Dear Aspirants,

The purpose of writing this is not to flaunt or to tell you ways to ace this exam without substantial effort or highlighting a crack in the system which you could exploit, but giving back to this community which has helped me tremendously during my CSS preparation.


So, lets cut to the chase..There are few things that you must understand:

1- There are no short-cuts to success; you must be willing to work hard for the prize.

2- Manage your time effectively; CSS is all about time management. There are no hard and fast rules; you prefer studying in the morning? Fine. You prefer studying at night? Fine. As long as you’re concentrating, time of the day doesn't matter.

3- Strategize. Take a subject, dissect it! Check syllabus, past papers, current trends and then make a pool of topics. Once you've done that, give yourself a time-frame for completion of subject. Accordingly, make daily tasks and meet them.

4- Don’t cram! Develop analytical skills. Rely on multiple sources of information i.e. books, newspapers, magazines, journals, internet, television. Once you have a stack of information, think over it, filter things, keep the necessary stuff with you and eliminate unnecessary mumbo jumbo!

5- Don’t rely on notes prepared by academies. Many people cram the same things and you’ll not be doing differently! Research, make your own notes, do it in a bullet format so that you can access them easily and revise them when the D-day nears.

6- Persistence is the key to success, you’ll have days where you’d want to quit, take a day off, and start fresh the next morning, keep telling yourself “It’s worth the trouble”.

7- Treat yourself! Watching a good movie, hanging out with friends on weekends, eating your favorite food and listening to your favorite music are some ways of treating yourself. Enjoy yourselves while at it!

8- It is the process that makes you better! Once you take up this task with full zeal, I assure you, you’ll find positive changes in yourself.

9- Keep an open mind and engage in healthy discussions with the intentions of learning !

And last but not the least, help others!
This worked for me, I hope it does for you too.
Goodluck !

AoA Sir I am an Engineering student in my first year. I'm planning to appear in the css exams once my engineering is completed inshaAllah. I understand that I cannot manage my css preparation with my engineering studies but I was hoping if you could suggest something for me that I could you know do on a daily basis without burdening myself too much. My interest primarily lied in the field of politics and international relations and that is what I wanted to study for my bachelors. But after my parents explained that css was a risk and I should have a substantial degree before I go for it, I decided to do my bachelors in software engineering. Could you please suggest something for me ? For example should I start preparing my optional subjects in the holidays or something like that.I'll be grateful.

Thanks ,and congratulations for your success ,brother.
If you do not mind, kindly share some of the activities that you used to do for motivation during preparation.

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SHAH

Your parents are right. It is always better to have a solid back up plan. Since you're in the first year of engineering program, you've ample time to prepare for CSS. I would recommend that you make it a habit of staying informed. Try reading the newspaper (Dawn) everyday. Try to store important information that you read everyday in a separate word sheet if possible. Apart from that, improve your English writing skills as much as you can during the course of your studies because English is the prime reason for failure in CSS exams. I believe that you can do all this on daily basis without burdening yourself.

@Tabraiz
As you know one should have quality stuff to write I request you to please suggest books and study material for compulsory subjects. In the initial stage the most important thing is to choose the quality stuff and seniors can better guide as they gave their precious time to select the books and study material.

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We worship and seek help from ALLAH.

English Essay:
Develop analytical skills through quality reading and discussions
Improve writing skills by writing more and getting it checked by seniors
Understand essay writing techniques
Books: I wouldn't recommend any, however, proper guidance can help you a lot

Precis and Comprehension
Firstly, 35 marks of Grammar matter a lot
GRE words approx. 1500 are more than sufficient
Past papers for Vocabulary, idioms, pairs, sentence correction
Idioms from past papers + Oxford
Exploring the world of English (If basics are weak)

Precis, Comprehension and Expansion are improved with practice and proper guidance.

Everyday Science

I followed Samoo's Everyday Science book
+ Past papers
+ Sudha Publication MCQs
+ Youtube videos
+ Internet for making notes

Current Affairs

-Dawn Newspaper everyday and make its notes
-Credible publications both national and international
-If you're on twitter, follow Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Guardian, BBC, CNN, CSM etc etc. and keep checking, try to develop interest.
-News channels
-Contemporary Affairs (Quarterly) Imtiaz Shahid
-Aapas ki baat
-Certain topics that must be focused more by you such as International Organizations, Recent events etc.

Islamic Studies

-Khursheed Ahmed's book
-Islamic Ideology
-Youtube Video's Zakir Naik
-Internet for research on topics such as "Concept of Universe in Islam" etc.

Pakistan Affairs
- Pakistan Affairs by Ikram Rabbani
- Topic based research from Internet

@Tabraizmarri Sir!
Please share your strategy regarding IR and its books.

Stay Blessed!

What should be our approach while writing the essay?
Should we show off our vocabulary with difficult words or just write according to our writing style.

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♥ Alis volat propriis ♥

First of all my heartiest congratulation to you for getting through CSS and allocating into PAS.
As you have posted your DMC, I have seen that you got really good marks in I.R. It will be really helpful if you suggest some books and strategy to deal with it.
Regards

The strategy was simple.

1- Determine all the topics that are covered in International Relations. For a 100 mark subject (previously) it was quite extensive, now, however, candidates have an incentive of additional 100 marks for more or less the same course, so determine the topics first

Some topics include...

-Nation State System
-Power
-Balance of Power
-National Power
-Diplomacy
-Imperialism
-Evolution of state system since 1815
-World War 1
-World War 2
-Cold War
-SEATO, CENTO, NAM, UN ...

2- Once you've determined the topics, pick up past papers and see which questions have been asked most and find out the type of sub-questions within a certain head

For example

Major topic: Nation State System

Its minor topics can include:

-Evolution of Nation State System
-Peace of Westphalia
-Basic features of nation state system
-Set-back to nation state system
-future of nation state system

3- Once you've determined these also, it's time to research ! You may follow different books, there's no standard one book that fits all in International Relations.However, some books that I followed during my course of study were:

- World politics since 1945 by Peter Calvocoressi
- Politics amongst nations by Hans Morgenthau
- I remember picking up some local book too (don't remember it's name)
- and INTERNET ! You'll find everything there and trust me sometimes better than text book too.

Another aspect of International Relations is covered by staying up to date with current affairs. e.g. In 2014, I recall a question about P5+1 Nuclear deal.. Some thing which was not part of the syllabus but still it came.




Thank you Kundi Sahab, I hope this reply would give you a good idea of my strategy for IR.

1- Stick to the topic, read it carefully and develop your thesis and arguments around that.

2- Your Initial paragraph is very important, start with a hook to grab attention of reader, keep the reader asking for more, present your thesis statement in introduction paragraph.

3- No need to show off vocabulary. Simple words that convey your message to the reader would suffice.

4- Arguments are important and one should have sufficient evidence to prove your argument. Therefore, research is important

5- Essay should be coherent, ideas should compliment each other.

6- Conclusion is also very important, DO NOT present a new idea in conclusion.

7- Write, Write, Write, get it checked, Write more...