1. Correction in the Economic survey summaries
  2. No corrections
  3. Parting words
  4. Next order of business
  5. Updates from UPSC
  6. Updates from SSC

Correction in the Economic survey summaries

Last updated on Aug-22-2014 evening.

Ch4: measures of money supply

  1. Banks receive more money in TIME deposits (FD, RD) than in Demand deposits.(Current / Savings)
  2. M3 less liquid than M2

Ch4: Inflation index theory

  1. Consumer food price inflation (CFPI): base year is 2010.

Ch4: Inflation Current trends

  1. HSBC releases the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).

Ch8: Agriculture => El Nino

  • High SOI index => strong trade winds & La Nina. (Trick: High has an “i” hence La N-”i”-na)
  • Low SOI index => Weak trade winds & El Nino.  (Trick: Low has an “o”, hence El Nin-”o”)
  • During El Nino year: warm water near Peru. (Visualize: El Nino is a terrible child, he has put gas-heater near Peru coast, now fishermen can’t put their feet.)

Ch9: PSU

National Investment fund (NIF)

  • 75% proceeds should go for bogus Sarkaari schemes and 25% for PSU  revival= that rule continued till 31st March 2013.
  • But After that, NIF Money is used for following purposes
  1. buying shares of CPSE to enture 51% sarkaari ownership
  2. recapitalizing sarkari banks and insurance companies
  3. Investing in EXIM bank, NABARD, Regional rural banks,
  4. Uranium corporation, Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam
  5. Metro projects and Indian railways capital Expenditure.
  • And Government budget will decide where to spend money among these sectors.
  • For Budget 2013, NIF money was spent on Bank recapitalization and Indian railways.

Ch11: Coal gasification

  • NELP total blocks 93
  • India is largest producer of Guar gum. But due to heavy imports from US shalegas companies, its prices have increased by ten times within a year (2011-12). Thus shortage for domestic industry- who cannot keep up with the prices offered by American importers.

ch11: petrol diesel

  • CPCL Manali refinery is in Tamilnadu (And Himachal)

ch11: PPP challenges

Ch12: Forest Survey report

  • Forest cover increased between 2011 and 2013.

Ch12: Sustainable Development

  • 4 crore Indians don’t have electricity in their homes; and 8 crore still use firewood for cooking
  • Correct spelling of the name: Brundtland commission

Ch13: HDI calculation

  • Old HDI had indicators of adult literacy rate and GER as it components
  • but in the new HDI (post 2010) these two components have been replaced by Mean schooling years and expected years of schooling.

Ch13: Poverty estimation

  • Tendulkar method counts Expenditure in food, education, health and clothing. (and NOT just food).

Ch13: Women and child

  • MMR: no of mother deaths during or after within 42 days of birth.

Ch13: Minorities and PH

  • India has ratified Marrakesh treaty.

Ch13: Minorities and PH

  • Delhi is the most populous city of India.

No corrections

Some readers had said xyz thing is wrong. But I’ve not changed it because of following reasons:

  1. 2011: Maharatna was rule involved annual turnover 20000 crore but as per PIB-2013 it is 25000.
  2. Pharmacy doesn’t require “industrial license”. Because IYB 2014 page467 lists only five categories- pharmacy is not one of it. I’m unable to find any latest update that pharmacy/pharmaceutical was added
  3. Ackwarth Committee gave report in 1921 but they started separation of rail budget from 1924-25. Ref: official site of railways
  4. Gini coefficient: 0-equality, 1-max inequality.. Larger the higher gini coeffiicent, bigger the inequality. because Economics Roger A. Arnold, page 664
  5. Green Energy corridor: Intra-State grid upgradation would be taken up by PowerGrid, while the inter-State network would be developed by State utilities. ref: Businessline May 2013

