Civil Engineering is not a highly concentrated or popular subject among the UPSC aspirants as an optional subject. But it is considered as a scoring optional subject in the Civil Engineering Preparation Strategy for UPSC exam. This is only recommended for civil engineering students who already have the understanding about the subject matter with four years of experience. A normal aspirant who doesn’t have the background of civil engineering won’t be able to compete and earn a good score as the aspirants who have the knowledge on the subject with years of experiences. Almost all the aspirants who face this exam are civil engineering graduates.
The civil engineering optional aspirants have to face two papers. The first paper comes with the topics like engineering mechanics, strength of materials and structural analysis, design of structures, fluid mechanics, open channel flow and hydraulic machines geotechnical engineering. The second paper has construction technology, equipment, planning and management, surveying and transportation engineering, hydrology, water resources and engineering, environmental engineering and environmental pollution. So a sound understanding about all these topics is a must before facing the exam.
Preparation Strategy for Management as optional
#1. Set your target
Everyone’s target of facing this exam is earning a good mark and showing the skills related to civil engineering subject and strengthening the qualifications. So a proper preparation strategy needs to be followed for a good mark. For that aspirants can make their own time table and manage the time between the subject topics. This time table must end before the exam because the aspirants need to finish their whole syllabus before facing the exam. Otherwise they will have to sit for the exam with a partial knowledge on the subject. So aiming at a target and working for it is important.
#2. Prepare proper notes
After going through a certain topic aspirants can make their own notes. They can use various types of methods to prepare them according to their preferences. The notes must be clean and short. These short notes will help them to go through the whole subject in a short period of time. This is very helpful when the exam is very close.
#3. Prepare for important statics with diagrams
Civil engineering is a science related subject. So there are many concepts and theories to learn. To simplify them, aspirants can use diagrams and statics on their notes or wherever they prefer. Those diagrams and statics will help to get the total idea of the topic using only a visual drawing. So the absorption of such facts into the memory is very high.
#4. Topic-wise Enhancement
As this subject has a pretty big syllabus, there are a number of topics for the aspirants to go through. So they will have to read and understand the subject matter one by one. If someone mixed all the topics he or she won’t be able to organize and properly go through the syllabus. So everyone must go through the whole syllabus topic wisely. One topic after another is the best method to study according to a proper organization.
#5. Practice previous year questions
After studying and mastering the subject matter of the syllabus, it’s time for the aspirants to check their knowledge. Best way for this is to find and write the past year papers of civil engineering subjects. Then he or she can correct the answers themselves and they can track their own progress on the syllabus. So practicing with the previous year papers is a great idea for any aspirant to understand the paper structure as well.
Bottom Line
Civil engineering optional Preparation Strategy subject is only recommended for the civil engineering graduates. So there are only a limited number of aspirants who face the exam yearly. However they need to follow a good preparation strategy for the exam. Otherwise the exam will be hard for them. Proper understanding about the subject matter is a must in this case. To sharpen the knowledge, any aspirant can test their skills by facing past year papers before the exam. Going through the short notes is also very important when the exam is very close. It will help the aspirants to renew their knowledge and helps to remember the facts quickly and easily. Writing the answers in a descriptive way is essential if they want to go for a good mark. Studying with a proper strategy is the only way for success.
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