CSS Forums - View Single Post - From having been failed in Islamiat to obtaining 68 marks.

Tassawur · #1 Tuesday, September 25, 2018

From Having Been Failed in Islamiat to Obtaining 68 Marks.

I just came across the DMC of a fellow member who has scored impressive in all of his subjects but got failed in Islamiat . This has reminded me my own first attempt of CSS and has prompted me to share my experience that how I overcame my failure in this subject. The same sort of incident had happened with me in my first attempt of CSS. I scored better in all the subjects but I got failed in Islamiat and that too by scoring just 30 marks. Actually by 2010 people never used to fail in Islamiat and that's why the aspirants never took it that serious . I passed English Essay with 40 marks while English Precise and Composition with good 71 marks ,but Islamiat proved to be a nightmare for me.

However, afterwards I took it as a challenge and I was able to score 68 in this very subject. Thats' why one need not be disheartened and should take it as a challenge and with little concentration and extra effort and with some some planning one may score impressive in it.

After having been failed, I brought the following changes in my strategy regarding the preparation of Islamiat.

The very first thing , I took it as a challenge and kept it on priority.

Secondly, I changed the medium from Urdu to English. I have never believed in the myth that attempting the Islamiat Paper gives more marks. Rather, I changed the medium from Urdu to English for the following obvious reasons . Firstly my Urdu handwriting was pathetic and it definitely didn't create a good impression.
Secondly, my Urdu handwriting speed was highly slow which could not help me write answers of five questions.
Thirdly, , I believed that I had somewhat better English expression which could present me as a mature and well placed aspirant in front of the examiner and that's why examiner would take me serious .
For these reasons , I changed my medium from Urdu to English

The third and most important change which I brought in my strategy was that I found Ayat e Quran and Ahadith related to various important and anticipated topics and memorized those in their original Arabic without memorizing their translation. I used to create a context while answering a question , and would quote the Ayat e Quran in real arabic (without Punctuations) with marker . For instance while I was answering a question regarding Women Rights in Islam and I had to elaborate my point by describing women's right in inheritance, I wrote that Islam believes in providing women their share in the inheritance . Allah , in this regard , has ordained in Quran ,
"لِّلرِّجَالِ نَصيِبٌ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَ الأَقْرَبُونَ وَ لِلنِّسَاء نَصِيبٌ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَ الأَقْرَبُونَ مِمَّا قَلَّ مِنْهُ أَوْ كَثُرَ نَصِيبًا مَّفْرُوضًا"
Now I didn't quote the translation as the context in which I had quoted would easily had made examiner understand the aspirants knows the meanings of the ayat thats why he has quoted it in the perfect context . In this way all of my questions carried 6 to 10 ayat e quran plus ahadiths. Believe me , memorizing Ayat e Qurani is far far far far easier then memorizing their translation and the impact the original ayat create on examiner is far stronger then that created by the translation.

Fourthly , I worked on the presentation of the paper and answered all the questions with headings . I kept the paragraphs short and gave self explanatory headings which would get explained by short paragraphs and would make things easier for the examiner.

Fifthly, I focused on time management. I would give equal time to all the questions. As the paper used to start and i would have received the question paper, I would make a rough outline of all the questions . after making that outline , I would start answering the questions one by one by expanding that outline by giving equal time to all the questions. Obviously , it need not be said that one has to write the question first regarding which one has most impressive and relevant knowledge.

For the preparation, I also showed obsession towards reading various books. Prof Arshad Chadhar's book by JWT was one of them. It provided my with good number of Ayats and Ahadith as well as some good concepts. I used to read a topic from 4 to 5 books and would understand the crux of all of them and would note down the main points.

Another important thing which i did was , I prepared objective portion of this paper with an obsession. For this I solved past 15 years CSS Islamiat papers objective and also solved last 5 PMS exam's past papers' Islamiat Objective. Moreover, importantly , I obtained Prof. Zaka sahb 's 1000 point Islamiat Objectice notes which proved highly instrumental in helping strengthen my objective part preparation. Besides these , I went through the Islamiat portion of GK Book of Ahmad Najib. And eventually , I was able to have 16 objective correct.

Another thing, one may quote poetic verses also. Like in one of the question the examiner had asked the difference between jihad and Fitna and I started the answer with the following poetic verse.
نا حق کے لیے اُٹھے تو شمشیر بھی فتنہ
شمشیر کیا ٫ نعرہِ تکبیر بھی فِتنہ

This is the method which really worked for me and that's how , I was able to score 68. Had I been possessed with speedy handwriting , I would have crossed 70 .
The purpose of sharing my experience is to make you think about preparing various subjects with some well thought out strategy .

The Following 14 Users Say Thank You to Tassawur For This Useful Post:
amalpha95 (Tuesday, April 13, 2021), Antalpur (Wednesday, September 11, 2019), Assasin (Tuesday, September 25, 2018), danishwar khan (Sunday, April 18, 2021), Falconnonar (Monday, July 08, 2019), Farie (Thursday, November 01, 2018), Insaf Ali Shar (Wednesday, September 26, 2018), MMani (Tuesday, September 25, 2018), Muhammad Ali Chaudhry (Wednesday, July 03, 2019), rashidmubarak (Monday, April 13, 2020), Shafaq Sajjad (Tuesday, September 25, 2018), tania ahmad (Monday, September 02, 2019), Urooj rajput (Friday, October 15, 2021), wahid buksh (Monday, December 31, 2018)