এগিয়ে যেতে চাই নিজের চেস্টায় এবং যিনি সৃষ্টি করেছেন কারও করুনায় নয়

My dear BCS candidates, I am back again,although after a VERY long break.As the written exam is knocking at the door,I will cut off the preamble and directly shoot to the business!!! In 28th BCS the highest marks in International Affairs is 86,so now you know it is possible to get such high marks.Imagine what a great advantage it will be if you can get such good marks in IA!!! STUDY MATERIALS: I will recommend you the following books/websites: a) BBC Website ( http://www.bbc.com/news) b) Economist Magazine website ( http://www.economist.com) c) Daily Star Newspaper ( http://www.thedailystar.net ) d) BCS Syllabus for International Affairs (You already have it with your application form) e) Any IA Written Guide( Professors/Oracle etc ) f) Previous years IA questions. g) An atlas where you have good quality world maps. h) Wikipedia website ( http://www.wikipedia.org ) i) Professor’s Monthly Current Affairs magazine If you have the above mentioned study materials, you are fully prepared for the preparation of taking the exam.In the next paragraphs I am going to tell you how to prepare yourself. HOW TO STUDY Dear friends, first thing I want to tell you is(which is equally true for all other subjects except Maths and Science) this: DO NOT MEMORIZE ANSWERS FROM MARKET GUIDE BOOKS. If you want to get your desired cadre, you have to identify yourself from thousand other candidates to the examiners. Those thousand other candidates will do exactly what I warned you not to : They will memorize word by word from typical market guides and vomit it in the exam script.I repeat, please don't. You might be asking yourself: "If I don't memorize from the guidebooks,how will I write them??!!" Dear friend, you will write them from your own concept. I told you to buy the guidebook so that you can go through it and get the primary idea.Now,after reading a topic in your Professor's guidebook- search internet,google it.Go through the websites I mentioned,specially wikipedia.You will find at least a dozen good articles about the same issue.Read at least 3 articles and you will see that your concept on the subject has been very clear.Now use this concept to write your answer.I am sure that this extra reading will differentiate you from thousand others,and hopefully you will get far better marks than those who simply memorized it from a guidebook.Believe me,it takes less time to read three new articles from internet than memorizing couple of boring pages from a colorless guidebook. Internet is a modern day wonder, so use it wisely instead of chatting and looking for latest celebrity scandal. PART BY PART PREPARATION TIPS A) SHORT QUESTIONS/SHORT-NOTE: 40 MARKS As I said about the preparation of general knowledge in the preliminary exam, DO NOT confuse yourself by trying to memorize whatever information you see. First, go through the previous year’s questions-which will give you idea about what kind of questions they ask. Read all the previous year’s short questions/ short notes that were asked in the exam . Then take the syllabus book in front of you, open page three and study the topics one by one. Most of the questions come from these topics; some questions come from current international affairs. If you go through BBC website, Economist website, http://www.bdnews24.com and Daily Star website regularly, you will know what is going on in the stage of international affairs. It will help you to answer those current affairs questions. BROAD QUESTIONS: 60 MARKS Economist Magazine and Wikipedia website will be tremendous help for you guys to clarify your concepts. In Neelkhet there is a political science textbook named “Antorjatik Rajniti” by Rakhi Burmon(and another writer whose name I forgot). You can read this book too, reading a textbook will be far better than memorizing from market guides. While reading about a country, please open the map and find the place there. It will give you a visual concept about the country. While reading about a conflict , try to see the pictures of that conflicted area where people are fighting and suffering. Try to see the map of that area too. These things may seem unnecessary but it will be a tremendous help to make your concept crystal clear. This extra work will boost up your confidence level from where you will be able to write exceptionally good answers. Suppose you are reading about the Commonwealth treaty. After reading about it in the guidebook and IR textbook of Rakhi Burman, go to wikipedia and search “Commonwealth”. See the picture of Commonwealth headquarters , its Logo etc. It will help you to conceptualize the whole thing and make it easy to remember. Some other important tips are: 1) Reading newspaper articles is a MUST to do well in IA. “Strategic issues” page by The Daily Star is a very good source of reading. The Economist Magazine website also provides very well analyzed articles on current world affairs. You must read them everyday (both are available on internet free of cost). By reading them , you will have a very good idea about the recent burning issues. Chances are, questions will be common from these topics. 2) Drawing maps is a sure-fire way to get extra marks. It is not at all tough to learn how to draw the world map. You do not have to be precise like a surgeon , practice drawing the entire world map 20-30 times and you will see how easy it is. You can use maps in almost any IA broad questions. For example, drawing a map of Indian subcontinent while writing about India-Pakistan conflict will be very helpful to get good marks. I am not asking you to learn the map of 193 countries because that will be impossible. However, learn to draw the continents, Indian Subcontinent, conflicted areas and of course, Bangladesh maps. Also learn where the countries are. For example, if the question asks about Israel-Palestine conflict and you can just identify the area in map ( by a circle or box ) ,better marks are guaranteed . 3) You can use statistics while answering a question. For example, if the question is about Kashmir Conflict , you can draw a chart and show year-wise death toll in that region . You do not have to memorize the exact data , just see such kind of charts a couple of times and reproduce it as far as you can remember. Write the source of the chart ( for example, Bangladesh Statististical Pocketbook , The Economist etc ) and then write “approximately” in bracket. You can also use graphs to illustrate your answer. 4)Go through the previous year’s questions and read about them from the internet by the way I instructed in the short questions preparation above. 5)You must watch at least one Bangla and one English TV news everyday. Lastly, I apologize to those who expected me to write down a list of important topics. My dear friends, there is no short-cut for success and you must give your best if you want to achieve your desired cadre. If you start studying seriously right from today, you will find that there is still enough time to cover all the topics and more from the IA syllabus. Remember,if someone else can get 86 out of 100 in this paper,so can you. All the best!!! courtesy by মাসরুফ হোসেন সহকারী পুলিশ সুপার ২৮তম বিসিএস(৪র্থ )