can you tell me about your sources of preparation ?

Which books you have been consulting for IR?

There is a post on Facebook by a candidate who scored 726 marks and failed in Essay only. His IR marks are 63 and 70.

please share the link. Passed candidates who had IR in 2017 attempt are also requested to post their study sources and writing strategy here.

Paper 1 70
Paper 2 43
Prepration material: globalization of world politics by john baylis and understanding international relations by chris brown.
No academy. Just self study.
I was satisfied with my paper A, paper b didnt go too well, mcqs were tough and i hadnt prepared current affairs that well especially didnt do much on Pak india relations. I know! sounds stupid in retrospect. . Anyways it was my first attempt. Those books were a great help for a person like me who had zero background knowledge of the subject.

Do you have soft copy or the link of these books ? If yes, kindly share them.

You have a great score in paper 1.

As you may have observed, some people have received extremely low marks in paper 1 this year. What, in your opinion, could be the reason for that? Why do you think you have been able to secure such good marks where others have failed miserably?

I cannot really speculate on other people's score. Everyone has their own story. My dmc is actually pretty non conventional with english essay and ir paper 1 being my top scoring subjects.
I can share a few things which i think helped my paper
I attempted every question like an essay as in i made an outline leading to a conclusion and then attempted the question. I have good writing speed so i didnt face the time shortage problem. The outline things helps a lot in really framing the argument in my head before i started scribbling away. As far as i recall the paper was analysis based as in not a whole lot of factual knowledge was required rather a general idea of recent developments and trends related to the discipline of I.R was needed. One interesting thing i do recall is that i wanted to attend the *nation state in a flux * question but i had no idea about catalonia seperatism. In the end i figured that the question did not require us to go into details of the cases given rather i dealt with the general evolution of nation state and the challanges that countries (particularly 1st world) is facing at the hand of globalization as nation no longer remains the prime focus of one's identity and loyality whie competing foci such as ethnicity, religion, consumerism transnational political leanings etc gain momentum.
Baki honestly i've forgotton most of what i wrote. I am a doctor and as soon as i was done with papers i never looked back at any of the css books.

No buddy i dont have the soft copy, good ole fashioned paperbacks.

What is the ideal number of hours that we should give in for preparation? Starting from now.