How to prepare English for SSC CGL Tier 2 Exam

English plays a major role in clearing all competitive exams. Any candidate whose English is strong has an edge over the others.

In the Tier 2 exam the English Language paper is a separate paper comprising of 200 questions. A good score in this paper is crucial for the candidate to clear the exam and also to get the department of his choice.

Scoring in the English paper?

Scoring in the English paper is easier as compared to the maths paper as it is less time consuming. But to develop a good grasp over English one needs time and patience. At least a six month period is needed.

Many candidates feel that a good vocabulary is needed to clear the exam and cram a lot of words which they see in newspapers. They do not learn the right usage of the word.

This is not the right approach.

SSC does not ask for very high flowing words but you must be sure of the usage of the word and how it is used in sentences.

For example the word ” tantrum”.Students just cram the meaning of the word which is a display of bad temper.But they also need to know two more things firstly it is generally used with reference to ‘children’ and secondly the verb that is used with it is ‘throw’.

How to prepare English for SSC CGL Tier 2

 ExamSSC questions are like :

Q) He was the only child of his parents and _________ tantrums whenever they did not fulfill his demands.

A) made

B) had made

C) threw

D) displayed

What to do to develop vocabulary?

§  If a student is a bit more aware about the usage of the word in sentences along with its meaning it is helpful.

§  For beginners one must try to learn a few new  words everyday along with their usage.

§  Read a few sentences from the dictionary or online to understand the usage of the word.The more variety you read the better it is.

§  One must begin with at least 15 new words per day in the beginning which can be gradually increased depending onavailability of time and grasping power.

§  Overall 3000 new words should be learnt at least.

§  Many good books are available in the market to develop vocabulary.

Full Artilce on the topic vocabualry will follow soon.

Approaching the paper section wise

Overall its easier to prepare for the Tier 2 english paper as the pattern of the paper is fairly predictable.

Narration and Voice are two very important topics and both can be prepared very well.Even a student who feels his english is weak can score well in this section.Thorough knowledge of tenses is needed to master this section. I will soon write a detail article on how to prepare for Narration and Voice.This is a very scoring section and 100% accuracy can be achieved.

Next most important section is comprehension passagesand there are 30 to 40 questions from comprehension  passages.This section is simple and direct questions are asked from the passages. Sometimes it becomes time consuming when the sentences in the passage are too long or one sentence has too much information stuffed into it.

Develop the habit of reading and try to read whatever you can lay your hands on (magazines, newspapers, articles etc.)

Sentence rearrangement

Approximately 20 questions are asked from sentence rearrangement.This is also a scoring section and with a little use of tricks and technique it can be attempted.Click on the link for the tricks.

Importance of Grammar
Detecting the error in the sentences (20 questions), fill in the blanks(3 to 5 questions) and sentence improvement (15 questions) are asked from the grammar based section .

This section requires a very good grasp over grammar.

Just superficial knowledge of grammar is not enough. In depth knowledge is required. Cramming the rules is not enough .

A lot of practise is needed. Special focus should be made on Prepositions. There is no short cuts. The key is to read the rules again and again and practice as much as you can.

Check your answers and read the explanatory notes if your answers are incorrect. Only practising without evaluation and rectification is not the right approach.

E.g. Q) He absented from the meeting.

A) was absent

B) Absented himself

C) Took absence

D) No improvement

Answer: The correct answer is B. The word absented has been used as a verb in the sentence and whenever absent is used as a verb the sentence will also have a reflexive pronoun. So himself is the reflexive pronoun here. In option C we have used took with absence. This is incorrect. Took is used with leave. e.g. He took four days leave from office.

Vocabulary based Questions

About thirty eight to thirty nine questions are vocab based. The break up is given below.

Synonyms      5 questions

Antonyms      5 questions

Idioms and phrases(10 questions)

This section is getting trickier as the level of the exam is getting tougher. Even rarely used idioms and phrases are asked these days. Idioms and phrases are the easiest to learn in the vocabulary section and the student must try to learn as many as possible. Sometimes even the sentence could give a clue as to what is the meaning of the idiom from the four available options.

One word substitution (10 questions) This is a tough part to learn up but repeated revisions will help you to retain what you have learnt. Generally these are big and new words for the students so focus should not be on quantity but on retention.

Fill in the blanks (Vocab based 2 questions)

Eg Q) Johan argued, “If you know about a crime but don’t report it, you are ______ in that crime because you allowed it to happen.”

a. acquitted                         b. accomplish

c. accomply                        d. accomplice

Correct answer is d. An accomplice is a person who helps in doing something wrong.

Sentence improvement (Vocab based 5 questions)

Close Test

It is also an integral part of the question paper and twenty five questions are from cloze test.

This section does not require any separate preparation but its preparation is done when one prepares for the grammatical and vocabulary section. Cloze test is time consuming and often options given are too close.

It is recommended that the student must first read the whole passage to get an idea about what it is about and then attempt the questions.

This section needs a lot of practice.

Overall, what is the conclusion? 

Overall a better preparation strategy will help to score high. Target 180+ in English (keep CGL 2013 cut off in mind).