Ways to prepare for Civil Services

Due to the fact that the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) is one of the world’s toughest exams to compete in, the very idea of preparing for it creates a stir in the minds of the aspirants. The history of these exams states that many of the students have to appear several times to clear it and yet the success ratio is 1:100.

Concept

The basic idea for developing this test is to judge the analytical skills of the candidate along with his/her decision-making capabilities. The test aims on choosing suitable administrators who have the inherent instinct for management and administration.

Preparation

First Step

Before you start off with your preparation the first and the foremost thing you should emphasize on is to know the whole format of the examination in a comprehensive manner. To have known the whole format helps the student to be up to date with the current trends and the examination patterns. These details can best be acquired by getting in touch with your teachers, seniors and various online portals.

Prelims 

Starting with the prelims, the basic misconception that a student faces is the notion that this test is all about facts and figures. In reality all you need to have to clear the prelims is the determination to actually crack it. One should have the right strategy, a proper frame of mind and quick decision-making power to perform well in the prelims. In the prelims one’s fundamental knowledge about various subjects and topics are tested, so it is very important that one should have an in depth knowledge of these topics beforehand and in order to achieve this one should thoroughly read the NCERT books of class 6 to 10th in general science and social science (polity, sociology, history and geography) to systematically build up their fundamentals’ base.

Apart from building a base of your fundamentals, another important aspect for the aspirants is to be up to date with the current state of affairs taking place worldwide. For this, it’s highly advisable for students to read a number of renowned newspapers, magazines and journals. And not only reading these are essential but also the students are required to make notes of the important topics on a daily basis. Some of the publications that are considered useful for preparing of IAS are mentions as following,

• Newspapers – The Hindu and Indian Express
• Magazines – Frontline, Competition Wizard, Yojana, Kurukshetra
• Others – India Year Book by Publication Division and Economic Survey

Mains 

In the mains examination a student has to sit for 9 papers out of which 2 are qualifying while the rest seven are ranking in nature. Now the trick to prepare for the mains is to strategically select your subjects for the 1st and the VIII-IXth paper. One should select the subjects in which he/she is best at. This helps the person in devoting less time on the optional subjects while they can focus more on the other ones especially General Studies since it has the most weightage i.e. 1000 marks

Personality Test

This is the last step before you finally crack this elongated process. Well personality test as the name defines; one is expected to be rational, quick in response, analytic and of course should have a convincing persona. Whatever the situation is one needs to be calm and confident and this the only mantra for succeeding in this part of the examination.