How to Prepare for SSC CGL 2014

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Friends, the SSC CGL is one of the promising way to get into your dream job. We hope all of you have already successfully completed your registration process and started preparation (if not, hurry.. 22nd February 2014 is the last date to for phase I registration). Now lets discuss a few points about the preparation plan of SSC CGL 2014. After reading this post, you will get the complete idea on What to prepare and How to Prepare for the Exam. Luckily, unlike IBPS, SSC has clearly mentioned the detailed syllabus of the CGL Exam. All we have to do is, to sincerely follow the syllabus. Before going to discuss our preparation plan, lets have a look at the syllabus given by SSC. You can get it from the 16th page of the SSC CGL 2014 Notification. (Don't be scared of it. SSC is too specific about the syllabus and mentioned each and every topic and subtopic in detail). As we said earlier, it will be a cake walk for you if you already have been preparing for any other competitive exam.  If this is your first competitive exam, you have to be a little more sincere and focused.

About this Article : We've divided this post into two sections. Those are

1. What to Prepare : This section helps you on the required topics and books for your preparation.
2. How to Prepare : This section helps you in making a preparation plan / time table for the exam.

What to prepare for SSC CGL 2014 ?

General Intelligence and Reasoning :  We can simply classify this section into two parts. Verbal and Nonverbal. You have to improve your logical thinking ability inorder to score  good marks in this section. You can achieve that with regular practice. Focus more on Basic Reasoning Concepts, Directions, Analogies, Ranking, Coding-Decoding, Blood Relations, Venn-Diagrams. The difficulty level will be medium. So, there will be no twisted questions. If you can understand the question properly, you can easily solve it. And one more thing you should keep in your mind is, there is no Reasoning for Tier II Exam.

Reference Books : R. S. Aggrawal, Reasoning book by BS Sijwali and Indu Sijwal, Kiran Prakashan.

English : Believe it or not, this is the scoring section for SSC CGL. English section is there for both the Tier I and Tier II SSC Exams. So, you have to keep this in your mind during your preparation. The weightage is also high for this section (50 marks in Tier I + 200 marks in Tier II). So you have to score atleast 160 to 225 marks in this section. Make your preparation plan according to it. The questions will be based on Passages, Common Errors, Cloze test, Antonyms and Synonyms. You have to improve your vocabulary. Try to learn 10 new English words every day. Buy any basic English grammar book and practice it. Focus on Speed Reading Techniques. Read English news papers daily (it not only helps you improving your English, but it also helps you for improving your General Awareness).

Reference Books :  Any English grammar book of your mother tongue (to know basic grammar), Word Power Made Easy, S. Chand Publications books.

General Awareness : In this section they will test your knowledge on National, International affairs. You have to prepare the current affairs of last one year (Important events are enough. No need to go into deep). They will ask questions from standard GK also. So you have to prepare the basic topics of history, general science, economy, geography, polity, science & technology. You should keep in mind that, everybody can easily score 15 marks from this section. So you should focus to get 25 to 30 marks in this section. 

Reference Books :  Frankly speaking, no book is perfect and useful for current affairs. You better make your own notes by reading news papers daily (The Hindu). If you want books for GK, you can go for NCERT books, Monorama Year book, Pratiyogita Darpan.

Quantitative Aptitude : This section is there in both Tier I and II Papers. You should get good grip on all the basic concepts of maths to get good marks in this section. You have to improve your calculation speed. Practice more, it will help you getting good accuracy and speed. Focus on Numarical Ability, Probability, Profit-Loss, Interest, Partnerships, Averages, Time and Distances, Speed and Distances, Algebra and Trigonometry (focus more on these two areas, as these are new for banking aspirants). The total weight-age of this section is 250 marks (50 marks in Tier I and 200 marks in Tier II). So try to score atleast 170 marks in this section (150 marks for non maths students).

Reference Books : Quicker Maths by M.Tyra, R. S. Agrawal, any other CAT or Banking books according to your choice.

Important Note : As we've already mentioned, Quantitative Aptitude and English sections are there in both Tier I and Tier II papers. So focus more and spend more time for preparing these sections when compared to the other two.

How to Prepare for SSC CGL 2014

How to Make Time Table ?  It totally depends on your convenience. Just note down the syllabus on a paper. Tick the topics which you already know. Make your preparation based on the remaining topics and the days left. The exam is going to held on 27th April and 4th May 2014. So our dead line for the whole preparation is 25th April 2014. So we hardly have 2 months left. For last 2 weeks you should focus on practicing previous / model papers (atleast two papers per day).  So roughly you will have 46 days left for your preparation.

How to Start my Preparation ? If you have already prepared for any competitive exam, then you can directly start your preparation. I mean you can directly start picking topics, learning and practicing them according to your schedule. But if you are new to this competitive exam world, then you need some warm up sessions before starting your actual practice. For 4 to 7 days, you should spend memorizing basic Math Tables, Formulas, Squares and Cubes upto 15, Place Values of Alphabets, Synonyms and Antonyms lists. Once you are comfortable with these topics, you can go for the actual practice.

How many hours should I spend per a day ? It completely depends on you. If you are sincere and dedicated to your preparation, then 5 hours / day is enough. If not, you should spend the whole day. Let's do 1 thing. Instead of making time schedule, you just make the list of topics you should prepare per day. Based on it you can spend your day. No matter what you do during the whole day, you should complete those topics at the end of the day. 

Things to avoid :  Irregular Food habits, Unnecessary arguments with others, Over-thinking, Facebook.

Things to do :  Spend some time in prayer / meditation. Listen to good music. Make / Buy a small note book (small enough to fit into your hand) and write down all the basic math formulas and math tables in it. Read it when ever you get time. While practicing previous papers, try to solve them in 110 minutes.

Important Dates :

• Starting Date of the Preparation - 24th February 2014 (Gather all required books, materials and start your preparation by this date)
• Dead Line for your preparation - 12th April 2014 (by this date you should complete preparing all the important topics for the SSC CGL Exam (you should devote yourself to the practice papers for last two weeks)
• Date (s) of the Exam :
• 27th April 2014
• 4th May 2014
  

Note : No need to blindly follow the above schedule. You can make changes to it according to your convenience and requirement.

That's all for now friends. All the Best :)

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