ForumIAS announcing GS Foundation Program for UPSC CSE 2025-26 from 26th June. Click Here for more information.
Dear Friends,
About 1000 of you wrote the Simulator Test 1 in the offline mode. And about 5000 people in the Online Mode.
We have a few things to tell you about the paper. Please read this carefully.
This is specially for the SFG Students and those who took the Simulator 1 Test.
First, the Prelims paper will be similar to one of the Simulator Tests on June 3. This means few things
One, you are likely to have the same shock and awe effect that you probably had when you write the Sim1. So be prepared for it. You will have to learn to adapt to it and learn to perform under pressure. The pressure wont go away even if you wish it did.
Second, you will be solving questions on the basis of long-term understanding and memory and not from what-you-read-last-night. However, Long term memory is built from a series of what-you-read-last-night. They are NOT two different things, but merely stages in learning.
Third, the paper of Prelims , just like Sim1 will at first look difficult . And you may will go home with the feeling that “I am not sure how much I will score”. But in the end, if you have been performing well in Mocks / Prelims before, you will end up performing well here also. Eventually. We spoke to most of the Top 20 scoring candidates, and they were not sure how much they will score after the test. But they did well. They were all scared, given the exam environment at the test center. The only people who are fearless are not the ones who have studied very well, but those who have studied very little, or have given up on preparation.
Immediately after the test, you are likely to feel a little jaded. This is how to feels after the exam too. This is normal, and you must adapt to it.
Fourth, the actual Prelims paper may look completely alien/ new or familiar – any of the given things, but it will be ( usually ) be easier than your test series. ( Unless you are writing a test series that spoonfeeds you, and gives false confidence based on high score, and is written usually by very unprepared people – such that the userbase of test takers does not only NOT reflect the actual competition of the exam, but is also far from it. )
We can assure you that the competition at ForumIAS is a little higher , because of a more serious – and prepared userbase of test takers.
Fifth, we went through your scores very closely. A lot of our Interview Candidates ( The Civils Interview is ongoing ) , a lot of our successful students, who are selected for Indian Forest Service 2017 also appeared for the examination.
And we also went through the scorecard of our top performing SFG / RLG Candidates. Here are the observations.
- A vast majority of SFG/ RLG Candidates, who have been consistent performers , have performed well in the Open Test – despite the initial shock
- Some SFG/ RLG students , who were performing decent until now, were not able to perform that well in the Open Test. Please continue reading this , if you are one of them.
We would like to point that among the students who have not performed well, these are the type of candidates
- Category 1: Those who have cleared the CSE Final List and are serving officers OR those who have appeared for the Mains multiple times, but not done so well in Sim 1
- Category 2 : Those who do NOT belong to the above category, but have been otherwise studying – such as performing in the SFG / RLG or even non-SFG Students who have studied well.
We have observed that Category 1 Students who are in service/ mains cleared / interview appeared students usually have NOT started preparation till now. But they have their basics in place, have underlined their books, and know their strengths and weaknesses. They will scale up their preparation in the coming days, and about 1 week before the exam they will be extremely good.
Category 2 students are at defining phase of their preparation right now. Some of them – usually those with good guidance and peer group or self motivation, will scale up their preparation like Category 1 students and will be able to cope up with the exam pressure.
But this will be only for those of you who are mentally strong. Mental toughness is one of the qualities needed for the exam. This will be tested.
A segment of Category 2 students are likely to
- give up too early
- judge that the paper was tough, overlooking their relative performance ( wasnt it tough for everyone ?)
- stop their preparation,
- probably get back to their shell and isolation and NOT study eventually.
- worse, they will start studying for Mains or Optionals as a self defense mechanism, just for the feel-good.
If you are one of those people, please do not quit too early. If you have been preparing well , all you need to do is persevere.
Lack of a strong will power and running / quitting at the first sign of trouble, will not be a quality you will share with your competitors.
So, get up and have a preparation plan, and the courage to study for 6-8 or 10 hours a day, for the next thirty days, and you can change the course of your life how you will spend your next 1 year.
What is a good performance in these tests?
A Ranks of under 150 is brilliant. You can take a respite, maybe touch upon optionals or anything Mains related – subject to the condition that you maintain a under 150 position. Your rank should not be accidental.
A rank of under 300-400. From what we have seen – a rank under 300-400 is good enough to clear the prelims examination, subject to certain conditions such as
- You study hard and improve your performance – on a daily basis. This will be important just to maintain your current position
- You do not let the people who are behind you, beat you in the next sixty days.
A rank of under 700 : Most people with this rank clear the Prelime too, based on past years performance.
You have probably done some basic reading, but not been thorough with your reading OR need revision. In the coming days, your goal should be to get under 300. Those of you who are following SFG – 1 Plan, you must complete your revisions, and try to be under 300-400 ranks at least by the next 3rd or 4rth Simulator Test. Those of you who are following the SFG – 2 Plan, should be able to improve rankings and performance by the first week of May. Both of you have ample time to revise – and time is a valuable resource – much like money – except that it is egalitarian – everyone has an equal amount of time.
Use it wisely.
A note about Simulator Tests : Simulator Tests are designed to replicate previous years paper – with twin goals – one, that a good practice of Simulator Tests should enusre that Prelims is not a surprise for you, and two, tests must not ask random questions – but relevant ones only, fcusing on developing problem solving skills of the candidate – so that candidates score well, no matter how the paper is.
We know a lot of you want the tests to be easy. But let us tell you a two things. One, we can make it easy and get a lot of people to subscribe. people love easy tests. Two, we will not do it.
At ForumIAS, we are very clear about our goal that we guide and motivate those who come to us in the right direction. We are not looking for the masses to join us. We are clear that the mainstream civil services candidates choose us. For example, more than 50+ (63 to be exact ) IFoS Final List Students ( out of 110 or so ) are our MGP Students. We want to maintain the ratio.
So we expect that you, as serious candidates, dont expect us to make things easy, but work on increasing your level instead. Because that is how the exam is going to be.
Apart from this , every Simulator Test will be different. Some may have more Current Affairs, some may have more static, and we recommend you practice past years papers before you solve the Simulators.
At this stage, you can either choose to write the next test on Sunday, April 8 with a few hundred serious aspirants in exam conditions – or choose to get back to solving random questions on the Internet.
In case you would like to enroll, here is the link, one last time .
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ForumIAS.com
P.S. We are working on eliminating cases on people using unfair means to solve the paper, and distorting the ranklist and analytics in the online mode. They see the answer and then write the test and get 170+ marks in half an hour. We are developing the software to eliminate such results on its own so that genuine candidates are not discouraged seeing abnormally high marks.
As thought leaders of Civil Services Preparation, we owe it to you.
