WBCS Prelims Examination

We have taken a great initiative to supplement your preparation with effective and result oriented study materials for upcoming WBCS Prelims Examinations. Our study materials comprise of Subject wise Question Booklets and Full Length Practice test mimicking WBCS Prelims pattern. In our Question Booklets study materials are arranged chapter wise which in particular will be very potent for last minute brushing up.  Get benefited by our Android based applications which you can virtually carry the full study materials inside your mobile phone and practice as much as possible. 

WBCS Prelims tips

WBCS exam has three levels of filters; Preliminary (200 marks MCQ) followed by MAINS (1600 marks) and Personality test. It should be remembered that a huge  number of candidates participate in this test making the WBCS Prelims exam truly a competitive one. On the  top of this, an extensive WBCS syllabus covering almost every discipline of knowledge makes the exam even more difficult. For success in WBCS one needs only two things, graduate in any discipline and strong determination. For many of those who dream of becoming a WBCS officer and head an office in the Govt. of West Bengal it is not only hard work, rather a disciplined and targeted hard work coupled with winning edge strategy is what needed to ensure a berth in the final list of successful candidates recommended by the commission.  

1. Effective strategy for WBCS Prelims

One of the common mistakes made by the most of the candidates is to overload themselves with too much irrelevant information and end up remembering only few things. We have to accept that our brain can only retain a limited amount of data in a given time and it is literally impossible for anyone to go into every detail and simultaneously retain them. The first step is to understand the pattern of questions that WBPSC has been  asking for the last 10 years in each subject. Make a statistical assessment of the layers of detailing or difficulties involved in each question paper compared to your base knowledge. This will help you to develop an intuition to discriminate what to retain and what to discard while studying any subject. On this account taking help of online testing resources is highly recommended where you will have access to last 10 years questions sorted according to subject. 

2. Fix Target for each WBCS Prelims Topic

According to experts securing 130 right answers out of 200 questions can assure a candidate to be shortlisted for the WBCS MAINS exam.  From the very beginning of your preparation fix a goal and assess periodically how far are you from your destination and accordingly lay your future milestones. Again WBCS prelims online testing resources can be immensely useful to assess your progress. When you take any online test take it  seriously. Set a convenient time when disturbance from your family and friends are minimum. A clever idea would be to hang a placard  mentioning "Examination is on, do not disturb please". Take your preparation level to a climax where you start scoring scores more than 65% in every test.  Then your probability of success in WBCS prelims  on the test day will rise exponentially. 

3. Go for multiple revisions before the Exam

Revision is an essential component of good preparation and particularly for a competitive examination like WBCS prelims revising each subject more than thrice should be the goal.  The first reading gives an overall familiarity to a subject. Hardly anything is retained. Second reading will generate excitement because you will finda substantial amount of fact is already familiar by now and brain will be pleased to store a significant portion of information in its long-term memory basket.  Do not be surprised to discover that you might have inadvertently missed a few interesting facts while your first reading and now is the perfect time to learn them afresh. During the second phase of reading, most of the readers will also have fun processing second layer of detailing. For those who have not encountered yet will experience in their third revision. Third reading is very crucial as this is going to the final and complete revision before your exam. Do not loose interest because it negatively impacts memory. Our brain is happy to retain only those things, which are interesting to us. Therefore, do not let your interest level to go down. For sustaining interest engaging in discussion on related topics with close friends can be helpful.  Regular meditation also helps in cleansing stresses and boredom. Do not read just for the shake of qualifying WBCS Prelims rather develop a general interest about knowing subjects.

4. Practice and self-evaluate side by side

Besides reading text books recommended for WBCS Prelims, use of modern online tools is highly recommended as it helps to learn and revise effectively while saving lots of crucial time. Along with the regular studies take practice exams to evaluate your progress. Critically evaluate how far are you from your goal. A copious amount of practice can be rewarding in many ways --  it trains your brain to fetch correct information, increases cognition, eliminates chances of human error, and finally improves long-term retention capability.  Only practicing tests, however, without studying reading materials will not yield fruitful result! Therefore to continue till the last stage of the exam i.e., Personality Test, a whole hearted approach is needed. After the completion of the Prelims one should be confident enough to start an intensive preparation for MAINS without looking back. According to experts securing 130 right answers out of 200 questions can assure a candidate to be shortlisted for the MAINS exam.

