This Sunday, by 5PM the Prelims 2024 will be over.

We will be back to our rooms. Exhausted.

For the next 48 hours, several times we will feel that we will clear the prelims this time.

And then, just the next moment, we will feel as if won’t make it.

Like last year.

But then somehow we clear the Prelims.

And when you do, you never know how you did it.

So, here are some suggestions – and some food for thought for all those of you who are out there fighting not just the Delhi heat – not just the demons inside –  but fighting everyone who has probably lost faith in your capabilities.

#1 Do not carry the baggage of the past.

First things first.
This Sunday,  as you walk to your test centre, do not carry negative memories of past. If success has eluded you in previous attempt(s), remember that every attempt at UPSC is a fresh attempt. You have no real benefits of clearing the exam before, for you have to start from zero again. The worst thing you can do is to carry a burden of the past on your back.

And its bad because of two reasons – One, its not the same you after a year – you have done much more than what you were doing last year.

And two, this time you have the experience of the past year, and you probably will not make the rookie mistakes. Read on to know what some of those mistakes are.

#2 Do things that make you more confident.

Avoid absolutely anything that takes away your confidence.
If you think you can’t be confident, do things that keep you sane.
If you think studying day and night will keep you sane, do it. If you think solving papers will keep you sane, do it. If you think doing PYQs will keep you sane, do it. If you think that studying till the last moments makes you confident, by all means study till the last moment.
The truth is – nothing beats staying sane at this time.

And if you have enemies, give them a new book, a new pdf  – or worse – a new youtube video at this hour. It is enough to ruin an attempt!

#3 Avoid negative people

Avoid people who may pull you down, or take away your mental peace.

Or confuse you with their super performance – espcecially the ones who are not writing the exam and are waiting to say -paper-was-easy-i-wish-i-had-appeared-this-year.

This is the time – when you will meet all kinds of people – Some of them will tell you tera-to-ho-jayega. Some other will tell you their fake and inflated test series scores. Yet others will knock on your door to say things, you do not need to hear. Be wary especially of the ones who are getting 110 after the Prelims and before the CSAT paper.

The truth is – these are all stress coping mechanisms which people may have invented for themselves. You do not need to be the dumping ground of all this if you are writing the exam. You probably need a dumping ground, but you don’t be one.

#3 Conserve your energy

Save yourself some energy and and prepare for performance on the D Day. “Sir, I have been told by my mentor to keep telling myself, “I-will-make-it-this-time-through-Prelims.” I think that is a very wrong piece of advice.

Thinking  about how you will feel when you clear the exam fills one with a false sense of happiness and joy. Worse, it may even take away your mental peace and over excite you. Having an outcome based approach to self talk , in my opinion is very detrimental, as you may be caught in a thinking loop for a very long time.

#4 I will give it my best

The right thing to say to yourself is – ” I will give it my best this prelims.”

The minute your have an effort based self talk vs an outcome based self talk – what you foucs on changes forever.

If you focus on “this-time-i-will-clear-prelims.”, first its the same thing you probably said last year. ( I often hear that lines from people who have no idea of the exam, are too afraid of it and have found ways to cope with their stress.  )

When you say – this time I will write prelims properly, you develop a certain gravity. It gives you a sense of direction. You write things you need to do so that you write prelims properly. You focus on things that are not working out, and make them work out for you.

#5 Arrive Early to the exam hall.

This year, the Commission has announced that gates will close 30 minutes prior to the exam commencement. Every year at least 15-20 students reach out to me, and desperately so – for having arrived at the centre late. Look, if your exam commences at 9:30AM, and gates are supposed to close at 9AM – the time between 8:AM to 9 AM are going to be full of stress if you are anywhere other than your exam center.

Remeber, we are not perfect. You can either be late or early. With almost a decade of experience guiding civils aspirants[0], I can tell you that it is better to be early that day than late. Of all the problems in your life that day, being late should not be one of them.

#6 Have faith

Sometime in 2022, I received a message from _AJ on the Forum. He had secured a Rank 16 in CSE 2021. And he said “Sir, I have a batchmate who is not able to crack Prelims. Can you guide her?

I met Prachi that week.

In a avery crowded set up, she asked me one precise question – “Sir what is the reason that some people clear the exam, and some people do not, despite reading the same book?”

Prachi was the Minal Karanwal [1] from IIT Delhi. She was the typical kid – have-potential-but-don’t-know-what-to-do.

I saw Prachi more often at the Center. She was there in every single session that we took – in SFG, Mains, MGP, and what not – sitting in the front row left side ( as far I can recall), diligently taking notes . She made the register of errors, made notes of all the class sessions- sharing a screenshot i preserved to this day.

In the next 3-4 months, it was clear she was on the right path, and we could get a rank out of her. There is no joy higher for a mentor than getting a good mentee.[**]

( I sometimes feel – as I get older – I am becoming that typical Uncle who can predict a kid’s future by looking at him/her. Its so surreal, its insane. Even for me. )

I often believe that if there is a thaali, which has karela-  and you hate karela – eat the karela first.[2] Prachi decided to write write IFoS – a task unthinkable for her at that time, given that Prelims was her problem.

I would meet her when she cleared her first Prelims. And then wrote the Mains. And then before her Interview. And I met her last month. She secured Rank 16 in the IFoS.[3][4][6]

And she was all smiles – that ear to ear grin when you get what you want. I had never seen her so happy relieved.

I even made her ring the success bell we have at Forum 😀 [6]

If one were to ask me what role ForumIAS ever played in her success – beyond the MGPs and tests and CA Classes and SFGs etc- it was truly restoring her faith in herself.

