UPSC CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINATION PRELIMS STRATEGY BY RICKEY AGARWAL (AIR-87, CSE-2020)

UPSC- Civil service exam has three stages- Preliminary, Mains and Personality test (interview round). The first stage is preliminary(prelims). There are two papers in prelims- General Studies (GS) and CSAT paper. Both the papers are objective in nature. While CSAT paper is qualifying, GS paper one has to clear the cutoff. Prelims is the most competitive phase in the exam cycle because the selection rate in around 2%. Around 10000 qualify prelims where around 5 lakh people appear for prelims. So, it becomes most important to focus well on prelims and have a proper strategy and preparation, so that one clears that without any hurdle.

STRATEGY PRELIMS GS PAPER

First step is to look at the syllabus and define basic study material. Have standard material and notes for every topic. Some standard reference to study material is listed below.

ART AND CULTURE

• An Introduction to Indian Art – Class XI NCERT
• CCRT Material and NIOS material
• Can watch online youtube videos for topics like dance, songs, architecture, painting etc. this will help in remembering better.

HISTORY

• A Brief history of Modern India- Spectrum Publications
• NCERT by Bipan Chandra
• Old NCERT (Medieval and Ancient)

GEOGRAPHY

• Fundamentals of Physical Geography XI NCERT
• India: Physical Environment XI NCERT
• Certificate of Physical Geography by GC Leong
• ATLAS (Map work is very important. Should be done on regular basis)

POLITY 

• Indian Polity by M Laxmikanth
• Try to correlate provisions of the constitutions with the current affairs and issues in news

ENVT

• Shankar IAS book
• NCERT and follow current affairs from newspaper.

SCIENCE

• NCERT books
• Read contemporary science and tech developments from newspaper and make notes.

ECONOMICS

• Economic Development of India- NCERT
• Can use books like Indian Economy (Vivek Singh)

CURRENT AFFAIRS

• Any one national newspaper (E.g Indian Express). Try to make brief notes of them
• Watch online Youtube discussions like (ThePrint, Big Picture, IndianExpressOnline)

Start with NCERT and standard reference books. Also have a look at previous year paper, so that while reading books you align your preparation based on demand of the examination. By looking at syllabus and previous year questions, would know the amount of depth in any topic that is required to solve the questions in examination.

Focus on conceptual clarity and understanding while reading standard material. Because the prelims questions over the years have become analytical in nature, so clarity in topics becomes very essential. For example, while preparing for Modern History topics like Civil Disobedience movement (Salt satyagraha) don’t just focus on facts but also concepts like why Salt was chosen by Gandhiji? Why called as Civil Disobedience? Why called Dandi march? Where is Dandi? Etc

Always ask yourself such question while preparing any topics. There are many benefits of doing this. Firstly, one would develop better understanding of the topic which would help in prelims, mains as well as interview. And secondly, learning by understanding helps better memorise and we tend to forget less.

Make notes of topics that you are reading so that revision becomes very easy. For NCERT where most of the content is important for exam, instead of note making can also underline in the book itself so that revision is easy. Note making, especially becomes more important when standard material for any topic is scattered. For example, for Art and Culture topics one can make notes.

Periodic revision is the key. Make a schedule for revision. Revision should be periodic in nature. For example, maintain a diary where every new topic prepared today should be revised after 7^th day, 14^th day. In this way old topics will regularly be revised. Revision holds the key because without revision reading new topics will not be fruitful and also multiple revision increases retention and understanding of the topic.

Practise mock papers. Practising mock paper is very important. This is because mock papers have many benefits:

• It helps in time management
• It helps in identifying strength and weakness
• It trains for art of elimination, calculated analytical guess work
• It trains mind in objective problem solving
• It provides new information, and helps in filling knowledge gap.

MOCK PAPER: HOW TO SOLVE:

Solving mock paper in a systematic manner is very important. Try to solve paper in 3 or 4 iterations. In first iteration go through the whole paper, but only solve questions that you are completely sure. Mark in question paper, questions where you are able to eliminate 1 or 2 options but do not know specific answer. And also questions where you don’t know anything. In the second iteration, start marking in the OMR sheet. Mark questions where you were completely sure of the answer. In questions where you were able to eliminate 1-2 options try to think more, and mark the most logical answer that seem to you. In the third iteration try to look at rest of the questions, where you don’t know anything. If any logic applies or closest option seems for any question, then you may mark them. And leave few questions for which you have no need at all.

MOCK PAPER: ART OF ELIMINATION:

Art of elimination has become very important to solve prelims question paper. Sometime we may not know the right answer, but by eliminating wrong option we may reach to the right answer. There can be many ways of art of elimination. With practise and analysing paper this art gradually increases. Some of the common patterns one can look for are (though there may be exceptions):

• Answer choice with ‘Always’ and ‘Never’ are usually wrong. (There can be exceptions)
• If UPSC uses the word ‘can’ in the answer choice/statement for Science and Technology Questions, that choice/statement has a high probability of being correct. (Possibility question in science is generally correct statement)
• Pure option-based elimination, when options are designed so that even a single easy/incorrect statement leads you to the right answer.
• counter statements in the question can help in eliminating options

These are some of the usually applied ways. There can be more. But always remember that these techniques cannot be replacement for good preparation and knowledge. These technique has to be used carefully with preparation.

MOCK PAPER: HOW TO BEST UTILISE THEM

Solving mock paper is very important. However, solving them alone will not be enough. One has to use them effectively to understand their mistakes strength and weakness. So that those can be improved to enhance performance.

Spend 2-3 hours after every paper to find out your mistakes. Identify what is reason for mistakes. Some of the possible mistake, problems can be:

• Lack of information
• Lack of revision
• Lack of conceptual clarity, confusion
• Lack of focus (Silly mistakes)
• Excessive risk

Based on the nature of problem one should be able to apply the solution. Try to see if gradually mistakes are reducing.

Keep reading, keep writing, keep revising, keep solving, keep analyzing and keep growing.

BEST WISHES

This Blog post is written by Rickey Agarwal, who secured AIR -547 in CSE-2017 and 87 in CSE-2020

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