ESIC Stenographer cheat sheet

Subject-verb agreement: a phrase between subject and verb does not change number - 'The list of items is long' takes 'is'.

Articles: 'a' before consonant sounds, 'an' before vowel sounds, so 'an hour', 'a university', 'an MP'.

Tenses: 'since/for' with present perfect ('has worked here since 2019'); 'ago' takes simple past ('left two days ago').

Prepositions fixed by idiom: 'comprise' takes no 'of', 'discuss' takes no 'about', 'married to', 'composed of'.

Active to passive: object becomes subject, verb becomes 'be + past participle', agent introduced by 'by'.

Direct to indirect speech: present tense shifts to past, 'today' to 'that day', 'tomorrow' to 'the next day', and 'this' to 'that'.

Synonyms/antonyms are best solved by word roots: 'bene-' good, 'mal-' bad, 'cred-' believe, 'dict-' say.

One-word substitutions and idioms are tested directly: 'altruist' = selfless person, 'to bury the hatchet' = to make peace.

Alphabet positions: A=1 to Z=26; reverse value = 27 minus forward value, so A pairs with 26 and Z with 1.

Coding-decoding: check shift patterns (+1, +2, +3 or alternating) and reverse-alphabet codes before assuming letter substitution.

Blood relations: draw a family tree, use '+' for male and '−' for female, horizontal line for siblings, vertical line for parent-child.

Series rules: differences of differences (second-order), squares/cubes plus constant, and alternating prime or Fibonacci sequences.

Direction sense: use a compass sketch; net displacement uses Pythagoras, and left/right turns reverse when facing south.

Syllogism: apply Venn diagrams; 'some A are B' is reversible, 'all A are B' is not reversible to 'all B are A'.

Seating arrangement: fix the person with the most constraints first, then place left/right using the facing direction of each person.

Clock and calendar: hands coincide 11 times in 12 hours; odd-day method gives the day of the week for any date.

Percentage change: increase then decrease of the same x% gives net change of −(x²/100)%.

Profit and loss: SP = CP × (100 + profit%)/100; successive discounts of a% and b% give a single discount of a + b − ab/100.

Simple interest = PRT/100; compound interest = P(1 + R/100)^T − P, with half-yearly compounding halving R and doubling T.

Speed: 1 km/h = 5/18 m/s; a train of length L crossing a platform of length P takes (L + P)/speed seconds.

Time and work: if A does a job in x days and B in y days, together they take xy/(x + y) days.

Ratio and mixture: alligation rule gives ratio of quantities = (higher − mean) : (mean − lower).

Average: new average after adding a value v to n items = (n × old average + v)/(n + 1).

Mensuration: area of circle = πr², volume of cylinder = πr²h, and diagonal of a square of side a = a√2.

Number system: divisibility by 3 or 9 uses digit sum; by 11 uses the alternating digit-sum difference.

ESIC was set up under the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, and functions under the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

ESIC provides sickness, maternity, disablement, dependants' and medical benefits; the scheme was first launched in Kanpur in 1952.

The Reserve Bank of India was established on 1 April 1935 and nationalised in 1949; it sets the repo rate through the MPC.

The Constitution of India came into force on 26 January 1950; the Fundamental Duties were added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976.

Indian financial regulators: SEBI for securities, IRDAI for insurance, PFRDA for pensions, and RBI for banking.

National days: Republic Day 26 January, Independence Day 15 August, Constitution Day 26 November, National Sports Day 29 August.

Space and defence: ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 landed near the lunar south pole in August 2023; BrahMos is a supersonic cruise missile.

Current affairs are best tracked by month: note awards (Bharat Ratna, Nobel), summits (G20, BRICS, SCO), and index rankings of India.

Pitman shorthand is written on a three-line staff; consonant strokes are light or heavy, and position on the line shows the vowel sound.

Vowel places: first place above the line, second place on the line, third place through the line; the following consonant fixes the position.

Grammalogues are common words written as single signs (e.g. 'the', 'and', 'of'); logograms are abbreviated word forms.

Phrasing joins short words into one outline without lifting the pen, but avoid phrasing across strong sense breaks.

Circles 's' and 'z' attach at the beginning or end of strokes; loops 'st' and 'str' attach only at the end and beginning respectively.

Hooks: initial 'r' hook on straight strokes, final 'n' hook, and 'shun' written as a hook or a small circle plus hook.

Dictation speed is built by timed passages: 80 wpm for 5 minutes, 100 wpm for 5 minutes, and higher grades require 120-140 wpm.

Transcription accuracy depends on reading back your own outlines daily and verifying spelling, punctuation, and figures after typing.

Touch typing home row: left hand on ASDF, right hand on JKL; (semicolon), thumbs on the space bar.

WPM = (characters typed / 5) / minutes; net speed subtracts errors, so accuracy above 95% matters more than raw speed.

Keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+C copy, Ctrl+X cut, Ctrl+V paste, Ctrl+Z undo, Ctrl+Y redo, Ctrl+S save, Ctrl+P print, Ctrl+F find.

MS Word: Ctrl+B bold, Ctrl+I italic, Ctrl+U underline, F7 spell check, and Ctrl+Enter inserts a page break.

MS Excel: '$' locks a cell reference, SUM/AVERAGE/COUNT are basic functions, and F2 edits the active cell.

Computer basics: RAM is volatile memory, ROM is non-volatile; 1 KB = 1024 bytes, and the CPU has ALU and control unit.

File extensions: .docx Word, .xlsx Excel, .pptx PowerPoint, .pdf portable document, and .jpg image.

Internet: IP addresses identify devices, DNS converts domain names to IP addresses, and HTTPS encrypts traffic with TLS.