Thats really all.

At this point all you can do is have faith in yourself – even if you do not have the confidence.

Because your confidence may go through the highs and lows of a sine curve – going up every evening, and waking up with nightmares in the morning. It is normal to go through these highs and lows. What you need now is not confidence, but faith. Faith in the hard work that you have put so far. Faith in the exam hall that if the paper is difficult, it is for everyone, and not you alone.

#7 Avoid overthinking

Do not overthink in the paper. We have discussed this in several classroom sessions before, and I shall repeat that now again. Questions that can be solved by (a) memory and (b) intuition are to be solved by them. Not by logic. Over the years, I have seend hudreds of good candidates flunk prelims because of overthinking and over application of logic. We have to use logic to solve questions by all means, but keep it to questions where you do not know the answer or where you are not able to eliminate some options. Do not use logic in question which you can solve by a simple reading of laxmikant.

#8 Stay Positive

The most important thing you can do for your Prelims 2024 attempt is stay positive. Believe me you, that counts more than even studying for the next 18 out of 36 hours.

Once in the battlefield, all you have to do is fight. Irrespective of the size of fight left in you. And whilst in the examination hall, write the paper with full energy. Sometimes, you can save a year simply by having more energy, more focus, and a never-give-up-attitude in the examination hall. Writing the exam with your full energy can have as much as 5 to 8 marks impact on your score.

It reminds of the lines by the young poet Subham Shyam –

माना कि है अंधेरा बहुत और चारों ओर नाकामी
माना कि थक के टूट रहे और सफर अभी दुरगामी है
जीवन की आपाधापी में,जीने का ठिकाना छूट गया
माना कि हिम्मत टूट गई आंखों में निराशा छायी है
माना कि चांद पे ग्रहण है और रात भी गहराई है
पर कृष्ण ने साफ कहा है कि बस कर्म तुम्हारा कल होगा
और कर्म में अगर सच्चाई है तो कर्म कहां निष्फल होगा
हर एक संकट का हल होगा आज नहीं तो कल होगा |

#9. Let go

Let go of everything.

And I mean every word of it.

As a young man, I never admired  Irfan Khan – the late actor in his lifetime.

And then like most lost things, we only tend to value them  when we can no longer have them.[7]

So when we lost him to cancer in 2020, I binge watched all his movies – sometimes very teary-eyed.

And one of the lines that stuck with me was from the Life of Pi – a book I had read as a child.[8]

So when India lost Irfan Khan they p;ayed one of his iconic lines from the film – “I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go.“[9]

This Sunday, you cannot control everything.

You only control the controllables.

For leave alone the outside world, we can’t even control our minds. The demons. The voices in the head.

So take it easy.

Breath Deep, when you are worried.

And let go.

For things will break you before they make you.

Until next time,

Neyawn

[0] You do not need to a Mentor Teacher to figure that out. Really.

[1] You can read more about Minal here

[2] Video will be posted soon.

[3] It is called eating the frog first.

[4] Arth had been an ardent forum user and a hardcore forum test series student. He had taken probably every test at Forum. Even PTS 2022 which he would no longer need since he already got Rank 16 in CSE 2021.  I asked him, what will you do with the PTS 2022. You don’t need it! He said Sir my brother is writing the tests. I was a little relieved.

[5] To sum it up, all three characters in the anecdote have Rank 16. Arth and Ayan Jain in CSE 2021 and 2023 and Prachi in IFoS 2023

[**] I am almost secretly working with a bunch of people who have not cleared prelims 3 times or more and I am making them clear the prelims this time. My calculation is that 30+  of the students will be in the final list this year and the next. These kids however have no clue they are going to topprs of 2024 and 2025. Of all the things I am accused of  ( I run a coaching, so you can guess ), one thing is very apt – At Forum, we will work hard on the candidate, make them a topper, them claim part of their success, make you ring the success bell – but that is it. After that we won’t call you even if you land up being a Governor. No favours!

[6] Fun Fact : When she came for the IFoS Interview, I was certain IFoS was sorted and a closed chapter and after IFoS he candidate needs to move back to Civils. I wrote in a piece of paper asking her to join Ethics+ classes for 2024. Later, I felt that the candidate may have felt that I do not have faith her IFS results. ( So I did what I do best. I gave her the neyawn phone call 1 day before her Interview. I have done that with some of the folks whom I really wanted to pass on my luck 😛 . Been doing that for the past 10 years. True story ( double wink ) )

Thankfully, the candidate did not take it negatively. She even wrote that in her note for the day

[7] Including the people we love and take for granted.

[8] My father read that book and gave it to me because the book had an anecdote as to how the protagonist got his name “Pi”. He could relate to it because he had been jokingly named as Rai Bahadur by his school teacher ( Bahadur was a title granted by the British ) and since he was too poor for anyone to remember his birthdate, let alone celebrate it – the teacher set his birthday to January 1. The school inspector on one of the visits questioned the teacher why all poor kids have the date of birth as January 1 – lest the district collector come to know about it and get angry. The school headmaster then changed it to January 2. As a young boy, my father would go along with my grandpa – who was a peon in the Health department – doing menial jobs. Decades later, he went on to join the IAS and become the Secretary, Health & Family Welfare. The co-incidence? He became Secreary Health in the very same building where gradpa had been a peon once, and where he had slept in the corridors with gradpa when some days he had to stay till late. People do miracles in their lifetimes.

[9] The full sentence reads – I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye. You need to either be a teenager or someone in your forties to fully appreciate this one.