BOOKS/STUDY MATERIAL FOR CGLE

English
Objective English of R S Aggarwaal, A Practical English Grammar of A.J.Thomson & A.V. Martinet (along with both the
exercises books which are available with their keys), High School English Grammar of Wren & Martin (along with it's key
book).

Maths
Quantitative Aptitude of R S Aggarwal, Quick Arithmetic of Aashish Aggarwaal & if you are in need of any conceptual clarity
Descriptive Arithmetic of K Kundan is the best. NCERT secondary level books and/or R D Sharma (IX & X standard) for
geometry, (X & XI standard) for trigonometry and (X standard) for linear equation etc. As they are only descriptive in nature
you must practise objective questions on these topics from any good books available in the market. But remember you cant
be a master in 'Maths Objective' unless you are good in descriptive.
GK
GK of Lucent, NCERT books for Science from 6th to 10th. Monthly Magazine 'Pratiyogita Darpan & some good quality
newspaper like 'The Hindu'

Reasoning
Practicing of past papers and the model papers should be enough.

But never forget to practise previous papers & model papers to master it all. Papers of Kiran Prakashan are
better than others in my opinion.

CHAPTERS OF R S AGGARWAL THAT ARE RELEVANT FOR A CGLE

I'd say OBJECTIVE GENERAL ENGLISH of R S AGGARWAL is really a nice nice book from the
prospective of CGLE barring certain topics like VOICE, NARRATION & ARTICLES etc. The
following is suggested:

1. Synonyms (from practice set-16)

2. Antonyms (from practice set-11)

6. One Word Substitution

8. Comprehension-II (Leave the chapter-7 on comprehension as it has long passages; in CGLE they
are short ones rather)

11. Sentence Completion

12. Passage Completion (Cloze Test)

14. Common Errors

15. Spotting Errors

16. Sentence Improvement

20. Rearrangement of Sentences in a Paragraph

24. Idioms & Phrases

25. Active & Passive Voice ( In addition one must not forget to practice it from WREN &
MARTIN and THOMSON & MARTINET as they are much much better books on this)

26.Direct and Indirect Speech (Again WREN & MARTIN and THOMSON % MARTINET best for
this topic)

28. Spelling Test

DICTIONARY & VOCABULARY
In addition you must be with a nice dictionary. I think OXFORD ADVANCED LEARNER'S
DICTIONARY OF CURRENT ENGLISH is the best. It has in it every word well explained in easily
understandable English and with simple and easy illustrations/examples. And of course almost every
phrasal verb & idiom associated with that word also. No doubt it's very much helpful in making one's
vocabulary part stronger. R S AGGARWAL too a nice book to prepare vocabulary section. I'll suggest
you should leave first 15 chapters over synonyms in that book and start from the 16th one as the
word from here are made understood giving illustrations. The same strategy should be followed
throughout as things are better understood when they are given with examples, illustrations etc.

HOW TO START
The biggest question is how to START preparation for a CGLE. I say just one thing----do one question
paper of tier-I and both the papers of tier-II of any of the last year's exam (not any model paper
as exam paper is always a standard) at home in exam conditions. The reason is simple----the best
thing for an aspirant is to know his actual status of understanding of the various topics of each
subject. By doing so he can easily find his weak areas; and thus will have better chances to frame the
best strategy to overcome them.

We have 3 papers in all; one at Tier-I stage and the remaining two at Tier-II. Total time for each
paper is 2 hours. But while practicing we generally forget to subtract the time that we spend in
marking answers in rectangles. Apart from this the invigilators on duty too make us waste 3-4
precious minutes in taking our signature etc. As my own experience says roughly 16 minutes are
consumed in marking the answers in rectangles for 200 questions. Thus we are left with only 100
minutes for actual solution of Tier-I exam & English paper of Tier-II. As the Maths paper in Tier-II has
only 100 questions the actual available time for the solution increases by 8 minutes making it 108
minutes in total. Candidates are here to remember that they dont have to give even a minute time
extra for solving the paper/s. Now I come to the approximate time (for solution only) that one should
spend on doing each subject component of Tier-I. Here it is:

GK......................................15 minutes

English...............................20 minutes

Reasoning..........................30 minutes

Maths.................................35 minutes
And better (according to me) if these components are done in the order given in the above table. Yeah
if one does prefer to use a practice OMR sheet for marking his answers nothing could be better than
this. But the time for each subject then will rise by 4 minutes or so.
The practice of doing past/practice papers should be kept followed all through. But if one wishes it
could also be done once in two weeks in initial stages of preparation; say the first 1-2 months

