How To Prepare For UPSC Geologists’ Exams

The Hawk: Every student works hard with the hope of clearing competitive examinations conducted by the Union/State Public Service Commissions for securing a bright career.
The UPSC conducts Combined Geo-Scientists’ Examination every year to appoint geoscientists, including geologists, hydrogeologists, geophysicists and chemists, in the Geological Survey of India (GSI) under the Union ministry of mines, and Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) under the Union ministry of jal shakti. Combined Geo-Scientists’ Examination is a three-tier exam: (i) Stage-I: Preliminary Examination; (ii) Stage-II: Main Examination and (iii) Stage-III: Personality Test.

The Preliminary Examination is of objective type having two papers: (a) Paper-I: General Studies of 100 marks and (b) Paper-II: Geology/Hydrogeology/Geophysics/Chemistry of 300 marks of two-hour duration each. Marks secured in the Preliminary Examination is counted for the final merit list. Candidates clearing the Preliminary Examination are allowed to take the Combined Geoscientists (Main) Examination. The main examination has three papers (descriptive type) for each stream and the marks obtained in this exam are also counted for deciding the final merit. The personality test is of 200 marks. Final merit list is prepared on the basis of marks obtained out of a total of 1200 marks in three stages.

Minimum Educational Qualification
(i) Geologists in GSI: Master’s degree in geological science or geology or applied geology or geo-exploration or mineral exploration or engineering geology or marine geology or earth science or oceanography and coastal areas studies or petroleum geosciences or geochemistry.

(ii) Hydrogeologists in CGWB: Master’s degree in geology or applied geology or marine geology or hydrogeology

(iii) Chemists in GSI/CGWB: M.Sc. in chemistry or applied chemistry or analytical chemistry
(iv) Geophysicists in GSI/CGWB: Master’s degree in physics/ applied physics/ geophysics/ exploration geophysics/ applied geophysics/ marine geophysics)/ applied geophysics.

Strategy for preparation
Smart study is the need of the hour to get through any competitive examination.. Time management is very important for competing in the exam. And, it can be done only through regular practice of writing answers to previous years’ questions. Practice makes a man perfect, goes the saying.
Another important part of the strategy is preparation of notes. The aspirants should attend their graduation and post-graduation classes seriously and note down important points of lectures. They should also refer to good text-books and reference books and make their own hand-written notes.

For Preliminary Examination, they should concentrate on basics of the subject. They should practise multiple choice questions from authentic resources available online/offline. They may solve previous years’ CSIR-NET and GATE examination papers while preparing for preliminary stage. This will help them understand their analytical ability. Candidates should delineate their strong topics from the weaker ones and make preparations accordingly.
For Mains Examination, notes should be prepared using bullets, well-labelled diagrams and flowcharts, highlighting important terms and words. The aspirants need to analyse the question papers of the last five years carefully and prepare a list of frequently asked questions. They must focus on these topics while covering the prescribed syllabus. Important points should be presented in bullet forms. Handwriting should be eligible, quite neat and clean. Candidates need to be careful about the word limit of every answer they write, as limited space is provided in the question cum answer booklets. Moreover, all the questions must be answered within the allotted time. Candidates must believe in themselves and write answers with a peaceful mind to get success in examination and achieve their goal.
—Vijay GarG Retired Principal Educational columnist malout