Since IGNOU is the largest university in the world with 7.14 million students worldwide, it is quite natural that there is no dearth of IGNOU Help Books. In a situation where every new and old publishing house is tossing its books yelling "It is the best", "it is most read", "it guarantees you full marks", "it guarantees you this and that", it is quite natural for students of IGNOU to get confused.
Gullybaba is a publishing house that has all the characteristics of a good help book. And this is one of the most convincing reasons, why Students of IGNOU put Gullybaba Help Books ahead of that others'.
1. Predict up to 90% of upcoming questions accurately: There are hundreds of thousands of students of IGNOU, who do jobs along with their studies. Some get enrolled in one course or another of Indira Gandhi National Open University, for only career advancement, say promotion, salary hike. So, they can ill afford to shun their job and focus on their study only. Besides, there is a good chunk of female students, who tend to be too busy with their household chores, familial responsibilities, or for some other compelling reasons, that devoting 4-6 hours in a day to study is not feasible.
So, in that case, what they need is a help book related to their course, that could predict up to 90% of upcoming questions accurately.
2. Based on the Mantra - Study smart instead of studying hard: Gone are the days of burning midnight oil. The era of today is studying smart instead of studying hard. And a smart study means, utilizing every minute of the study and reading only the stuff that matters the most from the examination point of view.
So, today's students of IGNOU tend to search for a self-book that could guarantee smart study so that whatever they could read, should appear in their examination hall. They do not have time to learn all that appears in IGNOU Study materials, or the help book of a particular publisher that tends to be too heavy to Handle, too much to read with the little promise that these reading materials will appear in the examination.
3. Easy-to-understand language and illustrations: With the content, comes its easiness. If a help book is good, and has a good reputation of predicting a maximum number of questions that are asked in an examination, but its language happens to be too abstruse to understand in one reading, or it requires consulting a dictionary, seniors quite frequently, then that self-book can not come into the category of "Good Help Book." There is a good saying regarding the importance of easy-to-understand language, especially in books.
"If you drive your readers to Dictionary, they will drive you out of the market."
The matter described with Examples in GPH books
Therefore, a help book, apart from containing the content that is going to be most important from an examination point of view, should also have a language that is quite easy to understand and remember. If it is not, the very purpose of getting good marks in the examination, with the help of help books, will be defeated. Since students will not be able to understand what is written, they will not be able to remember and subsequently, write in the examination. Consequently, they will not fare well in the examination.
4. To pass, read 100-200 small pages: A good help book is one that does not bear the burden of heavy pages. There are help books available in the market with a tall claim that this single book is more than sufficient to get very good marks in examination, but the problem with these help books is that they tend to be too heavy. If you look at these help books, you will get the impression that it is equal to 4 books.
So, the students think that it is easier to read the IGNOU Materials than to pick this cumbersome book. Simply put, an ideal help book should contain 100-200 small pages, and that many pages should be sufficient enough to help students get good marks.
5. A well-designed, beautiful, high-quality product: The answer to a question can be written in a number of ways. Some write answers to a question and also give lots of things that are not needed. Some write everything except what is asked, while some write exactly what is asked and they cover all the points that are important for writing the answer. The supporting facts and figures to add value to the answer are also given so that the examiner becomes happy with the answer and gives good marks in reward. And that is the point.
A help book should not contain just the answer to questions that are very poorly written and does not get the relevant facts and figures, charts, and anything important that is worth mentioning in the examination. Simply put, a help book of repute must contain high-quality products.
Apart from quality products, a good help book should also contain a well-designed book, so that it can create a good first impression.
6. Study in less time and effort: Reading time happens to be very important when it comes to helping books for IGNOU. You might have noticed in online portals the reading time of a new, or educational blog, such as 7 minutes' read, 4 minutes' read, etc. It helps a lot to readers. If reading time is less, the language used is easy, and the content is very important from an examination point of view, then of course the help book is worth purchasing.
7. Based on IGNOU Syllabus: It might sound paradoxical, but there are indeed some IGNOU Help Books available in the market, that do not even follow the IGNOU Syllabus. The content that is there in those so-called very helpful examination points of view for IGNOU Students, is not even developed in accordance with the syllabus of IGNOU. And, if this is the case how come a book claims to carry the content that is exam-centric? So, the students of IGNOU, while selecting any particular help book, must be mindful of whether the content of that help book has taken care of the IGNOU Syllabus, or has just been developed arbitrarily.
8. Past Question Papers with Solutions: In order to qualify for a help book in the category of "Good for IGNOU Students,", or "Very Useful for IGNOU Students," it must contain previous years' question papers along with solutions. See, students are driven by examination. If they know everything, except what appears during examination, what will be their fate? You know the answer.
So, students need to know what types of questions keep on in the examination. What has been the pattern of examination? What is the probability of a particular question to re-appear this year?
Therefore, if any help book does not carry previous years' question papers along with answers, it cannot come in the category of a "Good Help Book."
9. Exam Notes contain Guess Questions Also. Exam Preparation Starts from the First Page itself: One of the major characteristics of a help book of great value is that it does not carry unnecessary pages. Those help books that have got the reputation of a must-have book, do not have even the exam notes as Not Useful for the Students. You will be pleasantly surprised to know that even their exam notes contain guess questions. If you take this help book in hand and glance at its first page, you will get the feeling that your exam preparation has started from the first page itself.
10. Maximum number of previous years' question papers (Solved & Unsolved): In essence, a help book is as good(or as bad!) as it's useful for examination. If a help book has everything that is needed for a help book to be, but in the examination, not a single guess question/question appears, then it is as good as garbage.
Students of IGNOU tend to get an impression of the exam pattern as well as the way to write answers to a particular question through the previous years' question papers--both solved and unsolved. An unsolved question provides the students of IGNOU an insight into the pattern of questions that appear in the examination, whereas the solved ones help students of IGNOU write answers to a question in a way so that they can get good rewards(marks) in the examination.
Gullybaba is the only publishing house that has all the above parameters. If you are a student of IGNOU, rest assured, its help books will prove to be the greatest tool for the success in IGNOU Examination.
Along with all that is mentioned above, we do also provide:
Chapter-wise questions with solutions and an overview of every chapter
Reference of the Questions that have been asked in the previous year's examination
Arguably, Gullybaba is the only publishing company that is read in 30 countries and has a record 1 Crore book sale to date. Arguably, we are the only publishing company that takes great care of the environment, when it comes to printing papers. We use recycled paper with the motive of causing minimum damage to the environment. For every sale, we support plantations. We have earmarked a certain amount with every single sale that we make and that is used for the conservation/betterment of our environment.
Refer to GPH Books if you are looking for Mine of Marks.