6 MONTHS PLAN YOU NEED TO COMPLETE CSS PREPARATION (PART 2 OF 4)
This blogpost consists of 4 parts because it is very detailed. This is the second part.
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As I asked in my previous blog, is six months really enough to prepare for the CSS examination?
With the right strategy, hard work, determination, and consistency, YES! YOU CAN DO IT.
Since I have already mentioned in the earlier post that to get ready within six months, a firm grip over English Grammar is necessary.
Never rely on this strategy if you are still struggling with wills and woulds, sentence structure, and basic usages. Do not make this a futile exercise by starting it without working on the foundations.
The second thing you need is dedicating at least 5 hours to your study every day. The maximum time you should give is 6 hours a day.
Divide this time into two chunks. The first half should be in the morning, the second half should be for the evenings.
If you want to stick to this strategy, then commit to it completely. Do not just read it, get inspired for thirty seconds, and then continue surfing the internet.
No! If you really want to do it, then the first thing after reading this should be chalking out your own plan for the next six months.
I don't know what you have been doing till now, I don't know what subjects you have studied, I don't want to know whether you are planning to join this or that academy.
I need you to grab a paper and make a plan. Implement the plan, not from tomorrow, but today, as soon as you finish reading this.
Will you be able to do that? Do you have the guts to commit? Let's see.
Having said that, let me share with you my strategy of six months' preparation. I will share three posts covering two months each. This post is about the first two months. Enjoy reading it.
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𝟏. 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡
The first steps are always challenging. You might as well get distracted easily, but it's okay. You will take a few days before fully committing to this. But remind yourself that you are going to do this. Do it for two months, and you will see the change in yourself.
Start with basics: If you are not good at grammar, revise a bit. If you think you are struggling with a particular section in grammar, keep reading about it and practising it.
English Précis: Our first month will start with English Précis. Many of you must be thinking, "But Précis is difficult. Shouldn't it be at the end?" No. It is easy, and you should start with it.
Précis will help you learn the art of summarising things, a skill that you will need over the next few months to make notes of every subject. Therefore, master this in the first month.
I have suggested you read and practice the Précis from R. Dhillon's Précis Writing. It is more than sufficient. It will guide you on how to write précis and will also take you to a higher level gradually.
Also, buy Penguin's Dictionary of Synonyms. You will need it while writing Précis to substitute words with synonyms.
Writing a précis should be the very first thing to do every morning and keep writing to them for a full month. By the end of the month, you will feel very confident. Around 24-30 précis exercises are more than enough to remove your fear of Précis writing.
For the first few days, Précis will take around an hour. For some, it may take more than that. But slowly, this time will reduce to 30-40 minutes by the end of the month.
The rest of the morning session time should be given to vocabulary, idioms, and language-related readings.
Easy subject such as Islamiyat or (General Science if Science Student):
The second chunk of your time in the first month should be dedicated to an easy compulsory subject.
Some of you might go for Islamiyat; some science background people might take up General Science and Ability. For some, Pakistan affairs would be easy.
Whatever you take, it should be any of these three. Forget essay and current affairs in the first month. The essay's time will come later. When? I will tell you.
Any of these three subjects will take a maximum of 15 days to prepare.
But since we will also make short notes of each subject that we will study, I have allowed you to take 24 days. This is a sufficient amount of time for any subject.
In this period, do not read anything else. No other subject, no other book, howsoever tempting or distracting it looks like.
Just follow this plan strictly and change the way you have been preparing.
𝟮. 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵
By the second month, you will start feeling very positive about your preparation. Some of you might not feel comfortable with this controlled setting. Some might get too excited to study other subjects, tempted by a friend's suggestion, or academy's classes or out of their own curiosity.
I want to remind you again that if you have to do it, then do not follow this at all.
English Précis (Every other day) plus Comprehension (Every Day)
Now we are in the second month of our preparation. This month, you will keep practising Précis, which might look boring, but keep doing it every other day.
However, add Comprehension as a daily feature. I have added Comprehension so early and not essay because of a simple reason.
Comprehension will sharpen your critical understanding. If you practice Comprehension, your critical thinking and analytical abilities will grow, which will help you understand other subjects' core concepts quite easily.
For Comprehension, I would recommend Saadat Ali Shah's Exploring the World of English. It covers this section excellently. Go through it and start solving the comprehensions from the past papers of CSS.
By the end of the month, your writing skills will improve drastically, making you ready to take on some other writing exercises which I will cover in the next post.
Easy Optional Subjects (Two Subjects or one subject worth 200 marks):
In the second month's evening session, take any two easy optional subjects, and finish each of them in two weeks each. Two weeks is more than enough.
Before reading any topic, I would suggest you find a relevant lecture from YouTube. You will get an excellent idea about the topic, only then should you read it from the book.
This will help you in two ways.
i. It will save your time which you might waste by studying the topic repeatedly until you understand it.
ii. You can also get some perspectives covered in the video, which might not otherwise be covered in the book.
Keep making notes and revise them every Sunday. Notes should be short, preferably in bullet points.
Remember that you have to finish each subject within two weeks. This might seem a little difficult, but trust me, two weeks are very long.
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So, this is about the first two months. In the next post, I will cover the third and fourth months.
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| 6 MONTHS PLAN YOU NEED TO COMPLETE CSS PREPARATION (PART 2 OF 4) |