6 MONTHS PLAN YOU NEED TO COMPLETE CSS PREPARATION (PART 4 OF 4)
This blogpost is the last of the four parts.
If you haven’t read about the earlier three parts, I would strongly recommend you to read them first.
In the previous posts, I discussed some of the areas of making a plan and gave you practical advice on how to prepare a plan. Although I have given you broad outline, but it would be up to you to fill in the details.
Conversely, you may discard the plan I have suggested and come up with a completely new plan. That’s alright as long as you do make a plan.
In this post, I will discuss the plan for the final two months.
So, let’s get started.
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𝟱. 𝗙𝗶𝗳𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵
In this months, you will start reading current affairs. This is going to help you in Essay and Pakistan Affairs as well.
Since the nature of Current Affairs subject demands that you keep reading it till your exam, I will suggest you to not start it if before 4 months of preparation. Study it only during the last four months of your preparation.
For this subject, you should maintain a journal. When I was preparing, I made around 20 sections of my journal (Essay journal was separate).
I made an index of 20 topics and assigned 10 pages to each topic.
I selected the topics based on their urgency and immediacy. I came to know what topics were trending from observing a few major magazines.
For instance, there are two major books on current affairs. One is by Imtiaz Shahid’s Contemporary Affairs, and the other one is published by Faridi’s or ILMI’s (I am unable to recall it at the moment).
I made a list of the top 20 topics by looking at both the books and got a fair idea. Another way is to just listen to the talk-shows and read newspapers. Within a few days, you will know what topics should be prepared in advance.
After this, start reading about the topics from various resources. My favourite one was Imtiaz Shahid’s Contemporary Affairs and Current Affairs Digest. Sometimes, newspapers also come up with excellent articles. Also read Foreign Policy, Financial Times, The Economist, and New York Times. The articles specially on Pakistan published in these publications are often very insightful.
For some people, current affairs might be a little difficult. But it would not be so if you follow a simple method of background skimming.
Background skimming means when you read about any current affairs topic, you have to first understand the roots of the issue, the era when it started first.
For example, you cannot understand Pakistan’s Foreign Policy response on Kashmir issue, if you don’t know how this issue arose between the two countries.
Similarly, before reading on Russia-Pakistan relations in recent years, you will have to gain an understanding of Cold War era, the SEATO and CENTO pact.
While reading something interesting, note it down in the journal. An interesting quote, any new data, or a new argument, whatever it is, keep adding in the journal. Maintain the journal regularly and keep looking at it every now and then.
In the evening session, read the fifth optional subject and follow the ground rules.
𝟲. 𝗦𝗶𝘅𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵
This last month is for the last remaining compulsory and optional subject.
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So this was all about making a six months plan for complete CSS preparation. If you follow this, you will definitely be able to cover all the subjects. You will feel at least 80 percent ready for the exam.
The rest of the 20 percent will be based on the writing and presentation skills. I will soon come up with some ways to polish presentation skills.
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| 6 MONTHS PLAN YOU NEED TO COMPLETE CSS PREPARATION (PART 4 OF 4) |