A PMS Punjab 2025 written qualifier on how Sir Syed Kazim Ali’s essay, precis, and grammar training replaced directionless preparation with a working method

I am Hamda Faisal, and I have qualified the PPSC  PMS Punjab 2025 written examination. I live in Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan, and I hold a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Language from the Government Graduate College (W), Satellite Town, Gujranwala. This academic foundation shapes my appreciation for linguistic nuance and fuels my desire to grow as a writer.

I have since been published in Vasl Artists’ Association’s In the Time of the Pandemic: Anthology of New Creatives and in other literary magazines. While I am passionate about reading and writing, this alone does not carry an aspirant through a competitive examination hall. What helped me was the English writing training I received from Sir Syed Kazim Ali; I came to him as a novice competitive aspirant, and learned the essay, precis, and composition skills the papers demand. This is an account of that training.

Why I Needed a Different Kind of English Teacher

After graduating at the tail end of 2023, I began preparing for the CSS and PMS exams and joined a local academy. With a background in English, I had written extensively throughout my undergraduate studies: academic essays for my coursework and prose and fiction as an avocation. My affiliation with writing made it instinctively clear that I lacked a clear approach to tackling competitive essays and subjective questions comprehensively. I sought a teacher who was honest about the dynamics of competitive exams: how to prepare the syllabus and the outline, how to interpret a question and understand what it actually asked, and how to attempt and present it.

Before I joined Sir Kazim, the essay class was indistinguishable from a current affairs class. The officer-teacher told stories from his job to offer as examples. I did not understand how to integrate examples, evidence, case studies, or quotations into an essay. I had been introduced to the concept of a thesis statement but never taught how to write one. The only feedback I received on my essay was that I “needed to practise more,” that it was good for a first attempt, and that I would improve gradually with time. There were lectures, notes, and important discussions, but no direction and no guidance.

My biggest mistake before joining Sir Kazim was preparing without direction. I prepared topics and essay domains, but I did not know how to present that material in written practice. I fell back on the structure of my graduate studies, and I was not satisfied with my own understanding. The teachers I had encountered up to that point were fellow aspirants, CSPs, or academy instructors, none of whom could confidently provide the answers I sought. I was learning about foreign relations and domestic issues, yet I could not fathom how to attempt the actual topics. Attempting a CSS 2024 essay paper while sitting in the classroom was dreadful.

Finding CSSPrepForum and the January 2024 Orientation

Once I understood that English language and writing skills played an important role in CSS and PMS preparation alike, I joined Sir Kazim only a month into my journey. While looking for solved CSS past paper essays online, I came across CSSPrepForum. I liked the quality and structure of the essays solved there, and I decided to join the free orientation session in January 2024.

On the first day of the orientation, I knew I wanted to study under Sir Kazim. He was honest and straightforward in his approach, handing out important information freely. Most importantly, his command of English was expansive enough to fill lectures that ran over three hours a day, and I found myself wanting to learn whatever he had to teach. His lectures were clearly structured: he explained the topic at hand thoroughly, drew relevant examples from the ongoing discussion, and punctuated the session with jokes and amusement to hold our interest and attention.

He began the orientation, for instance, by explaining what a “complete thought” is. I still have those five questions pasted above my desk, and my eyes go to them instinctively whenever I am stuck on a topic or a question related to my studies. Those five simple questions break down how any topic must be approached, and they guide how I start gathering and expressing my thoughts on any paper of the CSS or PMS examinations.

I found the guidance I was seeking with Sir Kazim. At the end of the orientation, he detailed ten steps we should take to gain command over essays, the domains we should cover, and the components of the English Precis and Composition paper to study on each day of the week. His roadmap proved more enlightening than the first forty days of my journey had been. I enrolled with him at once and prepared diligently for three months on my essay writing skills, beginning at the same time to smooth away the wrinkles of the precis paper.

How Sir Kazim Teaches Analysis and Grammar

Sir Kazim taught us how to understand a topic and its demands. He showed us how to narrow a broad topic like “Globalization” through simple questions and rules before brainstorming, how to break that topic into an essay outline, and how to present and communicate the material we had gathered from our studies and notes effectively in the examination hall.

Before the orientation, I was an above-average student. I scored 71% on Sir Kazim’s Standardized English Test, which I took during those sessions. I had a literary and linguistic understanding of the English language. But I fumbled somewhat over grammar and punctuation rules because most of my learning was secondhand from reading, and no one had evaluated my writing before.

Joining Sir Kazim filled the gaps in my language and learning skills. He taught not only where to put a comma but also how to identify every place in English sentence structure where a comma might be needed. I began to catch mistakes in my old writing as I improved, and I can now identify mistakes in my own work without an evaluator.

When he taught adjectives, he went beyond the formal definition and the types, showing us how to identify an adjective from its function in a sentence. He made the concept so accessible that even students with no background in linguistics or syntax trees could follow it, and he then gave a dozen or so common examples and showed where particular adjectives belong in a sentence. From a paper point of view, he taught all the common errors associated with adjectives in examinations. As he put it, these were free marks in a precis paper.

He built a strong contextual grammar base for his students within the first two months of the course. I watched him simplify a concept for the weakest student in the class, and I saw below-average students improve by leaps and bounds under his instruction, because the techniques he taught were easily applicable.

In that first portion of the course, he taught us how to practise writing. Anyone who followed the method diligently and practised regularly for fifteen to twenty days would develop an instinctive feel for the language. Coupled with the grammar lessons, the topic breakdowns, and the structural lectures, this meant that a “weak” student could follow through and improve significantly under Sir Kazim’s tutelage. Weak students learned something new; intermediate students sharpened a vague understanding; and advanced students grasped the depth and extent of the topic.

A Community of Fellow Aspirants

Another thing I gained from joining Sir Kazim was a community of fellow learners and aspirants. I made friends from all over the country and from every province. We learned together, shared notes, and supported one another’s efforts. We discussed events and strategies, explained topics the others were weak in, and strengthened each other’s writing and presentation through feedback. Sir Kazim encouraged this community because collaboration and teamwork are necessary if any group or nation is to succeed in its endeavour. In this way, I made friends who kept my motivation and attention steady, who pointed out my mistakes, and who supported me; friendships that will most likely last my entire life.

A Methodology That Outlasts the Examination

Sir Kazim’s teaching methodology is, in essence, different from that of other academies, CSPs, and officers. He teaches a student how to brainstorm and think, how to analyse a topic and its requirements, and how to structure arguments and present a thesis effectively. Instead of rote memorisation or the reproduction of model essays, he teaches essential skills that serve an aspirant well and stay with the student for life.

Sir Kazim’s evaluations helped me understand the mistakes all students are prone to make, because he preferred group evaluation to individual evaluation. One learns from one’s own mistakes and from the mistakes of others. I came to understand comprehensively every crucial area of an essay and every mistake I was capable of making, and I learned how to avoid those mistakes through simple but effective techniques.

I highly recommend Sir Kazim to all CSS and PMS aspirants, whether they have begun their journey or are just about to embark on it. The essay and precis papers are an integral part of both examinations, and writing skills carry weight across every remaining subject as well. When I sat for the PMS Punjab written papers, I was not recalling model answers; I was applying a method. That method is what his English Essay and Precis Crash Course teaches. Writing skills, moreover, translate into every other aspect of life. It is a transformative skill, and serious students and lifelong learners should consider investing in it.