‘Having a Template for Answers helped me a lot in Effective and Speedy Answer Writing’, Says Garima Mundra, AIR 80, UPSC CSE 2023

When the result was declared, where were you? What were you doing?

I think it was pretty much dysfunctional and there were major claims that the result will be declared today or tomorrow and I was having that major anxiety that oh let’s see what happens let’s see what happens. I was in my room when the PDF came out and I just ran towards my mom’s room and hugged her that and she understood that it must be something very good.

I’d like to know a little bit more about your background, family, education. Where are you from?

I’m from Ahmedabad. I did my schooling till 12th standard from DPS and then I did my B.Com Honors from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University and since then I started preparing for this exam. I don’t have any such background in my family because I’m from a Marwadi family and they very far from all these things. My dad is into business and my mom is a homemaker.

This bug for civil services, it bit you somewhere in college, is that it?

I think my dad had mentioned it during class 11 or 12 and said that I should try becoming because I was a very studious person, so he just suggested it off the beat and it was there in the back of my head and when you go to Delhi I think the culture is much vibrant there but I still gave myself time to explore corporate through internships.

We got placements for internships as well but I didn’t really enjoy it so I thought it was worth a try I had a few seniors who had cleared when I was in college so yeah that’s how the journey started and I I was also stuck in the loop for two three attempts.

These days we see that there are people who start preparing right from college itself, and sometimes at the cost of their college education also. What is your take on it? What is a good time to start studying and preparing?

I would definitely not suggest someone to start right from a college because I think college is meant for exploring opportunities that the world has to offer and if you get access to a very good college like Delhi University, the vibrancy is next level, except for academics there are a lot of extra-curriculars to look forward to.

It helps is because this exam is very uncertain, there are times you want a plan B and there are times you want to think of an alternate and you can use that college time to build a base for that alternate at least so give yourself two three years maybe you don’t develop that kind of interest in civil services it’s not 100% secure career option anyway so I think third year or after third year is a better time to start. But use one or two years to enjoy and see the world because once you get into the books it’s really hard to get out of it.

This has happened for you in the third attempt, right? With a lot of of course strenuous preparation but in hindsight, can you sort of identify what specifically does it require for one to crack through the exam?

I think hard work was never an issue, right from the first attempt  I think a little bit more smart work was missing, just putting in the hours does not cut it so I figured out my personal challenges, strengths and weakness and that’s how I progressed with each step.  I think I could see my graph going on an upward trend.

I thought to myself that I’m able to clear prelims if I wasn’t able to crack Mains in my first I was able to do it in my second so that kind of helped me push forward that it’s nothing unachievable and you see people around you who are from the same background who do it faster, who do it in their first attempt so I think a lot of things have to align for you to clear this exam and you have to keep it in mind that know even if you put in the hard work the result might not go in your favor and you have to be prepared for it.

Let’s move to prelims. It is a random paper, isn’t it?

I think when I opened that paper it was a pretty big shocker that you know that elimination techniques are a thing of the past but I think what really helped me in that prelims was that I was pretty calm and composed.

When I actually opened the paper, I was not nervous or taken a back I really found it funny that you know what have they done to us and I thought everyone must be going through the same so that kind of mindset I think helped me sail through those to hours.

I didn’t make mistakes out of nervousness which helped me set myself apart from other people because when you are nervous in those two hours even things you know tend to go wrong so I think not getting bogged down by the trends and whatever the pattern of the paper realizing that everyone is in the same boat and the most important thing you can do to help yourself in those two hours is to be calm and composed, otherwise the years of preparation just goes in vain.

If nervousness is an issue, then solving mock tests in offline environment will help. You should not give mock tests from the comfort of your home. These will help you analyze as to how you would react in a different setting.

If you are making silly mistakes, then, revision is important.

CSAT is becoming a bottleneck for people. Have you faced challenges in CSAT, or is it a sail through?

I think I never let the fear of CSAT get to me because when I started giving my first prelims, it was not that difficult. It used to be a additional paper that you can crack very easily if you solve some two three previous year questions. Now that the pattern has changed a little bit, I think people are feeding on to the fear by making it a big deal.

Comprehension was always my strength and last year’s paper were pretty easy to solve as well.

So I never put in additional effort but it does help to analyze the themes that are asked and practice accordingly so that the time management does not become an issue for you in the paper and don’t let others opinion get to you.

What is your method of preparation for Mains?

Mains is something I’ve personally struggled with. When I wrote my first mains during my second attempt, I realized that you know my hard-work was not worth it. I was not able to replicate it in the paper because it is a lot of physical and mental exhaustion while giving the papers as well so this attempt I tried to streamline it a little bit by ensuring that my basic notes are done.

I don’t have to worry about the notes and I could work upon value addition and play with the examiner’s mind. I realized that while checking a lot of copies, it does get a little bit exhausting to see the same point so give them a little bit more graphic, give them a little bit more punch lines in your conclusion for your answers to stand up.

I also struggled while finishing my papers in my first attempt, so working on time management was crucial for me.

Daily answer writing was never my thing. I practiced Full Length Tests.

As you’re talking about catching the examiner’s eye among the different subjects, what are the sort of value additions that you tend to add in a GS1 paper as opposed to say a GS3 paper?

