better ur answer becomes, how trivial ever this suggestion might look,
Every test series is good. No question about it. like the way every upsc paper is felt tough.
The point im trying to make here is that , it doesn’t matter which test series, but it matters to just join any one of the test series. it is almost , a must.
Nikhil Pavan Kalyan
Read somewhere that you joined Vaid sir test series for Anthro .
How beneficial/good the test series is ?
Do you have the evaluated answer sheet of test you wrote there ?
ok…..thank you sir…..
Thank you !
Our pleasure.
Preparation for essay, to get the depths of topics would be generally from Frontline and other magazines, and directly from the newspapers. No other source is as best as these two. I guess this point is also mentioned in the document. Please read.
Nikhil sir can u suggest me about current affairs in MAINS exam…as we have to write essay type questions it requires in depth analysis of specific issue….so from where should i prepare for this….???
A very Big Thank You for the analytical efforts you made in creating this Gita…thnx a lot…
thank you very much for giving such precious guidance and support .these are very useful for aspirant like me who have doesn’t that much money to join the costly coaching classes and neither a good background to guide us.thank you from deep down inside my heart.
if u can separate syllabus wise, you can always stick to the syllabus. experience tells us its not that easy to identify what’s in the syllabus and what’s not. so, make sure u keep that in mind.
yes, it will be very much relevant, at least for the multiple choice questions it provides. i hope TMH would update for the new pattern as well.
Hello sir,
You have mentioned about the TMH manual throughout “Reading between the lines”. Does it still stay relevant for the present examination pattern?
Regards
sir is it necessary to go through all the topics of ncert books or just the topics given in syllabus
sir is it necessary to go through all the whole ncert or just the topics given in syllabus because 6 to 12 ncert books mean a stack of 40 books which is not easy to go through and memorize it
thank you !
i dont have any sample answers or notes for anthro. sorry on that regard.
there is as such no prescribed format for starting with the subject, just take up few topics and start reading them from any of the books. what else would b the way ?
@nikhilpavankalyan:disqus
Sir ,I am pleased to know that Anthropology was one of your optional , I just began my preparation and planning to take same optional, hence expect some specific guidance from you.
You mentioned the books and material required for the subject in your document(Between the lines) but being a beginners I would like know: 1.How to start with which study material ? 2.Order of preparation and how to proceed ?
Mr. Anay Dwivedi has uploaded some sample answer and notes in his blogs (for pub ad and Psychology) , If you can provide something similar to that for Anthropology that would help a lot.
Many Thanks .
Nikhil Sir and Team, take my humblest of bow and tons of gratitude for coming with such a beautiful document that will definitely be a watershed moment for all those preparing for CSE.
Thanks and Lots of Best wishes.
sir plzz suggest us strategy of zoology and booklist of it, i m in a full of confusiasm.
no specific suggestions for any institute or series. go for the best option that u could find. it is more important to practice than to practice with only a particular series.
it is sufficient for you as well, if u can read it again. we tried to answer almost all the questions u raised.
for practical and general awareness questions, u need practical ideas. that is why it is important to read from arc reports and other latest pub ad related documents and reports from the govt of india and other institutions.
There is no explicit recommendation for any single optional subject. that’s exactly what we waned to convey. it is very tough to suggest which optional to take or whether to change . the best situation always would be to stick with an optional.
Nikhil sir,the docmnt(reading b/w lines) is great work by u…thanq…i took pub ad as optional..i convinced wid ur suggestions for paper-1,,but in previous question papers paper 2 is having more questns about practical and general awareness about various aspects of administration….so can u guide me more about this paper……how to score well in this???
Thanks, but after reading(completely) your great effort(Between the lines), i have found myself in the maze & little apprehension as far as choosing optional is concerned. Sir, now that you recommend Anthropology highly giving even statistics of 150 ques, 90% etcetra, i very humbly find my choice of pub ad eclipsed. Since am from engg. background like yours, all social sciences look ”equal” to me.
My humble question to you is now that only 5 months remain to go for mains, should i think of changing optional to anthropology, for i cannot even hide my face from the fact that Paper-1(of public ad) was indeed tough and aspirants have certainly scored ”much less” as compared to other optional subject? Sincerely awaiting your reply.
I ve 2 ask dat can i start preparin in 1st yr of mi clg?? Nd hw many hours i ve 2 spent in civils preparion??
Btw, comin 2 ur post, it was actualy sufficient 4 evry1 bt nt 4 me..i need smthng mre.. i want 2 knw whch books r bs nd evrythng..i need ful guidance 4m u if u dnt mind.
Dis is monika..
Thanks Nikhil and Team, this document really helps a lot for first timers like us. The compilation of online resources is too good. Thanks a lot everyone for your great help.
This is my email id : rrameshreddy@gmail.com. You can introduce me to them by mail or send me the contact details to this mail id. Please let me if that works for you.
Sir, I have Political Science as my optional. I want to improve my answer writing skills, could you kindly suggest which mock test series I might opt for?
I can get u in touch with some friends of mine, let me know how we should go about it.
Nikhil pavan garu, thanks for that excellent document. I am looking for some one who has taken management as an optional and succeeded in clearing the exam. If you know of someone it would be great if u could put me in touch them. tht would be of great help. Kudos again for the excellent work that you are doing
I guess it is corrected now. Thank you !
Thanks a lot Nikhil sir and Team for the guidance.
One Request for a minor correction:
Now after the revised notification: The essay paper is of 250 marks and the English comprehension is no more there in the mains examination. Kindly have a look.
Thanks and Regards,
Santosh.
great job Nikhil and all other friends who worked for this.. I wish I could read such a comprehensive and authentic one during the initial stages of my preparation.. I’m sure thousands will benefit from this endeavour.
I have seen from your sides how much energy and time you have invested in bringing out this document.
I am sure these inputs will be of great help to all our aspirants and guide them to accomplish their set-goal.
With best regards,
Ramachandran Ramasamy.