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Importance Of English In Competitive Examinations

In the modern competitive era, the English language plays a vital role in way of our daily life. As a part of the tri-language formula, English plays multiple roles; as an international language, a link language, a library language, a language for communication, and so on. Usage of English at an advanced level requires considerable proficiency in that language.

“English today is the key to the treasures of knowledge”.

English is considered as global language or lingua franca. There are around 350 million people around the world speaking English as their first language and more than 450 million people speaking it as a second language. English is also considered a trade language. The National Policy on Education calls English a library language. A library language aids the users to read books and understand books of various genres and subjects, to make notes of important points, and use them his walks of life or enriching his home language. Thus, English is meant to function as a language of comprehension than of creative expression.

‘We need English in this country for survival’.

So many Multinational companies expect their prospective employees to have a level of English knowledge. But the importance of English is not just limited to the corporate sector. Nowadays English language proficiency plays a vital role in competitive exams. The English language is considered as a mandatory section in the syllabus, in almost all competitive exams at all levels including the national and state levels. In competitive exams, the English language incorporates three important sections: grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension. These three sections enable the exam conducting committees to examine the proficiency of aspirants/ applicants in reading, writing, speaking, listening and understanding of English language. Thence, candidates have to acquire adequate knowledge by adopting systematic strategies of learning the language to achieve their dream by qualifying these competitive examinations. In particular, aspirants must put their sincere and continuous efforts in practicing Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary, Grammar Usage.

In the modern era, most of the competitive exams in the public and private sector has English as an indispensable unit. Many sectors conduct the exams in English medium too. Generally, most of the exams focus on vocabulary and basic understanding of the English language such as grammar, comprehension, etc. Though, all the competitive exams have other subjects like mental ability, general awareness but English plays a fundamental role. Some of the general topics that are widely seen in all the competitive exams are as follows:

Comprehension passages, Cloze test, Synonyms and Antonyms, Homophones and Homonyms, one word substitutions, Phrasal Verbs, Idioms and Phrases, Sentence Rearrangement, Para Completion and Para Jumble, Spelling Test, Precis Writing, Spotting the error, Tenses, Active and Passive voice, Direct and Indirect Speech, Prepositions, Articles etc.

In the competitive exams, English Language paper aims at assessing the language skills of the candidates to examine the aspirants’ mental alertness, presence of mind, critical analysis as well as the judgement. In many domains of work, a variety of vocabulary is required to completely express some of the ideas succinctly and effectively. A large vocabulary correlates well with the capability to handle complex ideas. This is the reason, why the English Language holds significance in competitive exams.

The Civil Service Exam, which is widely known as UPSC Examination is the most renowned nationwide competitive examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission for recruiting various Civil Services of the Government of India such as Indian Administrative Services, Indian Foreign Services etc. The UPSC Exam consists of three phases:

1. Preliminary Examination
2. Mains Examination and
3. Personal Interview

The Preliminary Examination has two objective papers, where each paper consists of 200 marks:

GS Paper I: The General Studies paper consists of 100 question of 2 marks each. This paper aims to check your knowledge on Current Affairs, Indian Polity, Indian Economy, Geography, Science and Technology, Environment and Ecology, History, International Relations.

GS Paper II/ CSAT: CSAT as the title indicates aims to infer the aptitude of Candidates by testing Reasoning ability, analytical and interpersonal skills. CSAT Paper consists of 80 questions; each question carries 2.5 marks.

The CSAT paper includes broad categories, they are:

Reading Comprehension, Data Interpretation, Reasoning and Analytical Skills, Mental Ability/ Basic Numeracy. Usually the English part of CSAT consists of 20-30 questions.

The State Public Service Commission of the states are constitutionally responsible for recruiting eligible candidates for various gazetted and non-gazetted posts such as Sub – Inspectors, Police Constables, Tahasildar, Village Officers etc. Each state has its own public service commission who assist the state governments in these procedures. Even in various State Public Service Commission general English is an integral part. Depending upon various posts the weightage of the question from English varies from 10 to 30 marks.

In India, Banking is also considered as one among the high regard jobs and lakhs of students are preparing for these examinations along with their studies or after it as it provides job security, good salary package etc. So Banking domain has become one of the most competitive domain. The various agencies such as the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection(IBPO), State Bank of India(SBI), National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Developments (NABARD), Reserve bank of India (RBI) publishes various vacancies for the post of Probationary Officers (PO), Specialist Officer (SO), Clerk etc. for which 30-40% of questions come from English. These usually includes question from Reading Comprehension, Paragraph Completion, Cloze Test, Para Jumbling/ Sentence Rearrangement, Spotting the error, Spelling errors, Word Replacement, Idioms and Phrases, Synonyms and Antonyms, Active and Passive voice. The agencies like SBI conducts two tier examination for the post of PO in which the second tier i.e. mains exam includes letter writing, essay writing etc.

Various entrance exams like Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), All India Legal Entrance Test (AILET), Common Entrance Test (CET), Management Aptitude Test (MAT), Common Admission Test (CAT) English is an integral part. About 20-30% marks are allotted from English section.

Tips to prepare English for competitive exams:

• To efficiently improve your vocabulary, you should read English newspaper regularly, read novels, watch English episodes, participate in discussions, and try to use new words. Note down difficult words and bring them in usage.
• For Grammar, learn the basic rules from grammar books. Maintain notes consisting of synonyms-antonyms, grammatical rules, sentence construction, and practice them on a regular basis. Develop reading habit so that you can easily pick up the erred sentences and correct them instinctively.
• In order to prepare for comprehension, you should be good in vocabulary. You can score good marks in comprehension.
• Do practice regularly to get conceptual clarity and to use the language grammatically and appropriately.
• Take care of time management to ensure your attempt to answer all the questions.

“He who climbs a ladder must begin at the first round”.

                                                                                                                –  Sir Walter Scott.