English is an important subject. In BCS written exam, there are two part of English exam held to test English skill of a candidate. Here I share some of my experience gather from others. Topic by topic preparation tips are provided here.


1) ESSAYS (60 marks):
In most of the cases recent burning issues come as the Essay topic in BCS exams. Believe it or not, 'common" in essays both the time. You should keep your eyes open about the important topics that might come as essays. You can buy market guides to see what essays they are emphasizing but please, DO NOT MEMORIZE FROM GUIDE BOOKS. These guide books have hundreds of mistakes and thousands of people directly memorize them. To secure better marks, you have to show something original.

Select 10-15 topics that you think is important(hot issues from newspapers/most talked issues/common issues like corruption.traffic jam etc).After selecting the topics start collecting data/article in newspaper about those topics. Search the internet and you will find dozens of articles on these topics. Read those articles and make a final copy on every topic which you will reproduce if that topic comes in the exam.

2)TRANSLATION (40 MARKS):
Reading is directly related with translation.If you read regularly,40 marks translation will be very easy for you.So,my dear friends,you need to read not only for the sake of a distant goal like "Improving your English" but also for doing well in translation section.For translation practice,take the editorial of a Bangla and an English newspaper.Translate them at least 3 editorials(both in English and bangla) a week.Translation is a very time consuming task in the real exam.If you practice it well,it will take less time and you will be in an advantageous position.by practising you will be able to know what to do when you don't know the exact meaning of a particular word/sentence.The more you practice,the easier the job will be for you.

3) GRAMMAR (25 MARKS):
The first thing you need to do is to solve the previous year's grammatical questions from all the BCS exams. You can collect the questions from market guide books but DO NOT trust them with answers. You can use 9-10 and 11-12 textbook. Another good book is "English Grammar and Composition" by “Wren and Martin”. "A Passage to English Language" by SM Zakir Hossain is also a very good book. While facing problem in "correction" questions you can use internet as a source. GMAT books has excellent sentence correction practice sections,one can practice from there too.Good command in conditionals/Subject-Verb agreement/Tense/Voice/Narration/other topics mentioned in the syllabus can be achieved by reading grammar textbooks (any good one will do).


It is very important to do well in this part because these 25 marks are solid marks. Full marks in this section not only helps to cut a good score but also helps to give a very good impression of the candidate-which might be translated into good marks in freehand writing section too!



4) SUBSTANCE/PRECISE WRITING (15 marks):
Keep in mind that substance/precise writing is a tough job because you have to express a long passage in a nutshell in your own language. Some basic guidelines are: the length should not exceed more than one-third of the original passage. You must not quote any direct line from the passage and avoid all the examples used there. Try to write summary of the newspaper editorials/articles. Enough practice will help you speeding up your summary writing skill.



5) AMPLIFICATION OF IDEAS (20 MARKS):
You know how to write amplifications. My request is, once again, DO NOT MEMORIZE IT FROM MARKET GUIDEBOOKS. Write them in your own language, use quotations/examples that you have collected personally from internet/newspaper/any other sources. To carryout good marks, you have to show the examiner that you worked hard by your own and you are not one of the common thousands who use market guidebooks.



6) OBJECTIVE WRITING (20 Marks):
The best source to prepare yourself in objective writing is to read newspaper articles. You may follow “The Daily Star” online edition and certainly editorial report. Whenever there is an incident (accident,bomb-blast,road-accident,fire,storm,economic problem etc) we can see wonderful articles in the newspaper. In BCS exam we are asked to write exactly that type of articles. You can get the format of objective writing from any English newspaper report. Practice writing by following those reports.


7) LETTER WRITING (20 MARKS)
It is better to write official/Memorandum or business type letters than writing personal letters. Check out the previous years questions. Format is very important in Letter writing, so you must consult a standard textbook to check out the format. For business letters, Business Communication textbook can be a good source.



Finally,You have to read newspaper in regular basis. To carryout good marks you have to practice English both “Reading” and “Writing”. To be a good writer you must read first .Read English comics, newspapers, journals whatever you feel like. If you read a lot, you will unknowingly find that writing correct English is not very tough. To achieve the level of writing simple and correct English, you should start writing at least 3 pages a day every day. Select any topic and write 3-5 pages everyday.You can start with easy topics like "My family","Why I want to join civil service" and then gradually write about serious topics like "How to fight terrorism","Economic development in Bangladesh" etc. After you have finished writing, take a red pen and revise what you have written. Point out the mistakes in spelling/grammar and try to avoid it in your next writing. You can take help from your teacher or anyone who has a good command in English to point out your mistakes.


Good luck to you all. In-sha-Allah you all will do same and be benefited in the exam surely.


Collected and edited from
Mashroof Vai & Siraj Vai & Asma Apu

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