Study Materials for WBCS Prelims

HISTORY

Indian History portion is the biggest chunk of the pie with 50 questions spanning from Indus Valley civilizatiHistoryon to Indian independence, altogether amounting to 25% of the total WBCS Prelims paper. The candidates from Humanities will have an advantage over the rest. The good point for the non-Humanity background candidates is that in the WBCS Prelims paper most of the questions that are asked in the History section are direct and fact based. So with a good preparation even a non-Humanity student can easily score between 38 to 42 (more than 75%) marks from this section.In the market a huge spectrum of books are available. Therefore a good choice is very crucial. Our suggestion would be to make NCERT history books from VI to XII as Bible. Read in between the lines. Try to record as much important information as possible. NCERT books are very well written with lots of important information. NCERT books are easily downloadable for free from various websites. Apart from NCERT books, a comprehensive account on the field can be found from  authors such as   P. Maity, Bipan Chandra, Satish Chandra,Jiban Mukhopadhyay, ‘An Advanced History of India’ by R.C.Majumdar, H.C.Raychaudhuri & K.K. Dutta. ‘Modern India’ by Sumit Sarkar, ‘Modern Indian History’ by Grover & Grover are of immense importance. Such an exhaustive list has been provided with an intention to equip the candidates for MAINS exam also.

GEOGRAPHY 

From the pattern of last 10 years questions it clearly shows that in the WBCS Prelims examination around 19+- 2 questions comegeography from Indian Geography and the rest (8 to 6) questions are asked from W.B Geography. For Indian Geography part NCERT books (VI to XII) are valuable asset. For the preparation of W.B Geography portion text books of West Bengal Board is highly recommended. In addition to this, Wikipedia can be a useful source of information. Like history section, most of the questions asked in Geography are also direct fact based questions. Therefore targeting to answer about 18 to 20 questions from Geography section is not impossible. For WBCS Mains preparation books of ‘Geography of India’ by Majid Hussein (Tata McGraw Hill) or ‘India a Comprehensive Geography by D.R. Khullar will be very useful.

GENERAL SCIENCES

For the preparation of General sciences portion the best bet would be to follow textbooks of their respective Board with which physicscandidates are already familiar. However, if possible, it is recommended to go through NCERT books from standard VI to X. For this section do not go for memorization rather invest your time in clearing basic concepts. In the WBCS Prelims exam paper, most of the questions asked are based on concepts and everyday experiences. For the candidates with non-Science background, in order to have a reasonable command on Physics portion try to clear basic concepts from topics such as Heat, Sound, Electricity, Light, Basics of Astrophysics, Motion, Radioactivity, and Fundamental Unit & Dimension.

ENGLISH

Unfortunately, candidates from Bengali medium background  think that they are in a bit disadvantageous position which is absolutely not true. In fact, I know quite a few of my friends who are from Bengali medium and each one of them is a genius of the field and better than most of the English medium educated students. Anyways, evaluate yourself. Take tests from last year question papers. If the score is below 10 out of 25 then there is definitely a room for improvement. The most important part is to increase usable vocabulary. Believe me or not, reading is the only remedy. Personally I like to read articles posted in Aldaily, however, one may start with any basic story book. There are at least 6 questions from Idioms and Phrases. For Idioms adopt P.K.De Sarkar as your Holy Bible. Try to construct sentences of your own using these idioms. Using an Oxford Learner’s Dictionary at one’s arms length will be an added advantage.

POLITY and ECONOMY

‘Indian Polity’ by M. Laxmikanth or Anadi Kumar Mahapatra in will serve both Prelims and MAINS exams.

Indian Economy from General Studies Manual (Tata McGraw Hill) and reading selectively from ‘Indian Economy’ by Dutt & Sundaram will be enough for Prelims and MAINS respectively. Darpan’s Indian Economy can be very useful. But it is advisable to adhere to the syllabus and previous year’s questions for the prospective candidates.

For current affairs, Civil Services Chronicle, Competition Wizard, Mahendra’s Current Affairs at least any should be thoroughly gone through with special emphasis to international, national, sports, awards sections. News papers like Statesman, Times of India or The Hindu would be enough regarding the said exam. Websites like www.currentaffairsgktoday.in can be very useful.

 

Books on verbal reasoning by R. S. Aggarwal  and ‘Quantitative Aptitude’ by M. Tyra  for Mental Ability and Arithmetic portion respectively can be followed I addition to the previous year’s  

Analytics of Last 7 years WBCS Exam Question Pattern 

We are not in a position to predict WBCS exam questions, however, a statistical analysis of past year question paper gives an insight of randomness. Pie charts below show last 7 years averaged question distribution from of each section for WBCS Prelims Exam.