ESSAY FOUNDATION COURSE STRUCTURE

Essay Foundation Course Structure

Based on our perception of an ideal preparation for assessment tests, we at IvyLeague Career Services have designed Class-Room based programs and Online training programs which effectively address/solve all issues faced by students.

All our Test-Prep programs have a 9-Step Procedure :

1. Diagnostic Test – UPSC Essay is a subjective assessment test. Even before joining the program, students already have a certain understanding of writing essays, making them competent at certain areas of the test, but they need a Training Need Analysis. We start with a Diagnostic Test or Mock Test to benchmark a student’s performance and present position. This provides us a detailed analysis of performance to a subject, topic and question level, which is used by the allocated teacher to personalize the program to an individual student’s needs.

2. Pre-Class Priming - Once the program starts, students attempt a Pre-Class assignment to increase familiarity with a topic and understand the challenges involved. This is to pre-prime you up for the coming class. You don't have to learn the stuff in the Pre-Class assignment, instead you have to just read through it (or attempt an exercise) once to get familiar with the next topic to be taught in class. Another benefit of the Pre-Class assignment is that when the class starts, all the students in the batch are at the same threshold level from which the teacher can take things further easily. Some topics do not require Pre-Class Priming as they have to be taught from scratch while other topics may need Pre-Class Priming

3. Class Training - Now, the Teacher teaches the topic in class and teaches every concept and sub-concept that has been tested on the actual exam previously. Class teaching is kept completely comprehensive, so if a topic such as Brainstorming for the essay requires to understand and learn to apply 5 methods to arrange resources for making the Mind Map, then we will teach you all of this stuff in class and make you practice it thoroughly though practice questions. 

Students are encouraged to take extensive notes during the initial concept teaching. Then teacher shows how to apply each concept on questions that test that concept.

Now students attempt a certain number of questions in front of the teacher to identify any problems that still remain and these problems of the students are solved. The class ends with detailed written assigned homework of three types –

1. 1. revision of concepts taught in class,
   2. questions to check knowledge of concepts tested on the exam, which have been taught in class and
   3. questions to test application of concepts (objective questions to test concept application and real exam questions from the Official sources).We follow a closed-feedback-loop mechanism to train you. We wouldn’t just be happy that we have taught you the right stuff, but we will ensure that you have understood and learnt it well. We would like to be a bit strict here and we will also check what you have learnt and identify why are you not getting a 100% score. So, the program has a lot of written homework, which is monitored/assessed by teachers.

4. Home Work - Now, After the class, once a student is at home, the student receives homework assignment. This assignment can have three parts – reiterated important concepts (to be revised, learnt and written), Concept Tests (to identify whether you have learnt all the concepts) and Concept Application Tests (to check whether you know how to apply concepts on questions) on each topic. This is done to identify whether a certain concept is not clear or application of the concept is not perfect. Next Class - The homework assignment is shared with the teacher, who carefully checks the home work and provides remedial actions – The remedial actions can be teaching the concept again, more class work in front of the teacher or more monitored practice. Your teacher clears the concepts, formulas and solving strategy on each and every question, in which you can make a mistake. In this manner each topic, concept and question type get perfected.

5. Revision & Polishing – Once a particular topic has been understood by a student, the big challenge is to keep it fresh in memory and not forget it. We do not believe in giving you a big question bank and expect you to practice from it as you cannot do the right amount at the right time. So, we will give you the right amount of practice content at regular intervals, so that you do not forget what you have learnt previously. At a later stage, you will also get practice questions from a question bank to be attempted under time constraints and you have to decrease the average time taken per question. Attempting questions faster results in more silly mistakes also, so a greater focus under time-constraints is the learning at a later stage of preparation.

6. Assessments - As more and more topics are taught, a student gets ready for the next level of learning – topic tests, multiple topic tests or progressive tests. A student needs to develop the ability to attempt a jumbled bunch of questions, random in terms of subjects, topics, concepts and difficulty levels – the way it appears on the real exam. This helps you to learn how to switch your mode of answering questions from one type to another. Say a Problem-Solving question designed on a word problem of Time, Speed and Distance may need a different mode as compared to a Data Interpretation question based on the same chapter.

7. Green Room Rehearsal - The last level of learning happens by seriously taking a series of Simulated Exams or mock tests. The mock tests will point out the new test dynamics at play: Now, despite knowing how to solve each type of question, still under test conditions, you will make a greater number of silly mistakes because of four reasons. These are test anxiety, lower Attention span, less Stamina, and unfamiliarity with the newer format of exam. Let's understand these four issues and their solutions:

1. Test Anxiety - Just the thought that we are being tested causes butterflies in our stomach. This performance anxiety affects your scores badly. So, attempt as many Simulated Exams as possible (followed by test analysis) so that you become immune to anxiety.
2. Lower Attention span – you have an attention span of 15 to 30 minutes, and normally you can comfortably use your brain at full potential for this short span only, but this is a 3-hour exam, so after the initial half an hour, you feel like taking a break to perform better later, but you are not permitted to do this. To increase your attention span, get into the habit of using your brain continuously for longer stretches of time, without even taking a moment of break during your study. Learn to study without distractions such as your cell-phone ringing or anyone barging into your room while you are studying.
3. Stamina – After an hour of testing, your brain actually gets tired so questions seem more difficult to understand and solve, leading to more mistakes. Here also the solution is to study for longer stretches of time, without taking breaks. Remember you are preparing for a marathon and not a 100-meter dash.
4. New Essay Format - Taking an exam on a new format is uncomfortable to a lot of students. You have always done subjective and knowledge heavy tests so attempting a long Essay stretching around 1200 words works against your scores.

The solution is a greater amount of practice, followed by clear feedback to improve yourself.  A series of Simulated or Mock exams, and learning from them. This gives you a grip on the Essay paper testing and makes you immune to the pitfalls. Moreover, analysis of essays by the student followed by analysis by the teacher helps to identify the grey areas that need focus.

8. Familiarity with Test Environment - You do not want any nasty surprises on the test day to disturb your preparation. So, get familiar with what is going to happen on test day and be completely prepared for it: Things such as what to wear on test day, Proctoring procedures, Test centre procedures, Documents to carry to the test centre, reaching the test centre at the right time and how to reach there are as important as your test preparation. Luckily, on the day of the Essay paper, you have to give only one exam. In case of other Main exam papers, two exams are conducted each day. When and its duration, What to eat or drink during the break – What’s permitted, or not permitted. You will understand how the mandatory break during the UPSC Main exam can be used to your advantage.

During the exam, what to do if you suffer a test irregularity, the sequence in which questions are attempted, number of rounds of attempting questions, deciding how to choose or reject a question, the right number of questions to be attempted according to your ability, type of question paper and keeping negative marking in mind are crucial aspects affecting your final score on the exam.

9. Mental Preparation: Now you relax and mentally prepare yourself for the exam. You have already taken a lot of mock tests, which would have given you proof of what good score you will get on the exam day, so you do not have to be tense about the uncertainty of the exam score.

We would even like to hand-hold you during the real exam, but that would be unethical and is not permitted. Luckily, you would be so prepared for the real exam that you won’t need us during the real exam.