[UPSC Interview 2022] – Transcript #73 : M Sathiyavathy Board, Sociology Optional,

Date of Interview: 02/02/2023 (2nd last in afternoon)
Board: M Sathiyavathy
Optional: Sociology
Background: BSc (Hons)
Attempt: 1st
College: BHU
Time: 22 minutes

Highlights of DAF: Taught CBSE students while in college, reading old newspapers, NCC ‘C’ certificate, field survey on socio-economic conditions of sanitation workers of varanasi, singing contemporary bollywood songs, blood donation drive

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Chairman

1. What are you doing since 2021 (graduation year)?
2. Were you paid for teaching?
3. What were your observations from the field survey?
4. Any particular unknown observation that can be useful to the administration? (She meant that govt was already aware of the findings I mentioned)
5. How did you survey the mental health of those sanitation workers?
6. Who helped you in that survey?
7. Did you publish it anywhere?
8. What are the conditions for blood donation?
9. Can you specify for both male & female?
10. Why only 350 ml blood is collected?

Member 1

1. What is the slogan of NCC? Of NSS?
2. Do you know about remote voting? What are the challenges?
3. If there are loopholes shouldn’t we reject the concept of remote voting?

Member 2

1. What is the significance of drill in NCC?
2. You’ve only 84% in 12th board exams, why?
3. BHU was considered the best university in India, but today its quality has degraded. Your opinion.
4. How does geography of a place determine it’s economy?

Member 3

1. How did teachers in rural areas teach during pandemic with no infrastructure?
2. You mentioned about budget, what was “unity mall” in yesterday’s budget? (I’d quoted recent budget in previous answer)
3. How has cleanliness of Varanasi changed in recent years?
4. Compare sanitation and cleanliness of Dehradun (my hometown) and Varanasi.

Member 4

1. Why do you read old newspapers? What benefit does it serve?
2. Why do you sing only contemporary songs? Why not old?
3. You taught at an Institute called concept learning classes. How did you ensure “concept learning” of your students?
4. Everything was DAF based. I used lots of data, gave balanced & honest answers, responded everything except 2 factual questions. Rest I’ve no clue if Sathyavathi ma’am was impressed or not. Other members looked satisfied, they were nodding and smiling.

Utility of mocks:
Don’t take them seriously (EASIER SAID THAN DONE). Just look at the overall feedback and areas to improve. I gave a hell lot of mocks, some were decent, some were horrible and some very factual. This interview at UPSC was very relaxed. Luckily I wasn’t asked any difficult sociology/GS/graduation questions or any random current affairs question. In fact, I prepared so much for Uttarakhand that I can clear UKPCS now!  But they didn’t ask anything from Uttarakhand. That doesn’t mean we should not prepare, it’s just that you’ve to be ready for everything. I was told that teaching, NCC, blood donation are very generic things and they won’t ask. But you can see so many questions were asked. So don’t leave any part of DAF.

All the best! See you in LBSNAA.