Guys!
I am pleased to share my psychology notes. I had scored 249 in psycho (one of the highest).Notes of paper 2 shall follow soon.
How to use these
1) Please use them only as ADD ONs and not as your mainstay of psycho prep. There is NO substitute to textbooks like Baron, Ciccarelli etc
2) The Doc files are the most important files. Read other files (pdfs etc) only when you have sufficient time.
3)Key: CIC means Ciccarelli, PM=printed material, CN=class notes,Baron=Baron, Morgan=Morgan and King
Here is the link: https:
Paper 1
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/58o3kmju8rppf62/AACyCo1yxl_ZgntFqBF-kWRCa
Paper 2
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sauzszd0rs5fswt/AAB69EC4bUo-jObbQJ-DXaLEa
Monday, June 30, 2014
Sunday, June 22, 2014
How I did It- My Marksheet
CIVIL SERVICES (MAIN) EXAMINATION, 2013
|
| ROLL NO. : | 456769 |
| NAME : | PRABHAV JOSHI |
| MARKS OBTAINED | |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Remarks :-RECOMMENDED For the sake of comparison, my marks in CSM 2012 were
MARKS OBTAINED
SUBJECTS MARKS
ESSAY (PAPER- III) 081
GENRAL STUDIES (PAPER- IV) 123
GENRAL STUDIES (PAPER- V) 091
OPTIONAL- I(PSYCHOLOGY) (PAPER- VI) 101
OPTIONAL- I(PSYCHOLOGY) (PAPER- VII) 116
OPTIONAL- II(GEOGRAPHY) (PAPER- VIII) 78
OPTIONAL- II(GEOGRAPHY) (PAPER- IX) 128
WRITTEN TOTAL 718
PERSONALITY TEST 160
FINAL TOTAL 878
My marks in 2012 were pretty competitive except in essay and the interview.
MORAL OF THE STORY: INTERVIEW and ESSAY can see you in and out of the IAS!
My strategy for the interview and essay shall follow soon.
|
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
How I did it- Self study vs Group Study
STUDYING
IN A GROUP VS STUDYING ALONE
Dear Friends!
One of my juniors from
BITS Pilani had asked whether one should study in group or prefer self study.
Here is my take on the issue
I am strongly in favour of
studying alone for mains. In the interview stage interacting/studying in group
obviously helps. More on interview preparation later...
Why I did nt like studying
in a group
1) Snatches away your freedom
to study at your own pace and in your own style
2) Is uncomfortable- time and
energy wasted in travelling to a common place, chit chatting etc
3) Multiple inputs from
multiple people may lead to confusion, information overload etc
On the other hand, some of
the successful guys I know used to study in groups.
The obvious advantages of
studying in groups
1) is that you can divide the coursework amongst
yourself.
2) Peer pressure increases
your motivation
I personally feel that technology has enabled
to collaborate electronically now. So I prefer virtual interaction rather than
going to someone’s house and wasting time travelling, chit chatting etc
What we did was we made an
online group. We used that for
1) getting our doubts cleared- specially helped
me a lot in psychology
2) Sharing relevant
articles/information. Anyone who came across something relevant which others
would have missed, he/she used to share it on the group. VERY VERY USEFUL for preparation of topics like environment/SnT for which specific textbooks are not available
3)
Getting our answers peer
reviewed
Studying in groups can
help when
·
All the members of the group are highly and equally motivated
·
Are of similar
capabilities
·
The group size is small
I
have tried to cover as many aspects of group ‘study vs self study’ issue as I
could. In case I have missed out anything, please feel free to ask in the
comments section below!
Monday, June 16, 2014
How I did it-UPSC Civil Services Mains-ANSWER WRITING
ANSWER WRITING-MAINS
1.
The first and the foremost thing is to READ the
question well and UNDERSTAND what
has been asked! You may think its trivial but due to paucity of time in the
mains exam, people write what they know and NOT what has been asked! I used to underline the key terms in the question
and also used to look back at the question mid way to ensure that I was notstraying
from the track
2.
