Answer Writing for PSIR- Part 1
- Have faith in your hard work — The first thing is to be totally calm and zen and know that you have studied more, written more answers and tests and put in more labour than 99.9% of the kids writing Mains 2018. That’s a fact. If it’s weird and scary for you, it’s weird and scary for everyone.
- Manage your time — You have exactly 30 minutes to finish 1 question set with the subparts. There are 5 questions that you will have to attempt. That means 2.5 hours. The extra 30 minutes is for thinking/deciding which question to pick/ reading the question paper. It will also take care of 4–5 minute spillovers for each question set.
Pick questions where you don’t have to think about the structure of the answer. This saves precious time for questions where you will have to think and analyse. - Don’t do ratta but memorise key ideas — you must have conceptual clarity about the topics of the syllabus. But conceptual clarity alone won’t do. Memorise the key words, themes and arguments for each topic because there is no time to recall/think in the examination hall. Fit these words in your free-flowing, expressive answer.
- Good presentation saves the day — Small, neat paragraphs and points will enhance your score. Your answer script should be beautiful. Highlight the key words and scholars by underlining. Make checking easy for the examiner.
- How do you have concrete points for all the answers? By doing answer writing practice on every damn topic of the syllabus in reference to the previous year question papers. Make answer writing practice registers. I had 4 registers titled Section A/B/C/D where I attempted at least one question every evening from the previous year papers after studying the topic in morning.
- In the last few days, just read your revision booklets and important flagged answers in your answer writing registers.
- Lastly, love your optional. Passion (and not pressure!) should be the driving force behind your studies. Love = good mindset = good marks
What are revision registers? And why you should buy a white board —
Once you begin seriously taking mock tests, you will find that you do not have the time or the headspace to go back to the weighty tomes of your optional notes.
When you are studying your optional notes, write down the key words, ideas and scholars of each topic of the syllabus in a separate notebook. Try not to go over 2 pages for any topic. Make a mind map. This will be very beneficial for refreshing your memory and consolidating things in your mind one or two days before the exam.
Also remember that you only have to write 150/200/250 words for the optional. So what you need is substantive content and good points that can be elaborated to fit the needs of any type of question.
To make your studies more interesting, buy a white board and teach yourself each topic of the syllabus. You are both the teacher and the student here. This is the best way to gain conceptual clarity of your optional.
This is also a good way to stay engaged with your optional and get some variation in your routine. When you feel distracted and your mind starts travelling (which will happen a lot because sitting at your study desk gets old after a point), get up and start chalking out things on a white board. The flowcharts that you make on the white board are also very good for last minute revisions. These are some flowcharts I made during Mains. I took pictures of all my flowcharts on my Mom’s phone as I didn’t have a smartphone during Mains preparation.
How to tackle the D-Day
My plan during Mains week was to come back from the examination centre, rest for two hours and then revise for 4 hours for the next day of papers. However, that doesn’t happen because when you come back home after writing for 6 hours, you’re pretty much a zombie. So don’t think that you can do any substantial revision during Mains week. Physically and emotionally surviving Mains is good enough.
The optional exam is on the last day of the brutally exhausting and emotionally overwhelming Mains week. It is also the most important day because you need those 300+ to get a decent rank. The pressure is on because unlike GS papers where you can faff a little bit on questions you have no idea about, faffing in the optional just doesn’t work. You need the concrete points, analysis and scholars to get good marks.
You will be emotionally and physically exhausted by the time you’re done with your GS papers and you’ll want this nightmarish week to just end. But you’ll have the scary optional staring at you in the face after a break of one day. So it is crucial to mentally and emotionally push through and give your absolute 100% on the last day. I know you’re tired, exhausted and just done. But you have come so far. Just two more days. Stay engaged and energised and give your absolute complete best to the optional.
During the break between papers 1 and 2, I ate something very light like fresh fruit or a quinoa salad. Have an ORS drink and some chocolate. Avoid heavy, desi food because you do not want to feel drowsy at any point.
Power naps are important to perform well in the second half of the day. I napped for 40 minutes between all my GS papers but I had too much of an adrenaline rush during my optional so chose to just stay awake and revise whatever I could.
There is credible UPSC folklore about candidates who pop an anti-anxiety pill before their Mains papers and also before their interview.
I strongly advise you NOT to do that, no matter what your family doctor says!
Will you keep popping anti-anxiety pills all throughout your career the moment the pressure and stress gets a bit much?
Just exercise and meditate, regularly! and deliberately and consciously cultivate equanimity.
Which questions to pick?
In the optional question paper, do pick questions where you can draw a diagram or some table for extra marks (Example: Aristotle’s pure and corrupt forms of government, superstructure/base in Marx and Gramsci, Gandhi’s oceanic circles, Plato’s three fold classification of human nature).
Each question set in the optional has three sub-questions (one for 20 marks and two for 15 marks). What happens sometimes is that you will be comfortable with two questions and a bit uncomfortable with one in all the question sets. This is how the folks at UPSC deliberately set the paper. So deciding which set of questions to attempt to get the maximum marks possible becomes a dilemma that you can’t dwell much on since the optional papers are always lengthy. In that case, pick the question where you are comfortable with the 20 marker and 15 marker instead of picking the one where you’re comfortable with 15+15. Sounds obvious but it’s something you might forget in the actual Mains.
Pick the questions that are asked from your strengths. When you are reading your optional and doing answer writing practice on your own, you will realise that there are some topics that are naturally more engaging to you and some that aren’t. For example, Marxism, Socialism, Fascism, IR theory, Gender Justice and Environment were interesting to me whereas I had to put more effort than usual to get excited about comparative politics, arthashastra, dharmashastra and kautilya.
You will not know your strengths and your weaknesses if you don’t do answer writing practice on your own. And if you don’t know your strengths, you will not be able to attempt the best questions to maximise your marks in the actual Mains.
Like I said in my previous post, the optional is a labour of love. Put the requisite input and you will get the deserved output. Hope you all are happy and focussed! No distractions!
I will post all my mocks and some answers in a separate post tomorrow.
Sending all my love and positive energy your way. All the best! :)