ON GK
I think you should read GK for 3 good hours a day atleast. One hour for GK books, one for a good
monthly magazine and one for good daily newspaper. PRATIYOGITA DARPAN really a very beautiful
magazine and THE HINDU the newspaper. Now the books...........I think you should read Lucent's GK
book thoroughly. In addition NCERT Science books from class 6th to 10th as well are a must. If this is
done with utmost sincerity it will also help in building one's vocabulary of English stronger if his or her
medium of studies is English.
ON REASONING
No matter if you dont find a topic or two of REASONING in any of the book/s you have; better to leave
it cause dealing many a book at a time could really spoil the things. Whatever you do; do it with
mastery. That way you could score better marks as I personally feel. Yeah if you happen to get time
after; try to find a proper book for those left out topics.
On Antonyms/Synonyms
I'd advise you should not spend much time on antonyms and synonyms. The reason behind this is
simple. They are endless in number and therefore you cant learn them much. Any word could be there
in the paper. So better if you utilize that precious time in making your other areas stronger. Dear
friends, word power cant be made strong just by cramming words for a few months; rather it's a long
term process that starts from one's school days in reality. Words pe wahi log jyaada dhyaan dete hain
jinke other areas strong hote hain jaise ki Jayant bhaai. I only mean to say if you are behind words
more than actual requirement output wont be that much.
HOW MUCH TIME FOR EACH SUBJECT/TIMETABLE
As I think a person who is not in job should devote at least 8 hours time each day to his studies
according to the time shown against each component of the syllabus for CGLE though it's purely
suggestive.

1. GK----------------------3 hours

2. Reasoning------------1/2 hour

3. Maths------------------2 & 1/2 hours

4. English----------------2 hours

In addition to this if an hour time or so is spent on some activities of sports and some time on
programmes of entertainment on TV etc; will really be nice for maintaining mental state in good
condition. But not more than it.

NOTE-I: For reasoning doing exercises given in the past and practice papers should be enough. But
dont forget to consult any good book if you find a question not under control. One should also take
help of a book on reasoning for the type of questions which are not in practice sets while they fall into
a topic of the syllabus provided.
NOTE-II: A person already in job too should try to spare more and more time for the preparation; I
think almost 4 hours a day in addition to the full day timetable for the days of holidays.
Do Both Tier-I & Tier-II Simultaneously
Guys plz notice that Tier-I is of 200 marks as compared to 400 for Tier-II. Means the weight of marks
becomes double at the next stage. Importantly subjects in Tier-II i. e. English & Maths also the parts
of Tier-I. For Tier-II we get roughly 2 & a half month time for preparation after Tier-I. And as I believe
that time may not be well sufficient to master English & Maths. So my advice we should prepare Tier-
II also right from this moment and not leave it to practise at the later stage i. e. after the exam for
Tier-I.
DARKENING OF THE RECTANGLES IN THE OMR SHEET
Well, darkening of rectangles to mark the answers can be done in several ways. Some prefer to
darken them after all the answers have been ticked in the question booklet and some after the
completion of each section. Some of the candidates might be darkening the rectangles after they have
ticked all questions given on one entire page of the booklet. Anyway! As I personally believe all these
processes are time consuming as one has to go to the question booklet back for each time when he
has to darken the rectangle.

I suggest the candidates should keep the OMR sheet by the side of the question booklet or in a
manner that suits to the particular candidate while giving answers and mark a clearly visible dot with
the pencil/pen in the concerned rectangle after every question has been solved. After the completion
of each section rectangles with dots should be darkened in one go. And so on. Yeah while doing the
last section it could be done in groups of 20 questions or so so that in case of time of the exam is over
no rectangle with a dot mark is left unattended.
Chandan Dutta Bhaaiji on Darkening of Rectangles
From my experience, I can say darkening should be done from one to one basis and not in a bunch of
20, 50 or anything else. For this one has to practice a lot in darkening. One is to choose any answer
key of any practice set of 200 questions and darken a xerox copy of OMR sheet by BLACK POINT PEN,
earliest by 5 minutes and latest by 10 minutes and then find out the mistake, which shouldn't be more
than two. One has to use a good number of xerox copy of OMR sheet for this exercise, atleast 2 to 4
in a day before a month of the examination.