Parting words

  1. DON’T keep awake the entire night before exam. Because whatever you cram during that night, nothing comes from it in the prelims. (years of self-experiance). Proper sleep is essential, to avoid silly mistakes in Maths and DI questions.
  2. GS: Never tick answers on GUT FEELING. Last year cutoff was 241. Many (sincere) candidates failed, their score was in the range of 239-240. Means, even a single mark lost in penalty, can change your result.
  3. DONOT COUNT Number of “attempted” circles, after every 15-20 minutes. It creates unnecessary pressure on brain and forces you to tick answers on GUT FEELING.
  4. Polity –even a slight change in wording- from “shall” to “may”, can alter the entire the meaning. Don’t take read Polity statements casually, observe each word then mark answer only if you’re 100% sure.
  5. In the multiple-statement question, Sometimes they ask you to find “Correct statements”, sometimes they ask you to find “incorrect statements”. SO Carefully read instruction, what do you have to find out- Correct statement OR incorrect statements? Otherwise, in your head you’d solve it right, but you’ll mark wrong answer.
  6. For point#5: ALWAYS use “elimination” method. First strike out the ineligible statements and the answers that have such statement combos (e.g. only 2 and 3 correct). It’ll greatly reduce the chances of mistake and trap MCQs.
  7. Aptitude: Don’t waste time in “sitters”. If a sum takes too much time, then move to next question. A comprehension “SET” should be solved at once. If you can’t solve 1-2 MCQs within that set, then don’t come back for it later on. Otherwise more chances of “GUT FEELING” and time wasted for re-reading the entire passage again.
  8. DONOT USE WHITENER in OMR sheets. It creates problem while computer scans the paper.
  9. MUST bring Wrist watch. Otherwise how will you know you’re wasting too much time on “sitter” aptitude question or comprehension passage?
  10. MUST bring an exampad. Often the Sarkaari benches have fractured surfaces, sometimes not wide enough to even put question paper.
  11. MUST tick answer using Black pen only.
  12. After Exam is over: Don’t waste time in cutoff speculation. Every year, hundreds of people clear UPSC despite having lower scores than the (unofficial) cutoff predicated by forum-gurus and coaching babas. There is always discrepancy of minimum 5-6 questions between official and unofficial answer keys (mine included). And like I showed in point#2: people miss the mains-ticket even by one mark. So, cutoff talk is for kids, not for real players.
  13. Instead, analyze the paper yourself- what was the source of the question? Did you have that book/XEROX/electronic source before exam? If yes, did you tick the right answer? What were the positive aspects and shortcomings in your preparation?
  14. Because there are ~1200 vacancies, this site has >60,000 subscribers. Majority will have to re-appear prelims next year. Lord Curzon will release this year’s “OFFICIAL” answerkey & cutoffs somewhere in 2015 (once the entire prelim-mains-interview-final result cycle is over).
  15. At that time (2015) you’d have forgotten, what exactly had happened in the battlefield on 24th August 2014. Therefore, you must self-analyse the paper and performance immediately after prelim is over & tweak the booklist-strategy accordingly for future.
  16. Once this “analysis” exercise is over, resume Mains preparation, SSC Tier-2 (2013), SSC Tier 1(2014), IBPS-2014, CAT-2014, CDS or any other exam you’re preparing for. Never sit idle, you’re in a warzone.

Next order of business

From my side, after prelim is over:

  1. Unofficial answerkeys for CSAT. I’ll release them at my pace over a span of 1-2 weeks. I’m not competing with any coaching classes for “who releases the answer key first?” Haste makes waste.
  2. After that, I’ll take a break from writing for 2 weeks, to fix some long pending financial issues, house repair work and server upgrade.
  3. Then, I’ll resume from the remaining chapters of Economic survey and [Current] series from where I had left.

So, best wishes to all नही ONLY Serious players. This is my last article before कत्ल की सुबह.

Updates from UPSC

  1. Visually challenged candidates will get 40 minutes extra in each of the paper. (earlier only 20 minutes) UPSC implemented this after SC order. LINK.
  2. UPSC confirmed DoPT’s directive that English questions (those 8-9 easy MCQs above decision making section), will not be counted in Civil service exam. Although silent on IFoS. LINK

Updates from SSC

Recall that in SSC CGL-2013 Tier 1 RE-exam, they passed some candidates at lower cutoff for Tax assistant post. SSC has published the list of those candidates:
http://ssc.nic.in/press-release/ROLL_L2_19_08_2014.pdf