BPSC TOPPER SUCCESS STORY RANK 39

BPSC TOPPER SUCCESS STORY SHAHID EQWAL RANK 39 BIHAR POLICE SERVICE

Hello friends i am Dy SP Shahid Eqwal BPSC 60-62 Batch and BPSC 63 Batch qualified candidate. I secured Rank 39 in BPSC 63 Batch. I strongly feel that education must be free and fair for everybody and reach beyond social barriers. The most basic idea about creating this website is to disseminate my assumptions for free education. In this article i am going to share my success story in  bpsc exam. Before posting my own success story on my website, i have posted success story of Miss Huma Akhter Bihar Finance Service Rank 180 in  63rd bpsc exam. The very purpose of sharing this article is to convey my opinion to all of you that, there is no single path to accomplish the same goal. In this article i will share my own preparation journey and valuable inputs that may be very helpful for all of BPSC aspirants.

bpsc topper success story

1. MY INTRODUCTION

Hello friends I am Dy SP Shahid Eqwal. I secured rank 207 in 60-62 bpsc exam and rank 39 in 63rd bpsc exam. I have been recommended for Bihar Police Service in both attempts. This was my second attempt. I appeared for the first time in 60-62 bpsc exam and secured rank 207. After that i again appeared for the second time in 63rd bpsc exam and secured rank 39. I completed my primary as well higher secondary education from government school. After completion of 10+2 i joined job and continued my further studies from various open universities. I pursued my graduation in Geography from Nalanda Open University Patna  and masters in Public Administration from IGNOU. I was in central government job and because of that most of the time i remained posted outside the state of Bihar. Before looking for bpsc exam i was only interested in upsc and appeared in for the same at least four times. I cleared upsc pre exam thrice and appeared in upsc interview once in the year 2017. I ran short of few marks in final merit list of upsc and then i was forced to look into for some other alternate career option in civil services. It was a long and difficult journey to qualify bpsc exam and balance time in between job and preparation.

2. CHALLENGES

After a bit of my background now i am going to describe limitations and challenges which i faced in my preparation journey. As i mentioned in para 1 above that i was in job so it was not an easy task for me to manage time for studies. I hardly used to manage 5 to 6 hours per day for studies. Let me tell you the main challenges which i faced during course of my preparation journey. 

• Lack of time  for studies
• Lack of proper guidance
• Unavailability of coaching infrastructure
• Inaccessibility of study materials
• Difficulty in writing test series
• Lack of study environment
• Non regular academics (Open university)

Above mentioned limited resources and challenges forced me to choose some smart preparation strategy and work upon those sincerely. In next paragraph i am going to describe how i overcame these challenges one by one.

TIME MANAGEMENT

The first challenge for me was management of time for studies. It was really frustrating and sometimes i was forced to rethink to continue preparing for civil services with such limited time availability. But the dream and desire to become a civil servant always pushed me to utilize maximum time without thinking about goal. In initial stage of my preparation i only decided to enhance my knowledge by maximum utilisation of spare time out of my job schedule. I was in full time job and because of that i used to be at job place at least for 8 hours per day except on weekends. 

bpsc pathshala motivation

First of all i set a goal of 2 years effective study and worked upon that goal to crack the exam. After that i prepared weekly target of study hours and fixed that to 50 hours per week. Frankly speaking, in most of the weeks i achieved this target of 50 hours per week and that achievement gave to enormous strength to continue further. Let's understand this with an appropriate example as how i used to complete 50 hours target of weekly study time. I had a five days working schedule from Monday to Friday (weekdays). In this case i tried to manage 5 hours of study time per day making it 25 hours in weekdays. Now i had holiday on Saturday and on Sunday (weekends) so i planned to manage 12 hours per day, making total weekends study hours 24. Now if you add weekdays and weekends study hours, then it will be close to 50 hours weekly target.

LACK OF GUIDANCE

The second limitation which i faced during my preparation journey was lack of genuine guidance from mentor as well as from seniors. To overcome this problem i solely relied on internet and checked all relevant information like nature of questions for pre and for mains, question pattern, books etc.

bpsc pathshala motivation

COACHING INFRASTRUCTURE

It is true that coaching makes your preparation journey easy but in reality it is  not a necessity to crack civil services examination. At the outset i described that i done my graduation from open university and  that in geography. Due to non regular academics i faced difficulties in understanding a semi scientific subject like geography. Still i decided to choose geography as my optional and started reading with the help of ncert. Due to my job circumstances i was deprived to join any coaching thus i decided to prepare it my own taking help of YouTube.

