BCS Written Political Science common mistakes
BCS Written Political Science · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writing the Bangla essay and Bangla comprehension answers in a heavily Sanskritised or English-mixed register instead of standard formal Bangla prose.
Candidates prepare Bangla mainly through casual reading and social media, so their active written register drifts toward code-mixing and colloquial constructions; under time pressure they translate English thoughts word-for-word.
What to do instead
Practise writing one full Bangla essay and one comprehension summary per week strictly in formal register, then self-audit for English loanwords and unnecessary tatsama substitutes, rewriting each flagged sentence in plain standard Bangla.
Treating the English paper as a grammar-only test and producing short, unanalysed answers to comprehension and composition tasks.
Coaching materials emphasise multiple-choice grammar drills, so candidates rehearse error-spotting but never practise extended paraphrase, précis, or structured paragraph writing.
What to do instead
Do timed précis and comprehension exercises weekly: read a 400-word passage, write a 100-word summary and three inference answers, then compare against the passage to check that every claim is textually supported.
Narrating the Liberation War as a single undifferentiated event with vague dates and no distinction between political phases and military phases.
Candidates memorise slogans and a few heroic anecdotes rather than a chronological framework, so they cannot sequence March 1971 negotiations, Operation Searchlight, the Mujibnagar government, sector organisation, and the December surrender.
What to do instead
Build a one-page timeline with dated milestones and, for each, note the political decision, the military consequence, and one verifiable source; rehearse reproducing the timeline from memory before writing any Liberation War answer.
Answering international affairs questions with opinion and moral judgement instead of naming institutions, treaties, and legal instruments.
Candidates follow news commentary rather than primary documents, so they know a dispute exists but not which convention, resolution, or organ governs it.
What to do instead
For each major issue, prepare a fact card listing the relevant treaty or UN instrument, the governing body, the key obligation, and one dated example of application; cite these explicitly in answers.
Describing geographical or environmental processes without linking them to Bangladesh-specific consequences and policy responses.
Candidates reproduce textbook definitions of cyclones, salinity, or river erosion but never connect the mechanism to affected districts, livelihoods, or adaptation programmes.
What to do instead
Practise writing each physical process as a three-step chain: mechanism, Bangladesh-specific impact with a named region, and an existing adaptation or policy response; check that all three steps appear in every answer.
Confusing political science theory with public administration practice, so answers on bureaucracy, accountability, or civil service reform lack any theoretical frame.
Candidates revise these as separate memorised syllabi and never build bridges, so they cannot use concepts like principal-agent problems, Weberian bureaucracy, or new public management to analyse administrative behaviour.
What to do instead
For each administrative topic, write a short paragraph pairing one theorist or model with one Bangladeshi institutional example, and rehearse applying that pairing to a fresh question under timed conditions.
Answering constitutional questions from memory of articles without stating the article number, the amendment history, and the judicial interpretation.
Candidates learn constitutional principles in the abstract and skip the text, so they cannot distinguish original provisions from amended ones or cite landmark judgments.
What to do instead
Maintain a table of key articles with columns for original text summary, amendment changes, and leading case; revise it weekly and practise citing at least one article and one case per constitutional answer.
Writing development answers that recite growth statistics without analysing distribution, employment, or the policy instrument behind the number.
Candidates memorise headline GDP and poverty figures from yearbooks but never learn what programme or reform produced them, so analysis collapses into data listing.
What to do instead
For each indicator, record the definition, the source and year, the trend, and one causal policy explanation; in practice answers, always follow a statistic with an interpretation of who benefited and what constraint remains.
Guessing at numerical and scientific answers in the general science and mathematics section instead of showing the working.
Candidates from humanities backgrounds avoid quantitative practice, so they attempt arithmetic mentally, misplace units, and abandon multi-step problems.
What to do instead
Do daily timed sets of ten mixed problems, writing every step including units and a final sanity check; keep an error log classifying each mistake as conceptual, arithmetic, or unit-related and review it before the next set.
Writing ethics and governance answers as moral exhortation, urging honesty and accountability without naming institutions, rules, or enforcement mechanisms.
Candidates treat the topic as values education and prepare quotations rather than institutional analysis, so answers contain no reference to codes of conduct, oversight bodies, or sanction processes.
What to do instead
For each integrity issue, prepare a structured note covering the applicable rule or code, the enforcing institution, the sanction available, and one documented case; require all four elements in every ethics answer.