‘Practice makes a man perfect’ and this age old principle holds good for Civil Services Examination as well. Whether it is prelims, mains or interview, regular practise tends to improve your performance in a number of ways which are as follows-:
1) Regular practise with tests makes you aware of the scope of syllabus considered for examination.
2) You get an opportunity to understand the range and depth of the questions being asked.
3) You get conditioned to the the examination environment.
4) Practise instills confidence and gradually reduces the element of insecurity.
5) It exposes your strength as well as weakness which is so crucial for your strategy to deal with this examination.
But it is to be noted that practise by itself is not a guarantee for success. The what,how and why of practice is very important.
If you have not studied well and your preparation is conceptually deficient tens of practice will be useless becoz you will be committing the same mistake time and again. In fact your limitations will get systematized to your disadvantage.
Further there is no meaning of practice if you do not get adequate feedback.As far as main examination is concerned, you should at first be aware of the ‘Model’ of answer writing, the basic and universal principles of good writing otherwise it will end up as a ritual only with no value addition.
The teacher conducting tests should be intellectually sound otherwise he won’t be able to expand the scope of your answer and better learning.
You should meet the teacher personally to learn the nuances of good answer writing. On line test series can be preferred only when it is not possible to meet teachers.
We at IIIASA, are running a comprehensive ‘Short Duration Strategic Orientation course’ for IAS Mains 2016 with focus not only on answer writing skills but also a crucial elevation of intellectual response of yours to the given conditions.