Noted academician P. V. Lakshmaiah addresses students at seminar
Noted academician P. V. Lakshmaiah addresses students at seminar
Right approach, combined with right planning and proper guidance, can help aspirants crack the Civil Services examination, said noted academician and anthropologist P. V. Lakshmaiah.
Addressing aspiring civil servants from various colleges at a seminar on ‘How to crack civils at a young age through the degree with Civils coaching’ organised by The Hindu’s Future India Club in association with Dr. Lakshmaiah IAS Study Circle and Andhra Loyola College (ALC) on Sunday, he said Civil services exam is not a difficult one to crack, only that one needs to tackle with it differently.
From Day One of the preparation for Civils examination, aspirants should think like administrators to understand their perceptions. Going through NCERT books and reading and analysing editorials in newspapers will help you crack the exam, he told the students.
“Educated guesswork plays a key role while taking the civils examinations. One cannot complete the examination without guesswork as there would be no specific answers. However, every guess should be an informed one based on the knowledge aspirants gain about the world around in general and from the exam preparation. If you do not guess, you will be out of the competition,” he said.
“Even the best students can directly answer only 25% of the questions in the preliminary examination. Every year, the question paper is unique and the nature of the questions is unpredictable but aspirants should be able to predict the answers with a clarity of thought and understanding of various subjects. One should remember that the preliminary examination is not a selection process but an elimination process,” he added.
Even the first ranker in the Civils (Mains) could score not more than 50% to 60%. It is not possible to master all the subjects but aspirants should have a basic idea of all the topics. “One will have only a few minutes to write an answer in the Mains exam. Only those who could summarise the given topic and present the gist of it will be able to succeed,” he said.
Responding to a question in the interaction session, Dr. Lakshmaiah said that revision is essential. Aspirants should prepare notes so that the subject could be revised any time before the exam, he said.
He also said that aspirants need not study day and night but should make the habit of waking up early. To another question, he said aspirants should read every single piece of the editorial published at least 1.5 years before the examination in the newspapers, particularly The Hindu.
Earlier, Chief Secretary of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh Mohan Kanda, former Special Chief Secretary to the Government of A.P. Manmohan Singh addressed the aspirants virtually. Dr. Lakshmaiah IAS Study Circle managing director P. Uday Chowdary and others were present.
The seminar was the first of a series of seminars to be conducted in New Delhi, Tirupati and Guntur.