STUDY MATERIAL

Selection of right study materials play a vital role in your preparation journey. Here one thing i would like to brought out in your notice that I didn't buy any notes for any topic including my optional. I just googled important books name for civil services and also read some interview of civil services qualified candidates for best source of study materials. I bought it online and rigorously followed those limited study materials.

DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING TEST SERIES

Since at the place of my posting no coaching was available for civil services thus i din't join any test series for pre exam. I joined weekends test series for mains just before mains exam and traveled almost 200 km every week to write down mains mock test.

LACK OF MOTIVATION AND STUDY ENVIRONMENT

Study environment is another aspect which motivates you to continue in right direction. To overcome this issue i decided to cut off myself from social life and i grouped with 2-3 like minded people to move forward. I also Started reading online motivational stories of those people who rose to the occasion in most difficult circumstances. Those story always motivated me.

bpsc pathshala motivation

3. PREPARATION STRATEGY

In this paragraph i am going to describe my preparation strategy for each stage of examination viz pre, mains and interview. I will start with the pre exam and conclude with the interview. My strategy was very simple and i relied on smart study. "limiting resources (Study materials) and multiple revisions"were key to my success story. At the first place i analysed the pattern and nature of question being asked in bpsc pre exam. I also checked the syllabus of bpsc exam meticulously and oriented my studies accordingly. 

3.1 PRELIMINARY EXAM

BPSC examination is conducted in three stages viz; pre, mains and interview. Each stage of preparation is integrated with each other. Due to integrated nature of all three stages i prepared for all stages altogether. If you are only focused for pre exam and even if you qualified the same then without integrated approach you won't be able to get through mains exam. The reason for this is the nature of question at pre stage and at mains stage is quite different.

BOOKS I FOLLOWED

HISTORY

• NCERT class 11 and class 12 (Old)
• Arihant Indian History Magbook
• Indian Freedom Struggle by Bipin Chandra

GEOGRAPHY

I had geography as my optional therefore, it was not a trouble for me preparing geography. Still I followed following books for the purpose of pre facts. 

• NCERT class 6 to class 12
• Geography by Mahesh Baranwal
• Geography through map by K Siddharta

ECONOMICS

• Pratiyogita Darpan Economics extra issue
• Economy Lectures of mrunal patel on youTube

GENERAL SCIENCE

• Lucent general science

INDIAN POLITY

• M Laxmikanth

BIHAR SPECIAL

• Lucent Bihar Special

CURRENT AFFAIRS

• Civil Services Chronicle  last 12 issues
• Bihar Special by YouTube

Note:- For Bihar special current affairs i watched 4 to 5 videos on YouTube and prepared short notes with the help of those videos. Then i revised the same to mug up facts with the help of notes.

MATHEMATICS

I only covered some important topics with the help of one elementary mathematics book. Right now even i can't remember the name of that writer. I covered following topics. 

•  Number system
•  Percentage
•  Proportion
•  Profit and loss
•  Time and distance
•  Simple and compound interest
•  Unitary method
•  Average

3.2 MAINS EXAMINATION

In above paragraph i described the fact that civil services examination is integrated in nature hence separate study for pre, mains and interview can't be done. Still in this paragraph i am going to tell you some specific approach which i adopted for mains exam.

GS PAPER 1

HISTORY AND CULTURE

I strictly followed bpsc mains syllabus and prepared very compact notes on topic mentioned in the syllabus. I took help of history books and also watched some YouTube videos for the purpose of notes preparation. I prepared notes of almost 15 topics and revised them at least 10 times for better understanding and concept.

CURRENT AFFAIRS

I didn't buy any specific magazine/study materials other than civil services chronicle for preparing current affairs for the bpsc mains exam. I followed only last 6 months Civil Services Chronicle magazine and selected almost 20 important topics at my own. Again i prepared short notes on those selected topics and revised.

STATISTICS

Statistics is the most soft target in bpsc gs paper 1. So i decided to make a comprehensive plan to score maximum marks in statistics. First of all i bought one statistics book written by LK Jha and then started practicing out of it. I set a target to practice at least two questions from that book on daily basis and i followed the same sincerely till end of the mains exam. I also solved some previous year questions of statistics. Because of my this strategy i easily solved 02 statistics questions in mains exam in 40 min and managed to scored almost 66 marks out of 72.

