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HOW TO READ NEWSPAPER FOR CSS?
Do you have a doubt regarding why and how to read the newspaper for CSS exam or how to read DAWN or ‘The Nation’ ? This article explains everything you need to know about reading the newspaper for CSS exam.
Firstly we need to ask six basic questions:
1) Why read Newspapers ?
2) What to read in a Newspaper ?
3) How to read Newspapers ?
4) What news to avoid for CSS preparation?
5) How to make notes from newspaper?
6) How much time should be devoted to newspaper reading?
Stay with us. We are going to answer each question one by one.
WHY READ NEWSPAPER?
Newspaper reading is the ‘heart and soul’ of CSS preparation. Reading good newspapers is considered an indispensable tool to prepare for the CSS examination. The importance of newspaper can’t be more emphasized as it helps in both compulsory and optional subjects. The quality material that a person can get from newspaper has no parallel and this valuable information can easily be reproduced in Essay, Pakistan Affairs, Current Affairs, Islamiat, International Affairs, Political Science or any other paper. The statistics, quotes, opinions, facts and figures quoted in the newspaper are the latest ones and reading them saves a lot of time as you can easily note them down while reading paper instead of searching them on Google separately. Reading newspaper will help you to develop your opinion. It will bring continuity and understanding in your thoughts. It will assist you in developing canvas of thoughts – thought process development. Your vocabulary will be improved by reading newspaper. Apart from that, it is also an excellent habit that will go a long way in making you a well-informed, socially aware and sensitive human being.
Difference Between Reading Newspaper for CSS and Casual Reading:
You must have read the newspaper occasionally or must be reading a newspaper on daily basis. But how is newspaper reading for CSS exam different from casual newspaper reading?
While reading the newspaper for the casual purpose we don’t have any defined objective other than gaining knowledge of the previous day’s news and the important socioeconomic developments that affect our daily lives. Additionally, newspapers serve as an entertainment source.
But while reading the newspaper for the CSS exam, we have certain pre-defined objectives to achieve:
1) Gain knowledge of the important current affairs
2) Develop insights into the current social, political and economic issues
3) Keep a record of the relevant facts and figures
It is with these objectives in mind you should approach newspaper reading for the CSS
exam.
What TO READ IN A NEWSPAPER?
Now moving on to the “WHAT” part. For beginners, DAWN newspaper is recommended because of its unbiased opinions. The portions that you need to read include:
Front and Back page to know about the current national events.
You need to quickly run through these. You can read news in detail for important one, and just go through heading for non-important one. For example, news related to national, international and business and economy should be given priority here. News like “Supreme Court forms JIT to probe Rs 35 billion mega corruption case” can be skipped because the process to find out corruption has not concluded yet.
In national news, always focus on the implications of an event. For instance, if there is a massive railway mishap, focus on why it happened and how the country is lacking in a comprehensive disaster management plan. You don’t have to remember the precise number of deaths. The same goes for natural calamities. In this case, also read about the geography behind the calamities.
Editorials and Opinions to develop your own opinions regarding all national and international events..
Read editorials and opinions carefully and keenly. They have a great importance in building your thinking and perceptions. These are important for widening your knowledge base, improving language skills, understanding key issues, etc. This section is very useful for English Essay, Current Affairs, Pakistan Affairs and Islamiat.
When you first start to read the editorial it will not make much sense to you, but this is OK. Over a few days of reading you will be able to catch the conversation and from then on editorial reading will be a pleasurable activity for you.
You can even take an article from the op-eds and make its précis daily, this activity will help you in both Current Affairs and English as it will improve your written expression.
The Friday Article in Dawn newspaper helps a lot in Islamiat paper as it helps in formulating a reasonable opinion on pertinent religious issues.
The International pages to stay in touch with International Affairs (As majority of you now have either IR or Political Science so these pages are a must-read).
From this section, pay special attention on the news related to the IMF, the World Bank, the United Nations, European Union and other international and regional organizations like Saarc, Asean, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Economic Cooperation Organization, Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Pakistan’s role in them should also be read.
Read carefully the news from countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany France, Russia, China, Iran, India, and Middle Eastern countries. Take down facts related to conflicts, national elections, regional treaties, global meetings and their agendas, etc. Also, keep noting down facts related to Pakistan’s foreign relations, economic ties, political conflicts, bilateral and multilateral relations, etc.
Focus on the visits of the Prime Minister or President. The treaties and agreements signed on such bilateral visits.
The business page to stay in loop with the state of global economy; Monday’s supplement on economy is very helpful to get an understanding on economic issues of Pakistan (This one is especially important for those who have Economics or Business Administration as one of their optional)
Finally, in Sunday’s “Images”, articles by Nadeem Paracha, Anjum Niaz and Mubarak Ali are very well-written as they are well researched and cover a lot of topics like social issues, terrorism, national security issues etc.
Now after reading this stuff if your mind gets overburdened you may take a tea break and read your horoscope on the metropolitan leisure page; you’ll get to know that your future is bright and something great is going to happen
HOW TO READ NEWSPAPER?
Newspaper reading is a very important part of CSS preparation, but, at the same time, an aspirant cannot afford to spend too much time in reading newspaper. Given below are 9 tips which will help you in reading newspaper precisely yet without wasting much time:
First thing, get acquainted to CSS syllabus thoroughly. CSS is more about streamlined preparations. Once you are fully acquainted to CSS syllabus, it would be easy to filter the news and Newspaper. When you read the newspaper, you would know what is related to the syllabus and what is not.