Point wise vs Paragraph form: Writing In points increases
the readability of the answer and makes life easier for the examiner. Whenever
I had sufficient points, I wrote in point formats. BUT in questions where I did
nt have enough points, I had to write in paragraph form to beat around the
bush. NOTE: beating around the bush is not advisable as it only consumes your time
without giving much return. It better to answer comeback to this question later
after answering questions that you know well.
3.
Answer writing ‘skills’-There
is NOTHING- let me emphasize
again- NOTHING called ‘answer writing
skills’. Just write down all the points that you have!! Completing the paper in
itself is such a tough task, forget anything else! CONTENT
is the single most important thing. I recommend first thinking for a minute and
jotting down all the points in rough and then arranging them in order of
importance in the final answer.
4.
SPEED SPEED SPEED: If you
see, the questions this time around were not very tough but the papers were
very lengthy. Writing speed is hence of PARAMOUNT
importance. Increase it any cost. I still painfully remember leaving out
questions like string of pearls, maldivian crisis in paper 2 because I had
spent too much time on the earlier questions
5.
Underlining
key words helps.
6.
Stick to
the word limit: there are few questions about which you will know a lot.
One feels tempted to write down pages and pages for that question (out of sheer
joy!). I must have written at least 3 pages on that Nagaland petroleum
exploration license question. Avoid doing this! Not sticking to the word limit
will cost you time. Hence I recommend sticking to the TIME limit for every
question rather than the word limit.
7.
Practise Practise Practise!:
form a group of 2/3 people. Take up a predecided topic and write 2 questions
DAILY on the topic chosen. Get yourself peer reviewed. We used this technique
in Psycho. We formed a online group of 3 people and used to fix up a chapter a
day earlier and then used to write down 2 random questions from the old
question papers the next day. Spend at least 30-40 minutes on answer writing
8.
Test series: enrol
yourself in at least one test series. A test series gives you a schedule to stick
to ensuring that you complete the syllabus well within the time and in a
balanced way. Writing a paper for 3 hours gives you the actual feel of the
exam. Many of my friends used to skip the tests because of non completion of
syllabus. Please NEVER do this and appear in all tests and write as much you
know. I had joined synergy test series for GS and found it to be very useful. Over
1000 candidates appear in that and my rank used to hover around 30.
I had joined vision IAS test series (psycho and geo) during my
first attempt because I was preparing from Chittaurgarh, my hometown. Initially
they used to evaluate my answersheets promptly but as mains approaced, their processing time
increased. Vision’s review varies from
subject to subject. But in general its allright for people who are not in
delhi. The good thing about them is obviously the flexibilty to choose where
and when to write.
Don’t enrol in too many
test series. I did not join any
for Psycho. Lastly and the most importantly,
DO NOT MISS THE FULL SYLLABUS TESTS HELD JUST BEFORE THE EXAMS
9.
Pen: I am a big fan of flair’s writo
meter. Its smooth and the fastest but not comfortable. Choose a pen which
suites you and is comfortable. Some people write in black ink too.
10.
Hand
writing: needless to say,
it should be legible. But those like me who have horrific handwriting need not
worry! Just write in bigger sized fonts with greater spacing to improve the
readabilty
11.
Language: you don’t need to be a Kalidas or a
Shakespeare. Use simple and short sentences. Language is no issue if you have
good content
12.
Examples: giving examples always help.
Specially while explaining technical terms/phenomena
13.
Diagrams:
in questions of geography specially and even otherwise, a diagram always help.
But make sure its clear and does nt eat up much of your time
14.
Long term
approach for improving Answer writing and Essays: start blogging!
To sum up, answer writing skills are
nothing but content and time management. It’s a difficult task to complete the
paper itself, forget adding frills!
I have tried to cover as many aspects
of answer writing as I could. In case I have missed out anything, please feel
free to ask in the comments section below!
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