SSB interview experience. Day 1

To begin with,I experienced the taste of SSB interview from 3/5/14 to 7/5/14 under 11th SSB Board Allahabad. My batch was ATGC. So thats for introduction.

I was a normal post graduate from the normal village side, who was little bookish and not much into physical activicties. I had completed my masters in Clinical psychology and was working as psychologist at various places. Thats when i saw the ad, and it was told full expense of trip in 2nd AC will be paid, and I decided,lemme give it a try.
I had literally forgotten about sending the application, and was pleasantly shocked when I got the call letter for interview, which was within a week. So thanks for that, I couldnt make use of that free 2nd AC offer as all the AC tickets were sold out by then. From Itarsi (Madhya Pradesh),I didnt get a seat even and I spend whole night sitting in a general compartment filled enough to create second wagon tragedy. Not to mention rhe pan smell from everyone. The train was supposed to reach by 3am,and I thought I would get clean 3 hours to get myself ready for the big day as reporting time was 6;00 am. But train reached around 5:15, and I came running towards the MCO to see a sea of young men all dressed up in formals. I quickly moved into one of the restrooms and next nightmare- no water!!! I managed to brush and bath in one bottle mineral water (god knows how!!!) and quickly slipped inside the formals.
By then we 5 people were total left behinds. And by time we reached dressed in MCO, the group has already left. We somehow traced back to the paltoon moving and reached the place. And guess what, we missed the breakfast

. Anyways the formalities were done, and we were assigned chest numbers. My number was 8. And after intial suggestions, instructions and certificate verification, we moved on to the buissiness end.  First I believe was an intelligence test, the CSAT model, just that there were toomant pattern recognition questions. The questions were already marked with answers by people who used it before. And few wrong answers in it was really distracting. It was over in a flash.
Then another person took over, and we were shown a picture, which looked like a girl reading violin for me. We were asked to write story on the picture, on basis of few criterias and it was where I used my superior story making skills properly. 

After that we were divided into groups of 10, and were send to different rooms under different instructors. Here we were to dicuss among ourselves what the picture shown was all about, and reach a common story. First we had to tell our story individually. God knows what and all they saw in it, and i felt really funny when guys even dared saying pre learned stories. Hit came to me and I started narrating my story and from expressions of others, I was sure I had nailed it. I was the only guy in the group who wasnt asked to stop before it was over. This earned we a respect in the group, which becomes vital in the second leg of the discussion. So new guys, make sure you say a sensible story and earn respect beforehand. Then came the funniest activicty of the day. The group discussion. The moment the instructor said start, everyone except me in the room starting yelling something, probably the story, which I couldnt decipher.The guys wanted to start first, and in the process, all started yelling together and lounder. This reminded me a scene of MIB, where every guy in room except Will Smith yells- “Best of the best of the best, Sir”. I thought it will end, but these guys were not even stopping to take breath. After say 20 seconds, I yelled- “Guys we are here to reach a conclusion, so guys lets stop this and start discussing”. This had an immediate efect and all mellowed down, maybe due to the respect I earned with my story. A pause came, And one guy started speaking, and just like before, everyone started yelling again. I was seriously pissed. Who told these guys that those who yell more get selected?? I just sat back. In between our GTO had scolded a guy who sat in relaxed manner, saying is this the way you sit?? Anyways around 40 seconds, I realised, its getting late for me to make a mark. I raised my voice and shouted to make my self audible- “guys we have to reach conclusion, try to understand the game. For talk we need to listen” Again everyone was silent, and I continued pointing a guy- “why dont you tell your story?’ By then the GTO called it off. And we were made to go back where our baggages were kept.

After a tea break, which was filled by speculation of who will crack and who not, we were called back. Results were declared, and I was selected. In total 36 fromthe group of 160 I guess. The other 4 guys who were with me from station were screened out. I was relieved. More than being selected, I was happy that I dont have to travel in general on back to back trains. Missed the lunch tto, as the clerk was distributing the ticket money.(beware these guys make all excuse and give you least amount possible. I hardly got 70% money ofmy expense). After that we were taken to respective dormitories, and given instructions to use it. We guys just got toknow each other and chilled out, roamed around inside the campus, and was timefor dinner. Thats when I saw the mes for the first time, and yep was in love with it and its food. After a heavy dinner,we had roll call, breifing next days programs, and we all were back in room. And flat deadon the bed.

Guys I want to include  maximum details possible on life inside the SSB campus, hence letmepublish it partby part, so that it doesnt become much taxing for you guys as well as me.

