Imran Khan, PMS Ministerial Topper, shares his full first-person account: why he skipped academies, trained under Sir Kazim, and what came after.
Within a day of my PMS Ministerial result going public, people I’d never spoken to were posting my photo as if they’d trained me. Academy pages I’d never visited. Groups I wasn’t part of. One page even ran my picture as an ad before I’d had time to process the result myself.
That’s one of the reasons why I’m writing this. Another reason I’m writing it is that I get asked constantly how someone with zero background in English writing, and no academy behind them, actually got through this exam. So here’s the short answer, and if you want the long one — including exactly why those strangers showed up the way they did — I’ve written that separately too.
I Started With Nothing to Work With
Engineering was my field, not English. By the time the PMS Ministerial quota opened up, I was working as a Sub-Inspector in Punjab Police, which meant I met every eligibility box on paper: service years, pay scale, qualification. None of that helps you when you’re staring at a blank page for the English essay, though. Writing a police report and building a sustained argument across two and a half hours are not related skills, and I found that out the hard way in my first few practice attempts.
Academies Weren’t Going to Fix That
I looked closely at the officer-run academy route before ruling it out, mostly by watching what happened to colleagues who went that way. The consistent complaint was the same everywhere: correction and attention scaled exactly with how much you’d paid, not with what you actually needed. That’s a business model, not teaching.
Two other things pushed me away from academies specifically. First, I was still working full-time and couldn’t commit to a rigid in-person schedule built around people who had nothing else going on. Second, and this took me longer to figure out, clearing an exam yourself doesn’t automatically qualify you to diagnose someone else’s writing problems. A passed officer can share what worked for him. He usually can’t tell you why your argument collapses mid-way, because that’s a completely different skill from writing well yourself.
Skip the Shared Notes Folder
Every batch has one: a WhatsApp folder full of outlines and pre-written essays passed down from whoever cleared last cycle. It looks like progress. However, it stops looking like progress the second your actual exam topic doesn’t resemble anything in that folder, and you’ve got nothing of your own to fall back on. The higher cost is quieter: if you’re always borrowing someone else’s structure, you never build the judgment to construct an argument on your own, and that judgment is exactly what the exam is checking for.
What Actually Changed Things
I enrolled in Sir Syed Kazim Ali‘s English Essay and Precis Course with essentially no writing skill to speak of. Before we touched a single full essay, weeks went into just handling English at the sentence level. Only after that groundwork was solid did we move into decoding what a prompt was actually asking, building a sharp thesis instead of a vague one, and using transitions as tools rather than fillers.
The part that mattered most wasn’t the course structure, though; it was that Sir Kazim kept correcting my outlines long after the formal course had technically ended, right through to my exam date.
For the General Knowledge paper, Pakistan Affairs, Current Affairs, Everyday Science, Urdu, English Grammar, and the rest, I didn’t try to cram it in at the end. I worked through HowTests’ MCQ books on a rolling basis throughout my prep, mainly so I always had a real sense of where I stood instead of guessing.
Interviews Needed a Different Kind of Practice
The mock-interview economy is its own trap. A lot of it is run by people with no actual authority to evaluate a civil service interview, some charging for it outright. I avoided that entirely and instead drilled by talking through unrehearsed questions out loud, alone, until I could hold a steady answer without freezing. The only mock-interview practice that resembled the real panel was over the phone with Sir Kazim, unscripted, questions fired with no warning.
What he actually changed in me wasn’t a set of answers; it was posture. He was clear that the interview measures confidence before it measures knowledge, and that you walk in demonstrating fit, not requesting a favor.
Why the Full Story Is Worth Your Time
Coming back to where I started: what happened after my result went public wasn’t random. There’s a reason academies move fast to attach themselves to a candidate they had nothing to do with, and once you understand the mechanism, you’ll spot it everywhere in this space. I’ve laid that out in detail in the complete version of this story, along with the exact criteria I used to pick a mentor and what I’d tell anyone starting this process from zero today.
Read the full account here: My PMS Ministerial Success Story: Aspirants Must Know
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you clear the PMS Ministerial exam without joining an academy?
Yes — I did it with a structured essay course, ongoing General Knowledge practice, and one mentor giving direct feedback, with no academy involved at any point.
How much prep time does the English essay paper actually need?
Give it eight months to a year if you’re serious. A few weeks can teach you essay shape, but not the argument control examiners are actually grading.
What’s covered in the PMS Ministerial General Knowledge paper?
Pakistan Affairs, Current Affairs, Everyday Science, Urdu, and English Grammar, among other areas, are better handled as ongoing practice than a last-minute cram.
Are free mock interviews offered right after results come out worth taking?
Treat them carefully. A lot of these exist to link an academy’s name to your success after the fact rather than to actually help you prepare; the complete article breaks down exactly how that works.
What should I actually look for in a writing mentor?
Someone who can simplify hard material without watering it down, whose past students show real, visible improvement, and who gives pointed correction rather than generic encouragement. I have talked about it in detail in my review.