Now while reading the newspaper, switch on your filter in your mind and Read only the exam-relevant articles and editorials. You will see, you are able to filter unnecessary news (political mudslinging, robbery, pick pocketing etc.). Newspaper reading for CSS is more about connecting the dots w.r.t. to CSS syllabus. Always keep this thing in mind.
Don’t worry. In the initial stages, we feel as if everything is important but with time, you’ll get hang of it and be more experienced.
Your goal is more important than your interest when it comes to reading the newspaper. It is easy to get tempted to read about a favorite topic or person featured in the newspaper but all this takes away precious time from your hands. Remember you are reading the paper with the aim of clearing CSS exam.
Many people waste their time on the other pages and they get exhausted till they reach the editorials and opinion pages, which are the most important ones. Follow the above guidelines and you wouldn’t be exhausted.
Editorial/Opinion pages look bulky and huge to read, so mostly people procrastinate reading the editorial. Trust me! Procrastination will not help you at all.
Avoid multitasking while reading a newspaper. Many candidates think reading a newspaper is an act of formality or some sort of an obligation upon them to just read it. And so, many a times we find candidates going through the newspapers in a crowded places with noise of all sorts around, or while hanging out with friends etc. Effectively reading the newspaper also means to gain maximum in the minimum amount of time. So, pay attention to what you are reading and concentrate fully, in order to learn a thing or two.
Reading a Newspaper should not be accidental, that you just happen to read it because you found a newspaper lying on the table somewhere, rather, it must be a deliberate effort. A conscious read is different than a distracted read. You must concentrate on the pieces of news that you read, analyze it, ponder about it, connect it to the precious news articles which you might have read some time earlier.
Underline the difficult word/vocabulary, phrases or idioms you come across and google it and write it down in your diary or notebook.
You’re almost done. Repeat all steps each day.
WHAT NEWS TO AVOID FOR CSS PREPARATION?
Entertainment news.
Avoid all ‘masala’ news items.
Press conferences by political parties.
Political news like an X-party member blames a person of another party for taking bribes, etc.
The sports section. FPSC rarely asks any question related to sports. One can cover those areas from the magazines or any General Knowledge book.
You can skip Letters to the Editor section on opinion page.
Misc/Advertisement pages.
HOW TO MAKE NOTES FORM NEWSPAPER?
Now, we’ll tell you about “How to make notes from Newspaper” from examination point of view. It is very important to take notes of newspaper, because CSS preparation is a long preparation and you’ll be reading newspaper for months before exams but you won’t be able to recall and revise whatever you read topic unless you have made your own newspaper notes daily. Given below are the tips which will help you in making notes:
You can go for online or offline mode for note making, whichever mode you feel convenient.
For revising some articles you may cut them and save those clippings in a folder or you may paste those articles on a register.
You may make separate segments in that register and label them as:
“National events: you can make further breakdown like {national security issues, water crises, governance issues, criminal justice system reforms, CPEC progress, Progress on Panama Inquiry etc.}”
“International events {American Economic crisis, BREXIT, America after Donald Trump, Middle Eastern fiasco, South China Sea Disputes, War on Terror and IS, Rise of China and OBOR, Paris Climate Deal, etc.}
“Economy {Global financial crisis, Foreign Aid, Tax Avoidance and tax havens, Rise of new economies like BRICS etc.}
“Geography {food and agriculture Issues, climate change and global warming, etc.}
“Social Issues”
“Friday Articles” and so on.
Same technique can be followed for online mode for note making. This technique will help you in making and revising notes and it will also ease your preparation.
When you read an article, try to summarize it in one line and write that on top of it. Now whenever you feel like revising any topic you may take the clipped articles on that particular topic. It will save a lot of your time.
Look out for certain useful information such as, names of Presidents, Important dates, some vocabulary items etc. You could even extract useful phrases, idioms , quotations and impressive sentences to be used as headings in your answers. Write all these in your notebook.
In order to read a newspaper effectively, you can have a set of different colored markers/pens. Underline important Vocabulary items/phrases with one Pen (say Black), and Underline all the useful information such as Names, places, dates, events etc. with another pen (say Blue). You could also use a Highlighter to mark any important saying, quotation or headings.
Your notes should be crisp and relevant. You don’t have to go in-depth in most cases. For example, you don’t have to remember every name and number that figures in articles related to a particular scam. You only have to understand the basic problem, the key figures and people involved, the policy/law related to it, and the implications of the same for the country and society.
Try to make notes in bullet-points.
When you make notes out of the newspaper articles and editorials, write in your own words. Keep it simple and easy to learn.
Last but not the least, don’t forget to revise the notes the same next day before you start making notes for another day. Do a weekly & monthly revision.
This way you will have a whole data base of highly impressive ad useful knowledge, examples, facts, figures, vocabulary etc. and by the end of the year you would have made your own special notes and you can circumvent all Dogars, Ilmis, Cram Series and JWT stuff.
HOW MUCH TIME SHOULD BE DEVOTED TO NEWSPAPER READING?
Ideally, you should not devote more than 70-80 minutes to newspaper reading daily. Because, in CSS preparation students need to read other books and materials on daily basis and devoting too much time to reading the newspaper will leave you with little time to prepare the other subjects. So, 70-80 minutes are sufficient to cover the sections mentioned in the preceding paras..
During initial days of preparation, students will read more news and consume lot of time in newspaper reading but this is OK. Over a few days of reading you will be able to catch the conversation and from then on it will be a pleasurable activity for you and you will be able to read it in less time.
END NOTE:
Now you have a good idea about how to read the newspaper for CSS exam. Just repeat all the process every day till exams and believe me, hard work never gets wasted and you’ll be rewarded by Allah Almighty In Sha Allah!