UPSC IAS TOPPER STRATEGY\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Saurabh Dixit<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n AIR 162, CSE 2016<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n First Attempt, No Coaching<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n This Article is a Part of Series of Articles written by\u00a0Saurabh Dixit\u00a0<\/strong>who has secured\u00a0AIR 162, CSE 2016<\/strong>\u00a0with self study in the very First Attempt.<\/p>\n Read the Part-1 Here<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Pre-exam is a test of decision making, and requires more of memorization. In order to be confident of writing the main(w) exam, you need to be sure of a comfortable margin between your expected score and the expected cut-off in your category. Only then can you be firm in planning your time between pre and main(w) exam, if this is your first attempt. And main(w) exam is all that matters. At least for me it did.<\/p>\n The booklist for pre exam is easily available on a simple Google search. Importance of studying Laxmikanth, Bipin Chandra, NCERTs<\/strong><\/span>, current affairs and the like can\u2019t be emphasized more. I stuck to these basic<\/em> books and got a very comfortable score in CSE 2016 pre exam. You will need lot of practice in a simulated environment to clear pre exam.<\/strong> I had joined online test series and that helped me revise important topics several times.<\/p>\n Always remember, anything that you haven\u2019t revised a couple of times before the exam is as good as you not having read it. You won\u2019t recall it later.<\/p>\n Paper 1 for pre-exam is based on facts mostly. Syllabus is well defined. If you\u2019re not reading it from basic books yourself<\/em>, chances are you\u2019ll miss the train to writing the main(w) exam. Many students, unfortunately, hunt for short notes, gists of magazines etc few weeks before the exam. I made my own short notes, and revised them multiple times. See, you should always write the exam when you\u2019re on your peak. The peak is reached when you\u2019re getting 120+ in test series(s), you aren\u2019t making silly mistakes, you\u2019re thorough with NCERTs etc.<\/p>\n While in exam hall, there will be questions that will need to be solved based on tricks. For example, if I know Nashik isn\u2019t on the Malwa Plateau \u2013 all options suggesting so are wrong and hence I can quickly arrive at my answer. The climate change fund transfer as agreed upon by developed countries was $100 billion, if an option mentions it as $1000 billion, it\u2019s wrong. [These examples are taken from CSE 2016 pre exam, sorry if you can\u2019t relate to them<\/em>].<\/p>\n Then some people call it luck based<\/span>.<\/strong> I have only one line for them: don\u2019t go to a temple to pray, if you\u2019re an atheist<\/em>. Nobody forced (or should) you to write this exam. If you\u2019re here, you\u2019ve to play by the general rules.<\/strong><\/p>\n I have a simple answer for this question. The government conducts the exam every year. This is the time required \u2013 one year.<\/strong> If it wasn\u2019t the case, the exams would be held every alternate year.<\/p>\n If you can use your faculty in an efficient way, you can prepare and clear the exam in one year. I did it. Many others have done it. Can you? Now, I take your attention to the quote I had written in the starting, those who think they can, and those who think they can\u2019t are both usually right.<\/em><\/strong> You\u2019re your own best judge. Confidence is the key here.<\/p>\n Now I shall be as honest as possible. I used to study for around 12 hours a day, every day! Consistency is the key.<\/strong> <\/span>This included newspaper reading & making notes out of it (yes, I made my own notes from December 2015 to May 2016), reading optional & making notes out of it (I did self study for optional as well), reading GS for upcoming mock tests.<\/p>\n I gave even mocks after revising the syllabus. This helped me memorize books like NCERTs, TN history, GC Leong, Laxmikanth – all by heart. I still have a pictographic memory of all of them. It helps. The scores in the beginning were like 59\/200, 60s\/200. 90s\/200. But in 2-month\u2019s time I was building up the tempo. I thought I was late<\/em> (considering many people join coaching a year before the exam, many take the exam to improve their AIR, several others may have better grasping skills).<\/p>\n But I now realize 6-8 months time is more than sufficient before pre<\/strong><\/span>. If you aren\u2019t able to finish the required syllabus in this time, few things can be inferred. You\u2019re not reading relevant books, you\u2019re idling around, perhaps you\u2019ve weak memory (and I don\u2019t think almond helps), or you\u2019re just not in the mood maybe?<\/p>\n I was done with my pre syllabus by end of May 2016. I had also made notes for Sociology for almost 70 per cent of the syllabus (to those coaching institutes who promise to finish syllabus in 3 months time, I have only thing to say: please don\u2019t cheat the innocent<\/em>). I now decided that I must revise and start taking full syllabus tests. In hindsight, the revisions made all the difference. I stopped studying Sociology and just revised all what I had read.<\/p>\n Right after the exam, I knew I will get through.<\/strong> I matched answer keys and was comfortably scoring 140+, so I knew I was on the right track. Take some time and try to visualize<\/em> my situation here. I stayed in the UPSC hub yet never took coaching<\/strong><\/span>, had just read online success stories*<\/strong>, and had attempted online test series. To me this was big. The next write-up will be on main(w) exam.<\/p>\n Happy Independence Day to all.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Until next time,<\/p>\n \u2013\u00a0Saurabh Dixit,\u00a0AIR 162<\/b><\/p>\n (\u201cForumIAS is the best platform to help students in today\u2019s era\u201d, says the UPSC Topper)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Note<\/strong>:\u00a0This is Part-2 of the series of write-up on UPSC CSE preparation by Saurabh Dixit. Part-3 on mains preparation to come soon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UPSC IAS TOPPER STRATEGY\u00a0 Saurabh Dixit AIR 162, CSE 2016 First Attempt, No Coaching This Article is a Part of Series of Articles written by\u00a0Saurabh Dixit\u00a0who has secured\u00a0AIR 162, CSE 2016\u00a0with self study in the very First Attempt. Read the Part-1 Here Pre-exam is a test of decision making, and requires more of memorization. In… Continue reading [Strategy] How to Score 140+ in Prelims? UPSC IAS Topper Saurabh Dixit (AIR 162 \/ CSE 2016) First Attempt, No Coaching-[Part 2]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":6183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,28,9,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motivation","category-preparation-strategy","category-public","category-toppers-story","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Saurabh-Dixit-upsc-topper.jpg?fit=1000%2C500&ssl=1","views":{"total":16,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1700117793},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nSo, how many days are sufficient for preparing for the exam?<\/strong><\/h6>\n
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\nSome Important details that need mention:<\/strong><\/h6>\n
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\n[* <\/strong>this fact has motivated me to write this piece, what if someone somewhere takes motivation and finally clears the exam just by self study? I will consider time spent in writing this article as a good investment]<\/em><\/p>\n
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