GS 1 is a little bit more static,  there’s not much you can do in terms of value addition but GS 3 gives you way too much scope for Value addition it can tend to get overwhelming and as we’ve seen trends GS 3 might not be that scoring as GS 1.

Such trends also play on your mind that what one needs to do to stand apart in GS paper.

One way what I used to do was that I used to remember a little bit more factual data to add value to my answers so for even questions on art and culture you need to use a lot of examples to get the examiner know that you do know your facts correctly,  so facts really become helpful and prelims knowledge help you in that.

Don’t neglect your prelims notes while you’re preparing for mains but for GS 3, what happens is that the previous year questions become very important where you can analyze themes and you can see what kind of repetition do they have. For example infrastructure and environment security is very repetitive so these are the favorites of the examiner favorites.

Further, you can set a template for answer writing, that this is going to be my intro this is going to be my conclusion, I have a diagram already.  Having such templates really helped me to even quicken my speed.

Anytime I would see a similar question on that particular topic, I would just start writing my intro that I already had so that really help me stand apart this time and also finish my papers.

If somebody’s got a challenge in finishing papers, I must ask them about GS4, which is the lengthiest of all. What is your strategy for GS4 specifically?

This time what I did was I flipped around the paper I tried to do my case studies first. Tat helped me because I realized case studies are pretty much similar for everyone you tend to write the same options same alternatives. It let me not waste too much of my time and i can just write what comes in my head and again having a template approach to case study really helped me.

I had already analyzed previous year questions and ensured that for ethical issues, ethical dilemmas, I  had a list which are common to particularly all case studies so they just came to me naturally because I had practiced answer writing especially for GS 4.

I finished the case study parts pretty fast and then theory,  thankfully this year was straightforward so i already had that one quote for every keyword and those keywords came in the exam such as corruption, corporate governance, International relation,etc.

I used to conclude my answers through those quotes.

I used to use a lot of ethical terms, moral ambiguity, moral ambivalence to just make them sound more ethical so I think shortcuts and cheat sheets of Ethics really helped me this time.

Essay is becoming very unpredictable. For that, is having a fixed template is helpful or do we look for more of an analytical and interpretative approach for essay?

Essay and me have a love-hate relationship because in the first mains, I got only 75 in my essay and there were different people saying different things that Ahmedabad Centre does not give marks and people also advised me to change the centre to Delhi to get marks in essay.

But I had that conviction that I would clear my examinations from the Ahmedabad centre itself.  I knew I can write a good essay I would not have done such a big blunder to score 75 so I kind of followed through with that same strategy.

I tried watching some guidance videos on YouTube and that, kind of really messed up my approach to essay because I became very technical, that, Oh! that person had mentioned it I need to follow that,  but I think being organic really helps in essays.

There is a natural writing style to everyone and I figured out mine.  I read a lot of topper essays I think they were a good template to follow because they’ve already cracked it with good marks. So I used to see people have scored 130-135 in essays and read their essays every night before going to sleep which helped me get examples for my essays and that also helped me ensure that what a balanced essay will look like.

Coming from a great college, is there a lot of difference in the sort of papers that are asked by the UPSC and what you do in college, or is there a greater similarity?

I had my optional as my graduation subject so it was a no-brainer for me to go for it as an optional. I didn’t really care that what the trend says and as far as B. Com and UPSC papers are concerned, I think they are different.

You cannot have the same approach to a college exam that you have in UPSC, because the result really matters here. The College papers were more free that it’s okay like I’ll just write something that comes to my mind.

In UPSC, a lot of hard work does go behind it, your approach is different but the subject pretty much is the same, the content is the same. You solve the numerical in the same manner so obviously that helps you lessen and lighten your preparation but otherwise it does require a little bit more hard work and more answer writing practice.

Did you use AI and GPT tools for your preparation or is it something that one should stay away from?

I think I never used it for my Mains or prelims preparation because when I tried using it but what I experienced was if I’m giving it some question it’s throwing out a very generic answer so I never liked because I wanted my answers to stand out and that is what it was not helping me with.

I rather used it more in my interview preparation to clear my DAF,  to generate questions that can be asked on certain topics, for interview I used it much more than for GS.

Are you a paper-pen sort of girl or are you online?

It depends from subject to subject.

For a subject like ethics which is a little bit more Dynamic, I used to make it online so that I can change, add examples, quotes, etc. But for other subjects I preferred handwritten notes because I think the recall value is much higher when you write it by yourself.

In interview preparation, how does one address the shock factor of the interview?

I think for interview preparation you need to enjoy,  because that’s the only preparation where you don’t to mug stuff and you don’t have to learn practice answer writing.

You can watch YouTube videos and feel productive at the end of the day, so I think interview was pretty the preparation was fun.

As far as the unpredictability of it is concerned, at the end of the day you have to know that it’s just 30 minutes, half of which is predictable at times through your DAF so you can lead the interview rather than them leading you so kind of that comes with practice.

When you give your mock interviews,  you figure out that at least if you’re confident and you are coming across as a good personality even if you don’t know some questions there nothing to worry about so knowing that it’s not a knowledge test but knowing that they’re just judging you as a good human being,  I think it that will really lessen your stress at the end of the day.

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