Tryst with UPSC (Part 2)

Prelims — Lessons from the scary nightmare

I remember my first reaction when I heard the results. It was that of RELIEF, relief from not having to revise the Lakshmikant again, read The Hindu everyday and go through the monthly magazines. Don’t get me wrong, I was in seventh heaven at my performance, but that excitement hit much later since the results felt too unreal at first!

Every aspirant who passes through the 3 phases of UPSC CSE feels one particular stage to be the toughest. For me, Prelims was that scary nightmare. I hated remembering the facts and figures, memorizing the bizarre indexes and article numbers, going over the several rebellions in History and recollecting the not-so-stimulating rivers, tributaries and sanctuaries. Thus, my biggest dread in July 2020 was having to go through this phase again and hence the relief.

For those who are new to this blog, please go through the Part 1 of this series of posts to know about my journey till now.

Tryst with UPSC (Part 1)

Let’s move on. Having decided with strong conviction that I will not be wasting this attempt, I sat down to prepare.

It was my final semester in college and the major phase of Placements season had just concluded (in December). So you can understand, the sensational gossips used to be on MNCs, pay packages, work profiles and job locations. Apart from that, was the buzz on GRE scores, Research college applications abroad, Letters of Recommendation and SOPs. Oh! I forgot to mention CAT percentiles and IIM interviews. In this environment, it was quite difficult to concentrate on preparation.

IIT Bombay does not have a UPSC culture like they do at IIT Delhi or Kanpur. Yes, you can contact seniors, but it’s not the same. Further, I did not have a wing or group with whom to discuss queries, share notes or have combined studies. But, I feel that Internet is a great leveler and a gold mine for those who know how to use it wisely. I used to watch Previous Year Questions analysis, Toppers’ strategy videos (Pro Tip — find seniors who are in similar situation as you are, I used to follow Saumya Sharma, Shreyans Kumat, Kanishak Kataria, Saumya Pandey etc) and Mapwork on YouTube. I took the solitude preparation in a positive stride. It provided me the space to keep the humdrum gossips aside, compete only to beat myself from yesterday and push ahead with my efforts, unperturbed by speculations and multitudes of advices.

My final year room at IIT Bombay

It can be quite challenging to prepare for this Exam while in college since apart from distractions, you also have to manage academics. IIT coursework can be quite challenging especially if you have labs, but I had taken up many extra courses in previous semesters (like most students do at IIT to focus on career in final year) which gave me a very relaxed schedule in final semester. Even then, one has to be creative in finding time.

I used to study-on-the-go, reading newspaper and articles off my FB feed (Pro tip — keep the relevant FB pages like Indian Express, Thebetterindia.com etc on top of your feed) and making online notes. Like I mentioned earlier, I had courses like Indian Economy, Professional Ethics etc in my Humanities Minor which expanded my conceptual understanding. Being a book nerd, the knowledge definitely helped in the preparation.

There are millions of choices in this journey which shape the outcome. This Exam brings your life to standstill, it’s like an indeterminate, paused phase where you are absolutely uncertain of the future. You feel like simply getting on in life and starting a new chapter like your friends! You fear missing out on the simple joys in life! But you have to embrace yourself for the long and arduous expedition ahead. Choosing to go for the thousandth revision rather than attend a farewell party, choosing to give a mock test in my small hostel room rather than go for a vacation with friends, choosing to study 10–12 hours a day when others were having fun, going for night-outs at Marine Drive, all of these decisions have led me to where I am today.

My sanity at this stage was kept intact only by my close group of friends. None of them were preparing for the Exam and today we are cities and continents apart, yet we still make efforts to stay connected. It’s surprising when you spend so much time together, your friends know exactly when you want to rant out your frustrations, when you feel dull and demotivated and need a dose of their positivity, when you are fatigued and want to go for midnight Powai lake strolls!

Come May, I bid adieu to the place that had become my second home. It does feel like a baby bird leaving the comfort of her nest to spread her wings and fly into the big outside world. Scary yet exciting!

The month of May was completely devoted to Prelims. My schedule was literally “Study-Eat-Sleep” Repeat! There were also many moments of self-doubt and regret (of not having started preparation earlier). It took my entire family’s push and my own will power to stay focused and determined till the end. There were days when I would question my entire strategy and regret what I had skipped. But I told to myself, “This is the time to shift into fifth gear, pump up your efforts and give it all you’ve got!”

LESSONS FOR FUTURE ASPIRANTS

(Non aspirants can skip over to the end)

Prelims is a stage which seems overwhelming! When I first saw 2018 Question paper, I was literally dumbstruck at the level of knowledge expected. Since Engineering days have made us focus more on concept rather than rote learning, I figured this may not be my cup of tea.

But a detailed analysis of Syllabus and PYQ (Previous Year Questions) and I quickly understood that this exam is not KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepati). You need not know some random bizzare facts. Yes, Prelims does require a lot of cramming but there is a way to bring structure to this whole preparation.

Syllabus and PYQ

Be thorough with your Syllabus and Previous Year Questions and I cannot emphasize this enough! We all read the same basic books, yet some of us end up having better retention and marks in Prelims. Why is that so? -

1. Operate on COMMON SENSE — you can’t remember it all, so prioritize
2. By seeing the PYQ, you get to know which sections and points are relevant from exam point of view. Ex — for Polity, Fundamental Rights, DPSP, Preamble etc are frequently asked topics
3. See the OFFICIAL ANSWER KEYS of PYQ, there are lots of competing answer keys floating in the market, please don’t fall for them no matter how popular the source is! Invest this time, it will help you understand the mentality of the UPSC Paper setter
4. A wise man told me to remember the EXCEPTIONS because questions tend to be formed from these points (So true!)

