My name is Muhammad Zubair Siddiqi; I am a student of Sir Kazim and a Civil Engineering graduate from Balochistan University of Engineering and Technology (BUETK), Khuzdar. I appeared in the CSS examination with a background that was not traditionally associated with the humanities or English literature. Like most CSS aspirants, I initially believed that the key to qualifying was to accumulate as much knowledge as possible.
Today, having qualified the CSS 2026 Written Examination on my first attempt, I can say with certainty that this was only half the battle. The other half was learning how to think, structure, and communicate that knowledge effectively. And that is where Sir Syed Kazim Ali made a profound difference in my preparation.
My Biggest Misconception About CSS
When I began preparing for CSS, I was naturally inclined towards content. I read books, followed current affairs, and collected material on national and international issues. I made notes and tried to familiarize myself with as many topics as possible, believing that if I knew enough, I would eventually be able to write good answers.
But competitive examinations do not reward knowledge in isolation; they reward your ability to use that knowledge intelligently under examination conditions. This distinction became increasingly clear to me as I started working on English. I could understand an issue, discuss it verbally, and even explain its different dimensions, but putting those thoughts onto paper in a coherent, precise, and examiner-friendly manner was an entirely different challenge. That was the gap I needed to bridge.
Finding a Teacher Who Focused on the Actual Problem
My experience with CSS preparation had already taught me that there is no shortage of material available to aspirants. There are books, academies, notes, lectures, YouTube videos, social-media pages, predicted topics, and countless different “strategies.” The problem is not the availability of information; the problem is knowing what actually matters.
Sir Syed Kazim Ali‘s teaching stood out to me because he did not treat English as something that could be mastered through shortcuts. He approached it as a skill, and skills, unlike information, cannot simply be memorized. They have to be developed through understanding, practice, correction, and repetition. That realization changed the way I approached my entire preparation.
English Stopped Being a Separate Subject
One of the most valuable things I learned from Sir Kazim was to stop looking at Essay, Precis, Grammar, and Comprehension as completely separate components. They are interconnected. If your sentence construction is weak, your essay will suffer. If your comprehension is weak, your precis will suffer. If you cannot organize your thoughts logically, your expression will suffer, and if you cannot understand what a question actually demands, even extensive knowledge may not save your answer.
Sir Kazim helped me understand this relationship. Instead of merely teaching us what to write, he focused on how to think before writing. That distinction may sound small, but for me it was transformative.
The Way I Started Looking at Essay Writing Changed
Before properly understanding essay writing, I used to think the major challenge was gathering enough material about a topic. If I knew the statistics, quotations, examples, and arguments, I assumed the essay would naturally come together. It doesn’t. A good essay is not a storage device for information; instead, it is an argument.
Sir Kazim taught me to approach a topic by first understanding its exact demand, identifying its dimensions, establishing a position, and then developing arguments in a logical sequence. The thesis, outline, arguments, evidence, transitions, and conclusion all have to work together. This made me realize something very important: the purpose of an essay is not to demonstrate everything you know but to demonstrate that you know what is relevant to the question and can organize it intelligently.
That changed my entire approach: I became more selective with information and more conscious of relevance. Instead of asking myself, “What do I know about this topic?”, I gradually learned to ask, “What does this topic require me to argue?” That was a much more important question.
Learning to Respect the Basics
Another thing I deeply appreciated about Sir Kazim was his willingness to work on fundamentals. For a CSS aspirant, it is tempting to believe that advanced vocabulary and sophisticated ideas automatically constitute good English. They don’t. A complicated sentence is not necessarily a good sentence, a difficult word is not necessarily an appropriate word, and an impressive-looking argument is useless if it does not logically answer the question.
Sir Kazim repeatedly brought us back to the fundamentals, i.e., sentence structure, grammar, clarity, coherence, punctuation, vocabulary, and precision. What initially seemed basic eventually became the foundation of my writing. I began to understand that strong English is not about trying to sound complicated; it is about being clear, precise, and controlled.
Precis Became an Exercise in Understanding
Precis was another area where my understanding evolved considerably. The more I studied it, the more I realized that precis is not simply about making a passage shorter. The real challenge is understanding the author’s thought: What is the central argument? Which ideas are essential? Which details are merely supporting material? How are the ideas connected? What can be removed without damaging the author’s intended meaning?
Once I started approaching precis from the perspective of comprehension rather than mechanical shortening, it became far more logical. This was one of the recurring lessons in Sir Kazim‘s teaching: understand first, express later. Whether it was precis, essay, comprehension, or sentence correction, the emphasis remained on understanding rather than blindly following formulas.
The Evaluation Was Where the Real Learning Happened
For me, perhaps the most valuable aspect of Sir Kazim’s teaching was the evaluation. Writing something and assuming it is good is very different from having someone experienced critically examine it. A student’s biggest weakness is often the weakness he cannot see himself, and evaluation exposes that blind spot.
