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by Abhishek Surana , IFoS Rank 2, IAS Rank 250, ForumIAS Offline Student and Now Officer
First of all, hearty congratulations to all of you who have cleared the IFoS Mains Examination. This time UPSC has broken all records by declaring the results in 21 days. About 301 candidates have been called for, from which 110 will be finally selected.
I appeared for IFoS in 2016 ( last year ) and was able to get a humble rank of 2 in the final list. I am writing this for fellow aspirants who are scheduled to appear for the IFoS Interview in the coming week. In my opinion, the Interviews will commence soon and wind up within a week , before the Civils Result comes and CSE Interview starts. So you have lesser time than usual, and hope that you make the most of this time.
I am assuming that you have been doing Current Affairs / newspaper well. Here is my experience
What happens?
- It is a 20-25 min interview with 4-5 board members.
- The chairman starts the interview and after 4-5 mins asks one of the members to carry on.
- Usually 2 board sits for forest interview which means 22-24 people get interviewed in a day
- From my own experience and of few others, there is usually one senior IFoS officer (could be retired) in the panel. He asks few questions related to forests and environment
- There may or may not be a psychologist. One can’t guess
What to prepare?
- Your DAF. Each and every word should be carefully pondered over. Prepare possible questions on it.
- For example – “Ambassador of Change award for social service”. Possible questions could be about ambassador car, the post of ambassador, type of changes, etc. I know I am stretching it a bit too far but you never know what a interviewer think of after looking at a certain word
- Another example – My hobby is photography. So they asked me “You do photography? What Kind? Why not wildlife? What equipment you would need to do wildlife photography?”
- Prepare basic concepts of forestry and name of few trees – both scientific and common. Current affairs should also be prepared with special focus on environment and forestry.
- For example – questions that were asked to me in the interview were –
- Tell me about vegetations of xyz tiger reserve.
- Tell me about corridors of xyz tiger reserve.
- What tribes exist in xyz tiger reserve
- Why do we need corridors?
- What spices do we get from forest?
- What medicinal plants do we get from forest?
- How can finance industry help in forest conservation
- How can finance industry help SHG of tribals?
- How should CAMPA fund be used?
- Other possible questions for you to get an idea –
- Difference between
- Forest cover and tree cover
- Hard wood and softwood
- Forestry and agriculture
- Conservation and preservation
- NP and Sanctuaries
- Cheetah and leopard
- Teak and Sal
- How is ‘Environment’ defined under Indian Law?
- What is the difference between the laws enacted before and after independence with respect to environmental protection in India?
- Why so many environment legsilation after independence
- Are tribals responsible for forest degradation?
- Name few forest officer?
- which laws does a forest officer implements?
- History of Indian forest service? Before it?
- Situational questions: How to relocate farmers from area that has been declared as reserved forests
- Basic knowledge about the state of forest in India, your state, district etc. My home state is Rajasthan so the questions which were asked from me
- Where do we find Very dense forest in Rajasthan? What is total area of very dense forest?
- Tell me about vegetation and fauna of dessert national park
- How do we know that a certain place had forest before?
- General questions
- Why do you people want to join IFoS, and what will be your choice if you’re getting IAS and IFoS and why?
- Important topics
- Biotechnology
- Global warming
- Climate change negotiation
- State of Forest report
- Foest rights act and its implemntations
- Tribal affairs
- Water conservation
- Human animal conflict
- Poaching
- Relocation issues
- Agroforestry
- Forest fires
- New Wetland rules
- Proposed new Environment management law – TSR Subramanium committee
- Air pollution in Delhi
- NGT rulings
- CAMPA funds
- Important personalities connected to Forest affairs in India – Hari Singh, Jim Corbett, verrier elwin, Salim Ali
Tips
- This is a test for your personality and not knowledge. But as Ayush Sir has said in one of his videos – what may be knowledge for you may be personality for UPSC board member. For example – They may ask who is DFO of your district? What is the forest area of your district? If you don’t know answer to these basic yet crucial questions then you are in a bad soup. It reflects bad on you that as a person interested to be in public service and who is expected to be well versed with general knowledge of things around him doesn’t know even this much.
- You are not expected to know answers to all the questions
- Always smile. While entering, while answering, even if you don’t know the answer, while leaving. Shows a pleasing personality
- Be humble – Like a cow. You are not perfect and can never be. Accept your weakness.
- Be prepared to say No if you are not sure of an answer. In my opinion a No is a better answer than “I think it could be” or “I guess”.
- Work on your communication skills- especially if you have a habit of using filler words like – “you know”.
- You can video record yourself and analyse it
Last few words
- People have got marks up to 220s last year and even higher before that. Only possible with a calm mind.
- Candidates who’ve gotten into arguments with the board have seen their marks reduced.
- Selected aspirants usually hover around 55-70%. But there are always exception.
- Give as many mocks as possible. If possible give a mock at Forum or have at least one-on-one session with Ayush Sir.
-Best of Luck
– Abhishek Surana ( AIR 2, IFoS)