Revision

Don’t chase after perfection! Read less books, Revise more and more! No one can remember Lakshmikant in one go!

Also reduce the time with every revision (highlight, underline, make notes), so that towards the end you can revise a lot of material in a very short time.

Mock Tests

Give MOCK TESTS for Prelims (you can simply bring the question booklets, need not join any test series) –

1. Give the test in a proper exam environment in a timed manner to feel the actual exam pressure and practice time management
2. Invest an hour for the paper analysis — here try to understand how with your existing knowledge you could have solved the question (You cannot know everything under the sun!)
3. Whatever extra points you learn from Mocks, note them down in your books or separate page since you won’t have time later to go through the mocks again

Attempting the Prelims Paper

1. Elimination Technique — You cannot be a 100% sure of more than 30–35 questions (max), so for others you have to eliminate options to arrive at the right answer. You may not know all the points, but even if you do know 1–2, you can eliminate some options.
2. Risk — You have to take RISK to clear this exam, but it has to be a calculated one. For questions, you have come down to 2 options, you should definitely try and attempt since your probability of getting those correct is substantially high.
3. No clue questions — Make a big cross on the questions you have absolutely no clue about and don’t want to waste your time later in exam (For me these were usually from Art and Culture).
4. Strength areas — Focus on them and make sure to attempt as many questions as possible from these sections. Also don’t be too biased in this view, since sometimes, questions from a particular section may be tough but others relatively easy!
5. Pattern in attempting questions— I had practised a particular pattern for attempting the question paper. I used to take around 50 minutes to go through all the questions. I ticked the sure-shot questions (answers which I knew for sure) and put a big cross on no clue questions . I used to DOUBLE CIRCLE the questions for which I have eliminated 2 options and SINGLE CIRCLE for those which I could only eliminate 1 option. So in the next round of attempting questions, I prioritized the double circled questions.
6. Keyword — Keep track of the keyword like correct/incorrect — make a circle around it so that it stands out and you don’t end up making silly mistakes (this reminds me during my NTSE prep, my teacher used to call me Silly Karan… don’t let this become your tag).
7. Extreme statements — having words like ‘only’, ‘all’, ‘none’ are USUALLY wrong.
8. Gut feeling — I did attempt some questions based on gut feeling (instinct/ guess/ conscience), sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn’t, you have to take a call on these questions.

CSAT

Practising PYQ papers were sufficient for me, since I already had a good command over logic and reasoning. Make sure to check the OFFICIAL ANSWER KEYS, since the answers in market are just horribly off the mark! (I even started questioning my own reasoning skills).

For those who find logic section tough, attempt the comprehension part earlier since they require no knowledge of mathematics! You can stop when you feel you have covered sufficient number of questions to clear the cut-off.

Tips for Actual Exam Day

1. One day before — Whatever you could prepare is done, now it’s time to perform! Do whatever relaxes you (I spent time with family) and please sleep early (I’m a night owl, hence I tried to consciously correct my schedule a few days before the Exam)
2. Take care not to catch the summer heat (for those giving exam in May-June), reach the exam hall before time so as not to feel too stressed and please stay hydrated!
3. Performance pressure — Despite good preparation, a lot of aspirants get cold feet on the actual day. They worry too much about results, consequences and sometimes even next year cycle! This is the day when you have to LIVE IN THE MOMENT! Enter the exam hall with the attitude, “If not me, then who?” I’m not kidding this boosts confidence a lot!
4. Time management — Keep a track of time since sometimes the questions can be very long. Let every question be like the first one and don’t get bogged down by previous questions which you could not answer.
5. Number of questions to attempt — I think this is a very personal choice based on accuracy level and difficulty of questions. Even though I used to attempt around 90 questions (average accuracy) in mock tests, I realized in the exam hall that the paper was tough (also because I had seen the level of questions in previous years), so I accordingly attempted between 80–85 questions and it paid off!
6. Filling OMR — You can do this twice, once somewhere around half time and the next towards the ends of exam. Please take extra care to mark the bubbles correctly (since even 0.33 marks costs very dearly in this exam)
7. Break time— The first paper in itself is quite exhausting and we feel quite drained out, but it is important to conserve energy for the next paper, so, sit back, relax, drink lots of water and have a light lunch. Please try to avoid looking at the instant answer keys that will soon start coming up since they are usually wrong and very distracting!

The marks have not been declared yet, but I’m pretty sure I had borderline qualifying marks in Prelims and this had a serious psychological impact going into Mains. But more on this in the next post.

For now, to all the UPSC aspirants appearing for upcoming Prelims — Stay calm, Be confident, Go forth and conquer!

When the results were declared, each of my family members had their own way of celebrating the result. Unfortunately for COVID, we are kept apart in different cities but I was surprised by so many calls and wishes from everyone.

I want to end this post with a sweet letter by my smart, loving, prodigious young cousin, Liana wishing me on my success and birthday! These heart touching gestures fill me with so much joy and push me to work harder and become a better person!

These are the gifts life is worth living for!