Originally Posted by Miss_Naqvi

@ Deadly Doctor

I am rephrasing your lines with some changes to elaborate it further.

Lack aptitude

There are many candidates who actually lack aptitude but go for it. For CSS one has to grow the thirst of knowledge to its heights. There are some basic reasons due to which many of the students appear in the CSS exam. Some of them are listed below:

1. For the wish of their parents
2. For following the example of some relative who is a CSP
3. Being over-confident because some of their mates or friends has said that you cannot qualify CSS
4. By being impressed for the perks and previliges a CSP owes in our society

There are many other reasons similar to these, such candidates lack aptitude and go for CSS on the basis of motivation that alone is insufficient to get the desired result. In short to qualify CSS is the dream as Albert Einstein said,

• "Dream is not something that you see while sleeping rather it is something that don't let you sleep"

Poor Time Management

It is one of the biggest reason for failure in CSS. Poor time management before and during the exam brings failure to many. There are the students who poorly planned their preparation strategy and donot realize their strengths and weaknesses well before time. I have seen many students who score just ordinary marks in the subjects, were their strength just for poor time management before exams. They keep on planning for setting aside some time for said subjects but couldnt manage it so everytime make themselves believe that no problem we are so good in it thus it wont create any trouble, but it brings finally. There are thousands of examples where students attempt only 3 descriptive questions because they went into extra details without realizing the importance of attempting all four questions. So time management is most important for schematic preparation and well planned approach for attempting papers.


Weak Nerves

To me CSS is the test of your nerves as well. One has to be iron nerved during preparation and exams. Students who go for History of Indo-Pak along with Journalism and Sociology has real tough time caz they have to appear in 10 consecutive papers mean from Saturday to Thursday and its really nerve breaking. Your fingers will stiff, shoulder muscles will swell and above all sleeplessness will cause bad stomach and body pains. Its only for those having weak nerves while those have trained themselves well before time go through it smoothly. In a report published by FPSC enumerated that highest ratio of qualifying CSS is among Dr, and Engineers and the simple reason is strong nerves and excellent time management that they learn during their course of studies.

Improper Guidelines

Many of the students lack guidance thus they fell prey to failure. There are very few competent people available to guide for CSS. It is hard to find a person who has gone through this iron test and knows how this jinnie should be bottled. I have seen many of the students while first go to academy dont even know how many papers they have to appear? and what should be the selection. With such poor knowledge they join academies, pay handsome money and during their 3 months, only realize that CSS is a hard nut to crack. They make unmatched subject selection due to their little knowledge. I have seen students selecting certain subjects due to following common reasons;

1. Academy offers specific subjects so they go for them
2. Some friend / relative / cousin had suggested because one of their friend qualified CSS with same selection

This kind of negligence becomes a hurdle in their way. While I went for CSS a teacher said to me while selecting subjects keep in mind following do's and dont's;

Do's

1. Subject that pleases you
2. Subject you have background knowledge
3. Subject you ever have read during your academic years
4. Must go through the syllabus outlines, recommended books, past papers

Dont's

1. Choose subjects randomly
2. Select on the basis of suggestions of others
3. Select because it is said to be highly scoring

His Do's and Dont's really proved effective during last few years.

Lack of Personal Effort

There are very few students who make personal effort for preparing CSS and those who make, earn its benifit. Those who rely upon ready-made notes, written material available in the form of Dogar's, Jahangir's and Ilmi's books couldnt score well because their answer lacks novelty and personal effort. Such material is produced by almost 60% of the candidates thus examiner score them so low.

Their are the subjects that need in-depth study like EDS, Current Affairs and Pak Affairs so aspirants has to make concerted efforts to grasp the concepts. In Pakistan Bloom's Taxonomy is applied in very few fields and CSS is one among them where you have to complete all 6 steps before sitting in the exam.

Weak general expression

Its another weakness that is intolerable for the CSS examiner. Science students usually have weak expression due to the nature of their academic background. Although they know well how to attempt the paper and what should be the course of action, how material has to be related to the topic. When we say general expression we mean good command of english language and its grammatics.