GS PAPER 2

INDIAN POLITY

Based on previous years questions I selected almost 20 topics from M Laxmikanth. I prepared exhaustive notes on those selected topics. I also observed that in Indian Polity some questions are being asked based on prevalent current political topics. So i chose some ongoing political topics in the news at that time and prepared notes on those with the help of monthly magazines. 

GEOGRAPHY AND ECONOMICS

I observed past year questions on geography and economics and prepared notes on some static topics asked in past years. I also observed that in geography and in economics most of the questions are being asked based on current issue related topics. So i also selected some topics from current affairs and prepared notes on them. I didn't refer any specific books on geography and economics for bpsc mains exam. 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

I Chose topics based on past years questions and prepared notes on them with the help of internet/Wikipedia. I didn't follow any specific books for science and technology for bpsc mains exam.

ANSWER WRITING

Answer writing practice is must for bpsc mains exam. Shortcuts to this is inexcusable. I used to right daily at least answer of one question. 

3.3 INTERVIEW

After qualifying mains exam i sincerely focused myself for interview. First of all i prepared notes on my bio data, schooling, dist profile, job profile etc. I followed current affairs of last 3 months with the help of magazine. I also followed two daily newspaper. One for national news in hard copy (The Hindu) and the other for local Bihar specific news in soft copy (Dainik Bhaskar). Since i had given Bihar Poice Service as my first post preference so i was sure to expect question on police administration. I prepared detailed notes on policing in Bihar and on police reforms. In bpsc interview questions are also being asked from mains optional subject so i revised geography upto some extent. I also prepared Bihar specific general knowledge for interview.

4. NOTES PREPARATION

Due to paucity of time I didn't prepare any notes except notes of Bihar special current affairs for the purpose of bpsc pre exam . I used to read every books underlining important facts and treated those underlined facts as my notes for revision purpose. For mains examination i prepared exhaustive notes and followed those notes rigorously. I also prepared notes for my optional subject strictly as per bpsc mains exam syllabus with the help of books/YouTube 

5. TEST SERIES

I didn't join any test series either online or offline for bpsc pre exam. I had one book Lucent objective general knowledge. I used to practice some MCQ questions from that book in leisure time. For bpsc mains exam i joined weekly test series and appeared in almost 10 mock mains test for general studies as well as for optional. Mains mock test helped me structuring answers. After qualifying mains exam i appeared in mock interview twice at Dristi IAS and at Dhayey IAS. I didn't face much difficulty in interview as i already had faced upsc interview in the past. 

6. MY MARKS DETAILS

EXAM		MARKS
BPSC PRE EXAM		104
BPSC MAINS EXAM	General Hindi	62
	GS 1	202
	GS 2	166
	Geography	163
WRITTEN TOTAL		531
INTERVIEW		95
TOTAL MARKS		626

7. MEDIUM OF EXAM

I appeared in bpsc exam in Hindi medium and my result broke down the myth that Hindi medium is being ignored by bpsc. I strongly feel that only content of the answer matter the most in exam and not the medium of answer writing.

8. COACHING

I didn't take any coaching at any stage of exam. I consistently prepared for the exam with the help of self study. I even didn't take coaching for my geography optional and prepared it my own. I didn't associate myself with any coaching even for the interview except mock interview. 

9. ONLINE SOURCE OF PREPARATION

I strongly feel that YouTube is not a source of authentic information. I took help of YouTube for certain topics which, i find difficult to understand from regular books. I used online platform during course of my preparation for the following topics only. 

• Preparation of Bihar specific current affairs.
• Mrunal economics lecture.
• Watched few mock interview before my bpsc interview.
• Preparation of notes for GS Paper 2 especially for Science and Tech.
• Preparation of notes for certain topics of history in GS Paper 1.
• Downloading past years mains question paper.

10. CONCLUSION

I will try to post success story of some other bpsc successful candidates also for better understanding. If you read success story of many aspirants then you reach to the conclusion that there is no single strategy for success. Just try to recognize your positive and negative aspect. Prepare your own plan and strategy and work upon that. Feel free to comment here for doubts clarification. Thanks for reading. Regards.