Hello everybody,
Sharing what I did last year for UPSC preliminary exam in the final month with you all. Hope it helps .
The plan for first 20 days was to broadly run through all subjects once and take one test each day (alternating between UPSC PYQ and Vision/insights full length tests). Last 10 days I had kept only for revising my diary of errors (will explain later how it helped) as well as going through trivial data + map study etc as a (slightly) relaxed mind was way too important to perform well on D-Day.
The first thing that I did was to make a rough timetable of how many days to devote to each subject. It was basis my own evaluation of strong and weak areas (Polity was an issue for me). This is how it was structured:
Post that I wrote down a laundry list of things (which were more fact-based ) which had planned to look up and kept doing them side-by-side. These included :
- International groupings with focus on Asia-Pacific ones
- Important reports by IMF/WB/WEF/UN/OECD/WIPO
- Amendments and imp. articles from Lakshmikanth
- Rivers and tributaries (provided here), mountain ranges and soil/forest types of India
- Monsoon,El Nino/La Nina phenomena
- Important national parks, WLS (in news), biosphere reserves
- Environmental organizations (had a Wikipedia tab open always)
- CCRT Website + 11th Fine Arts
- Government schemes Ministry wise from GKToday compilation
- Maps – With focus on Asia and Africa as they are the most confusing
- Budget highlights and Eco Survey summary
- Major tribes region-wise from MoTA site
- Vision monthly magazinesβ selected portions
While taking tests, I would do an evaluation right then and jot down the wrong answers/left answers and guesswork ones in the diary. It helped in two ways – one while writing, things stuck to my head as I could concise the text in my own words . Two, revision effort later reduced from a bulky 20 pages to only 2β3 pages for each mock test !
For example, this is how my summary of Visionβs last test looked like:
I also worked on a major blunder I would commit often – of not reading the question properly : whether there is a βnotβ inserted Β in between ! Paying attention to detailΒ was a major take-away in the final month with rigorous practice and revision.
Mental peace βstrategyβ: As days progressed, tension levels were bound to increase so I ensured doing 15 minutes meditation + reading 1 chapter of Bhagwad Gita daily and a short evening stroll in the nearby park. Some chatting up with close family and friends was also of great help, as social media accounts were de-activated during that time π . Rarely compromised on the 7β8 hours of sleep (of course some days sleep is hard to get ) .
In all, things worked out pretty well on 7th August last year. In first go I could do 48 questions in 50 minutes and kept circling the ones for later where I had the slightest of doubt. In second go, attempted 38 where I had some idea and was down to last two options. Finally , last round was a leap of faith with 8 questions which one built intuitively after practice. Expecting around 150 finally.
PS: Please do not have any preconceived notions about the toughness of paper or the number of questions you have to attempt. If paper is difficult, that holds true for all and you donβt want to attempt hastily all questions. Be wise.
Keep up the momentum with sincerity for now but donβt be too harsh on yourself. It will all work out well in the end ! Good luck.
Join me on Quora for more queries related to preparation
Thank you Raj, have your training started?
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Hey Abhay, you are welcome . Not yet, training starts in August .
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This level of detailing !! No wonder you truly deserved what you have achieved Aishwarya . Extremely helpful for all aspirants, thanks a lot.
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Those were really encouraging words π Thanks and I do hope people can benefit as much as possible.
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Such valuable information. The devil is in the details they say =) BTW i have nominated you for the “one lovely blog award” Looking fwd to reading your next post. Happy Blogging!!
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Hey, thanks so much for the nomination ! Many congratulations for the award, yours is a fantastic travel blog π
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You’re welcome π
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This was informative π€and well did you do plain graduation before this or some other course?πhad to ask
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Haha, thank you. Post BSc, I completed MBA from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi .
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What ?ππreally? I too wanna try civil services but not untill my current course
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Great, all the best for your preparation.
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Lol not untill 2 years …ππsay that after 2 years
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Congratulations for the achievement bro!!Are Greenpeace,Sierra Club,Earth First etc the environmental organizations you are talking about in this post?
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Hey Aishwarya congrats for the achievement!!!! Can I know how many months you gave for prelims preparation. Just curious π
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4 months. Thank you π
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