IES Electrical Strategy By Sourabh Anand ( Rank 3, IES EE 2013 )

ES is not a difficult examination provided you approach it the right way.
Now what’s ‘the right way’?
Any single method can’t be called the right way. Each one of us can have our unique right ways. I am sharing my own right way; try to find your own.

I started with analyzing previous years’ papers. First observation, that I made was that IES papers are very repetitive. You will find only few surprise s and very rarely any shocks in any particular year. Second thing I observed was that you should cover almost entire syllabus for objective papers while selective reading can be done for subjective papers.

After that I analysed previous years’ cut off and toppers’ marks. I found out -
1. You need to score a little more than what an average guy can score.
2. GS paper works as game changer many times.
3. Don’t worry if you find conventional papers too tough; even Toppers struggle to score in conventional papers.

Now I outlined topic wise strategy –
1. EMT – clear your concepts to a fair degree with a good book like Hayt or Sadiku. Solve previous years papers. Don’t leave this subject; you’ll be losing easy marks. Questions are usually damn easy and predictable.

2. Network Theory – Read theory from a standard book like De Carlo Lin and PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! Solve previous years’ papers many times.

3. Material Science- This again is a high marks fetching subject which is highly ignored. Read indulkar (only relevant portions). See previous year’s papers. Use Google to learn about the materials. Internet (particularly Wikipedia) is highly useful for this subject.

4. Measurements and Instrumentation- This one is particularly tricky if you don’t have the right material and if you don’t approach the right way. Unfortunately there’s only one book available in the market – A. K. Shawney. Now you dare not read the entire book. So, start with questions. Analyse them. See, what is being asked. And Read that only. The diagrams in the book won’t give you much idea. So use internet to get a 3D view of the instruments.

5. Control Systems – Highly marks fetching and very very important. Start by reading a good book like Norman S Nise; then solve as many problems as you can find from any material. Try to understand the fine points by spending a little time on THINKING about stability, bandwidth and all.

6. Electrical Machines – Electrical people have a strange and unique relationship with Electrical machines and power systems. They don’t understand it completely. In fact they may not be able to answer very simple questions like what does a transformer look like; but they still feel that they know a lot about electrical machines. For machines, I suggest to unlearn a few hazy concepts and read them again with cool mind and in analytical way – like when you read “Dc shunt motors have almost constant speed” then ask yourself a question- Constant speed with respect to which parameter?

7. Power Systems – Read C. L. Wadhwa thoroughly. Solve previous years’ papers. And try to link theoretical concepts with observations around you. Like when you read about surge arrestor – try to recall where you saw such a thing.
For power system protection, refer J. B. Gupta.

8. Analog Electronics – If you have time and INTEREST in electronics, pick Sedra Smith and read thoroughly. You’ll really enjoy. If not simply skip the subject.

9. Digital Electronics – Morris mano and previous years’ papers. Read only what is required and try to have a broad view about topics like Counters etc. Don’t worry too kuch about fine details. Just the guiding idea. There is an excellent ebook (incomplete) available on the website – openbookproject.net

10. Microprocessor- For programming part refer B. Ram and for interfacing
part refer Gaonkar. Install a 8085 simulator in your computer, run all the programs and experiment with new ideas. You’ll surely enjoy. For linux, I had an excellent simulator with showed all the states, program status word, memory locations etc. One can find such a simulator in windows also.

11. Power Electronics – Try to analyse the circuits yourself. Discuss with friends why all the components are used n all. There exists an insightful shortcut to remember all the formulae of choppers etc. Try to discover that.

12. Communications – Try to learn the main points of any concept from an ece guy. They can tell you about all types modulations and concepts of digital communications. It’s really very very easy. Leaving them means losing very easy marks.

Sourabh Anand
Rank 3, IES 2013