Dear Friends,
The logic behind MCQS is simple and below are ways it is going to help you.
If you have taken the MCQ and found that you could not score more- No need to worry – at this stage , the questions are framed to increase attention and remove assumption.
Lack of attention and Assumption usually leads to failure in Prelims. It is not that , one din’t know the answer , but is the fact that one din’t read the question properly.
Lets look at a prelims question of CSE(Prelims) 2015 –
The winds which blow between 30 degrees N and 60 degrees S latitudes throughout the year are known as westerlies.
2. The moist air masses that cause winter rains in North-Western region of India are part of westerlies.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
In the above question, most of the candidates din’t read the question or have not given the attention that it deserved, it is a twisting question. Many have interpreted the 60 degree S as 60 degree N and got it wrong.This happens all the time in the anxious hours of exam.
Due to this very reason , MCQS framed in such a way that it will increase your attention.
Another logic we are using is that – ” People usually remember their friends but they never forget their enemies“- That is just human emotion . Similarly , if you have committed wrong for a particular question after honest attempt – then , chances are that you will never forget the question/answer anymore. This way ,it simply helps to register more information without really trying for it.
If you look at our MCQS, we give few datas , lets see how they will be useful ?
This is a statement of our MCQS:- “In India around 68 percent of the country is prone to drought in varying degrees“ . Now if you remember this data , the chances of using it , is very high. For eg-
you can write 68% of India is drought prone and hence we should try for integration of rivers with minimal impact on the environment
or 68% of India being drought prone , many of our farmers endure abject poverty after crop failure and hence we should plan an insurance for drought affected,
or, 68% of India is drought affected , hence rainwater harvesting and ground water recharge methods should be promoted aggressively,
or , 68% of India being drought prone, many farmers stay as subsistence farmers and could not improve their lifestyle , hence skill promotion and alternative employment should be promoted in chronic drought prone areas as there is no benefit of doing agriculture in those region anyway.
or ,68% of India being drought prone – the ICAR should develop more drought resistant crops
And there are many more ways to use the particular data. Hence, contrary to popular belief , some informations are pious – they have to be remembered else the answer will look shallow, similarly , Not all informations are sacrosanct- many should be forgotten at the first sight.
Through MCQ we give those informations that are important and can be used – so if you do the MCQ – you will remember it with out trying to remember it – that is the beauty of MCQ.
This is already a long post and without continuing further on the philosophy of MCQ , we – request you to take the advantage of it, while you can.And don’t get embarrassed or let down when you don’t score more – remember – those questions were your enemies and you will never forget them 🙂
In real exam, this can go a long way in helping you to fight anxiety and stress of the moment and increasing attention.
Practice makes men/women Perfect and that is the only way to clear this exam.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.