CSAT Paper 2 Analysis by Dr.Mansoor Ali Saga

CSAT Paper 2 - 2014 - Analysis
The CSAT Paper 2 2014 was easy and along
expected lines. But great tests have to meet
other parameters as well. For one, they need to
unsettle a prepared student by springing a few
surprises - No, not shocks , just surprises. So
that if a normal hard working and even smart
working student goes for the exam with some
preconceived notions, then the notions need to
shattered by the exam not looking like the one
they had imagined. That's what separates a
really intelligent student from someone who is
trying to be one. An intelligent student would
browse the whole paper for about 5 minutes to
check what's present and how much of each
topic is represented and then strategize.
Considering that the removal of 6 questions of
ELCS had already been announced, the complete
absence of Decision Making questions unsettled
a lot of students. While preparing through Mock/
Simulated Tests, many students had fine-tuned
their strategy for the exam. As, Decision Making
questions are easy to score in and less time
consuming, so many students had decided to
sequentially start with Decision Making and then
move on to difficult and more time consuming
subjects. Third change in the paper was the
increased length of some of the Comprehension
passages, which scared off a lot of students.
Fourth change was the evidence of new found
love of UPSC for Environment and Ecology as a
topic for Comprehension passages. A quick
browsing in five minutes of the whole paper to
get comfortable with the structure of the paper
was definitely required. A greater number of
Analytical Ability, which is time consuming
meant that students did not have the time to
attempt many questions and complained about
time shortage to complete the paper. Moreover
longer comprehension passage also contributed
to shortage of time.
Now let's look at individual subjects :
1. Comprehension - The topic with the greatest
weightage in the exam normally has 24 to 32
questions. This year 26 questions came.
Normally the length of passages is 114 to 282
words but this year some passages were 567
words long. Normally the social sciences and
Indian history and context are the frequent topics
of passages but this year most of the passages
were from Environment and Ecology. The type of
questions were as easy as those of previous
years but any student who used previous
knowledge or their own opinions definitely would
get some tricky questions wrong. I will discuss
these tricky questions in the explanation that
follows.
2. Logical Reasoning and Analytical Ability - This
topic is usually the forte of Engineers and
Science students and normally had 7 to 15
questions but this year it had 18 questions.
Presence of 12 Analytical Ability questions meant
that students had less time as Analytical Ability
questions take more time and if you get stuck on
an Analytical Ability question, you can waste too
much of time. Analytical Ability questions were
not very difficult but when a super easy
Analytical Ability question (A is taller than B)
came and students solve it in half a minute, they
just couldn't believe their luck and tried to find
out if they had made a silly mistake somewhere
and so actually spent the greatest time in
checking where they had gone wrong.
Logical Reasoning sprung its own surprises.
Normally 4 questions based on Deductive Logic
or Unobjectionable Conclusion comes in Logical
Reasoning. But like in the 2012 paper, this year
we had 6 questions based on Critical Reasoning.
Yes, the Assumption, Strengthening, Weakening,
and Inference family of questions. All you had to
do in this year's questions was to pick up an In
Scope, 100% according to the given information
and Unobjectionable answer. You had to avoid
using previous knowledge, your own judgment
and the heavily make up wala cute looking traps.
3. Decision Making and Problem Solving with its
normal 6 to 8 questions did an invisible act, and
all students missed it badly and searched several
times to find where these nice questions were
located in the paper. This missed up previously
honed strategies. Let's not cry over them.
4. General Mental Ability, which normally has 6
to 16 questions and a lot of interdisciplinary
questions with Basic Numeracy, had 9 questions.
All questions were easy and most questions
were from Spatial Non-Verbal Reasoning. I have
not included questions of Sets in GMA as I
normally categorise them under Basic Numeracy
as all questions of Sets can done through Basic
Numeracy but only a few can be done with GMA
skills.
5. Basic Numeracy & Data Interpretation -
Instead of the expected 20 to 23 questions , this
year's paper had 15 questions of Basic
Numeracy and 6 questions of Data Interpretation.
The questions of both were easy, less formula
driven and less calculation intensive, but they
also had twists inside them. These twists in
questions needed a certain sense of Math which
is lacking in students who may have worked
hard on Math but still have an aversion for Math.
The questions could have been solved without
knowledge of formulas, but knowing some high
level arcane stuff like Arithmetic Progression
would have made life easier. So students had
opposite views- some thought the paper had too
difficult Math while others found the same
questions a cakewalk.
When I looked at the changes made by UPSC in
its IAS Exam pattern, in September 2010, I
actually had very little faith that UPSC would
have the talent or the wherewithal to do justice
to its intentions of transforming the IAS Prelims
so that it could filter out most of dumbos with
great mugging up skills. Mr. V.P. Gupta, Director
of Rau's IAS Study Circle, very cogently
convinced me to prepare a test prep product for
CSAT Paper 2. Over the last few years, my faith
in the testing pattern used by UPSC had only
increased. But there was one lingering doubt -
all great aptitude tests have to be as un-tutor-
able as possible. And although, I read something
about efforts to make the IAS exam more un-
tutor-able, I had really not seen any effort in this
direction. So UPSC, this year, finally crossed the
Rubicon.
Learn from mistakes you made in strategizing on
Prelims Papers , so that you dont make mistakes
on the Mains.