When my work was evaluated, mistakes that I had previously considered insignificant became visible. Problems in sentence construction, expression, argumentation, relevance, and organization were identified. But the real value was not simply being told that something was wrong. It was understanding why it was wrong. A correction tells you what you did incorrectly, whereas a good evaluation teaches you how to recognize the same mistake the next time you write. That is how improvement becomes permanent.
The process gradually became: write, get evaluated, understand the mistake, correct it, rewrite, improve. There is nothing glamorous about this process. It is repetitive; it can be frustrating; and sometimes, it is uncomfortable to see your own weaknesses pointed out so directly. But that is precisely why it works.
Sir Kazim Never Sold Me a Shortcut
CSS preparation is full of shortcuts. Everyone wants to know the “important” topics, the predicted essay, the perfect notes, the magic vocabulary list, or the strategy that can produce results in a few weeks. Sir Kazim‘s approach was different: he emphasized preparation rather than prediction. He made us understand that no teacher can guarantee what will appear in the examination; what a teacher can do is make an aspirant capable enough to deal with whatever actually appears.
That philosophy appealed to me enormously, because ultimately, CSS is not a test of how accurately you can predict the examiner. It is a test of how effectively you can respond when the examiner gives you something you may not have prepared word-for-word.
The Biggest Change Was in My Confidence
Interestingly, the confidence I gained from Sir Kazim did not come from being repeatedly told that I would qualify. It came from seeing measurable improvement in my own work. There is a major difference between being motivated and becoming competent; motivation can make you feel confident for a day, but competence gives you confidence when you are sitting in the examination hall.
As my writing improved, I became less dependent on reassurance. I knew what I was capable of because I had practiced it, and that confidence was particularly valuable during the CSS examination itself. When I eventually sat for the papers, I did not feel that I had to reproduce some memorized template. I had learned a process: read the question, understand the demand, think, organize, argue, express. That process gave me something far more valuable than a collection of notes: it gave me control.
What My CSS Result Means to Me
Qualifying the CSS Written Examination on my first attempt was obviously an important milestone for me. But when I look back at the journey, I do not think the biggest achievement was simply crossing the written stage. The bigger achievement was overcoming a misconception I had carried into CSS preparation: knowing more does not automatically mean performing better.
I had to learn how to convert knowledge into arguments, arguments into structure, and structure into clear expression. That is the skill Sir Kazim helped me develop. Coming from an engineering background, this was particularly meaningful to me. I had spent years learning technical concepts, solving problems, and dealing with structured systems. CSS required me to operate differently: to engage with ideas, arguments, society, politics, governance, and language, and Sir Kazim helped me build that bridge.
More Than an English Teacher
Today, I do not regard Sir Syed Kazim Ali merely as an English teacher. For me, his greater contribution was teaching me a method of preparation. He taught me to question what I was doing rather than simply doing more of it. He taught me that collecting material is not the same as preparing, and that writing cannot be improved without writing. He taught me that criticism is not discouragement. And perhaps most importantly, he taught me that a good teacher should eventually make the student less dependent on the teacher. That is the mark of genuine mentorship.
My Advice to CSS Aspirants
If someone asks me whether I would recommend Sir Syed Kazim Ali to a serious CSS or PMS aspirant, my answer is yes, but I would add one qualification: do not join any teacher expecting the teacher to do the work for you. No teacher can write your examination for you; no set of notes can replace practice; no predicted topic can replace understanding; and no motivational speech can substitute for months of disciplined effort.
If you genuinely want to improve your English, you have to be willing to write, be evaluated, make mistakes, rewrite, and repeat the process. That is where the real transformation happens. For aspirants who already possess substantial knowledge but struggle to express it, for those who understand topics but cannot develop arguments, and for those who are confused by contradictory English-preparation strategies, I believe Sir Kazim’s approach can be particularly valuable.
From Information to Expression
My CSS journey taught me that the difference between an aspirant who knows and an aspirant who can answer is enormous. I started with the belief that I needed more information. I eventually realized that I needed better command over the information I already possessed.
Sir Syed Kazim Ali helped me make that transition: from scattered preparation to a structured approach; from collecting information to using it, from writing what I knew to answering what was asked; from worrying about whether my English was good enough to developing the confidence to actually use it; and ultimately, from preparation that looked impressive on paper to preparation that could perform inside the examination hall.For that, I will always remain grateful to him.
A true teacher does not simply fill your notebook with information. He changes the way you approach a problem, identifies weaknesses you cannot see, forces you to confront them, and eventually gives you the ability to stand on your own. For me, Sir Syed Kazim Ali was that teacher.
— Muhammad Zubair Siddiqi
CSS 2026 Written Qualifier, Balochistan
