I studied Shehar Bano's books for this paper along with consulting Feldsman's book for a few topics.

[QUOTE=mano g;454310]2011/2008
[

Optionals

Sociology 66/55
Journalism: 76/75
Islamic History and culture: 130/120


Congratulations for allocation in the royal group of Civil Services.

I have some queries as you have above four optionals which i have also opted.
Mano g! I have appeared twice in CE in 2011 n 2012. I still have a chance n waiting for my result (Plz Pray for my Success in 2012).

My marks were in optionals!
Islamic History n Culture: 103
Journalism : 54
Sociology : 46

Please suggest me some books which you exploited to get excellent marks n also suggest me the strategy to attempt optional papers.
Is it necessary to make detailed notes or bullet notes will do?
How can an aspirant memorise the names n dates in Islamic History?
Please mention the sources which you used for prep of these papers?

Regards
Asif Nawaz Abro

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Mitta do apni hasti ko, agar kuch martaba chahiye,
k dana khak men mil kar gul-i-gulzar banta hai.

Congratulations Amna, may Allah bless you with success always. your story is so motivating, thank you so much for writing it down for us all.
I will appear in css 2014 inshALLAH. but i have started preparing for it now. you have written in your story that its not very easy to get allocated in the first attempt, and normally people have to appear again. but i want to get allocated in my first attempt, i don't want to appear again. so i want your guidance that what should be my study plan to get some good position.

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'' Success comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it''

Very happy to see you around.
Golden tips shared by you.

Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk 2

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Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –Napoleon Hill

The only reason,as per my view,why miss mano got allocated with merely 3 months preparation ...............could be her decent english presentation style.........English,no doubt,could prove an 'atomic bomb'with any devoted css aspirant..so,start work from 'now' and start enrichment of uranium in the shape of practice... ......... Miss, congrats from our side also.....always stay blessed.

welcome back,,,,,,,,,,it's really nice to see you here,,,,,,,,,,your success story is a source of inspiration and motivation for all the css aspirants,,,,,,,,,,,please suggest reading material subject wise,,,,,,,

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Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.

kindly suggest books for compulsory subjects...

Nice to see you back

thanks for guiding and giving outstanding tips . I belong to a poor family. I can't afford academy charges even a well reputed academy charges near about 80000 (45000 for tuition, 35000 for hostel ) for outside Lahore and Islamabad residents... How can a girl afford it! Although I wanted to join but academy charges are very high


I don't have words all I can pray for the kindness of you to Allah Almighty.

could you guide how to prepare psychology and suggest good book as well?

Second how to answer a particular question? example : by making outlines, simple paragraph or by headings etc? with respect to your way of answering mass communication and sociology papers 2011...


Third can a person from scratch start preparing psychology or Islamic History and score high marks?

[QUOTE=Asi01;454868]Best wishes for you. For optional papers, select the areas first based on past papers, in this way you will have a list of topics you need to prepare, then make your notes in which there must be outlines, bullet points, important facts and figures etc, remember make such notes as are readable during exams/easily revise able. For Islamic History our teacher used to say that always notice and remember that the no. of non-Muslim army in the battles would be around 1,20,0000 and that of Muslims would be around 20,000 so try to learn these tricks for remembering dates. Your marks in the optionals are less as all these subjects remained scoring this year, in these subjects try to focus on general topics and make your answer unique.focus on objectives.....books were the same that i used but way of expression makes the difference.

sociology:j.j Baloch
Journalism:Abid Tehami (it was my own subject so i had background knowledge for it)
islamic history:M.Arshad's book (you will find it with difficulty though)

Thank you, many people get the group of their choice in the first attempt so follow a strategic path, will tell you in detail the way of setting study plan.

English: Exploring the world of English+Wren n Martin's book of higher English grammer
Islamiyat: Prof.Khurshid's Islami Nazriya-e-hayaat
Pak Affiars: Trek to PAKISTAN, Ikram Rabbani's book also easy to understand
Current affairs:For current affairs never consult a single book or source, explore the knowledge through newspapers, internet, magazines, discussions, talk shows...www.zemtv.com contain archives of all talk shows
EDS:Kashmiri's book is good one but soliving past papers for this particular paper would be a good exercise, use internet for the topics like pesticides, Solar system, genetic engineering so that you get recent facts.


I have given the answer regarding psychology and Islamic history in previous postsFor giving answer to a question, break the question in parts that what are the points being asked,then make an outline and follow it while answering, through outline examiner can judge your knowledge and presentation well.

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what humbugs we r,who pretend to live for beauty and never see the dawn :)

There will be many ready-made study plans available to you, but ‘’remember’’ that there is no alternate of the one that you made yourself to carry out studies in an orderly manner; same is the case with schedule.

Steps to follow while making study plan:

• Keep syllabus and past papers of the subject in front of you

• Make a list of topics based on these two sources

• Divide the topics in portions, according to the areas/major sub heading and note down the frequency of occurrence in past papers and in this way set up the topics in descending order of their priority.

[For example for Pakistan Affairs paper, there will be key areas i.e, pre-independence and post- independent era. In pre-independence portion, Reformist movements will be sub divided into religious, educational, social movements, then Muslim struggle for independence, events e.g formation of Muslim league, partition of Bengol, Lucknow pact…….in post-independence era starting from initial problems till date, make a sequential list of topics]

• Make a list of general questions that don’t fall under the category of any topic, but similar questions can be asked in the paper.

[For example how to improve education system, problems of Pakistan their solution-(2011), move in a systematic way so that you can easily link together your knowledge]

• Never start any subject haphazardly, it will help in better understanding, now once you have a systematic sketch of topics in front of you, you will be able to start preparing them in a proper way

• Now decide the days for a particular subject and divide topics to cover each day, in this way you will be able to cover each major area in 2-3 days, provided with the condition that you have one subject for preparation in the schedule you have made.

How to make schedule


• There are two options for making schedule,

1. One subject for a specific time period
2. Multiple subject option

• The aspirants who don’t have the ability to concentrate on multiple things and can only give attention to one subject at a time should select the 1st option, as in this way they would be able to prepare in the best way, but the short coming of this schedule format is that, student start thinking that all other subjects are neglected because psychological traumas will keep bothering you till the examination day. The solutions is to shift the subjects on weekly basis, i.e. start one subject, cover some portion of it and in the next week give time to the other subject. In this way you can prepare all the subjects side by side.
• Keep English writing practice in the schedule on the daily basis, you will not need to spare separate time for English then and daily practice will make it more accurate as well.
• 2nd option is simple and self-explanatory, 2 or more subjects at a time, it is difficult to manage and more suitable when exams are near. Once you have gone through all the subjects then make this one, as it will be better option for revising the subjects.
• Make bullet point notes if time is less, if it is abundant then making detailed notes is feasible option.

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what humbugs we r,who pretend to live for beauty and never see the dawn :)