Analysis of Mains Paper-1 of Civil Services 2014

For those who wrote Prelims 2014

TO ALL THOSE WHO APPEARED IN CSE 2014
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
--- courtesy: Ganesh Babu

Forums and Facebook groups are filled with
queries since yesterday evening enquiring about
cut off's, few are happy with their performance
and many are dejected with their performance in
spite of hard work for past one year or few
years. "Most of the successful person have made
it big after a big defeat". Hitler was arrested for
his scoop to capture power in his first attempt,
but came back and registered himself in the
History.Everyone of us is a winner after all we
defeated millions of sperms to be born in this
world. Philosophy apart. Cut off's declared by
coaching centres usually have 5 to 10 percent
variation, does it mean we have to reduce our
marks by 10%? Not exactly, what is wrong for
someone is right for other. So to someone it
may come positive and for others it may go
down. So far as far as I am sure no institute
gave a perfect key in CSE 2011, 2012 and 2013
when compared with final key released by UPSC.
Coming to the cut off we cannot speculate, but in
last 3 years it is in increasing trend. If you
notice 2011 was the first exposure to this type of
paper so understandably the marks was 198(UR)
in 2011. Having got an idea about the pattern
the cut off increased to 209(UR) in 2012, in both
the years GS 1 was of similar difficulty. However
in 2013, GS paper 1 was said to be easier, as
many questions came from the comfortable zone
of aspirants namely Polity and Indian National
Movement.
So what about 2014? I do not wish to speculate,
but let me throw some points on it and you
decide in your own.
Paper 1 and 2
-------------------
1) 5-6 static questions - serious aspirants would
have marked it right.
2) Gaurav Agarwal (AIR 1, 2013) - said he felt
the paper bit tougher than last year. Can be
understood as many questions from Biodiversity
and few from comfortable zone of polity and INM.
3) No decision making question this year in
paper 2 - it would have provided marks last
year.Though the the time factor will be balanced
by the skipping of 6 English passage.
4) Total for paper 2 is for 185 and not for 200.
5) With the additional attempt and age relaxation,
many seniors would have returned to the arena.
This was very much visible from the total
students who took the exam which increased by
a lakh this year. However the entire increase
cannot be for the same reason as this year we
had additional centres and increased awareness.
About Cut off's in forums and groups
---------------------------------------------
-
Believe me not all give their actual marks, there
used to be a hype after all it gives temporary
hype in social status. This is the case in all
exams. Everyone give a comfortable score
making serious aspirant depressed. Do not be
deceived by all these claims. Even after result
these bogus claims continue that as per keys
they scored very much but their name is not in
the list. After they have to satisfy their
neighbours and friends for their failure.
To those who are dejected
----------------------------------
I saw few posts feeling so depressed in spite of
hard work. To all of you, "you have not lost the
race yet, you have to just get up and run again".
You would have prepared the entire year, but
would have missed something in preparation.
Make a self analysis by keeping the question
paper. You have another 6336 hours for the next
notification and 8712 hours to give your next
attempt. Every second, every minute and every
hour counts. The clock already started ticking
and you cannot ask it to wait to come out of the
depression. Already many woke up and started
running for the next deadline, for what are you
still waiting?

Another season begins.....

Ends another preliminary exam. Means, here we start a new year in the life of a civil service aspirant. Time to start afresh. Fresh mind and fresh topics. Many anspirants knows the final destination, but doesnt know hoe to start or where. I would like to discuss couple of strategies to start with.

1.Beginners-

Lets assume the beginners are those who just cracked out of egg shell and doesn't know anything about the world. They should follow a 3 track pattern to start with I feel, One, Grab Hindu daily and start reading it religiously. (What to read, when to read and how to read will be discussed in separate article). Second, start with GS preparation straight way. Economics for science batch students (because they hardly knows the basic concept and Economy page in Hindu will look like French for them),and followed by Polity. For commerce batch start with Polity I would say, even though you can pick your choice as you have an advantage here (only here). But make sure you guys start understanding the basic concepts of sections of CSAT. You guys are defenitly disadvantaged in this front. Third and most important, follow three sites on daily basis- www.pib.nic.in (Everything Government think a common man should know, is been put in here ;)), www.mrunal.org (refer it to feel it), and any site which gives you update on ecology and environment front.
Just start the ball rolling with these three,and make sure when you fumble across anything you have no knowledge in steps above mentioned, immediately Google it and read through first three links you get. The exam only needs a general view of stuffs and not like the science exam you write.

2. Repeaters-

Big Big advantage. You know the rules. You have material. If think missed something, make sure you collect it from your friends. dont start over. Just go through areas you left unfinished last time. Finish it by December. Start taking test series and keep revising.....

All the best comrades, Ready, steady, po.... :P