So Mains 2021 has begun. Essay Paper is here
1. https://blog.forumias.com/upsc-ias-mains-2021-essay-question-paper/
2. GS Paper 1 : https://blog.forumias.com/download-upsc-ias-mains-2021-gs-1-question-paper
3. GS Paper 2 : https://blog.forumias.com/download-upsc-ias-mains-2021-gs-2-question-paper
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How was your paper? How did you approach the paper?
I tried to check individual time but couldn't follow it fully ,so just made it like 30min tasks to complete for 15 marks and 15 min tasks to complete for 10m
But mostly went with the flow without thinking much or resting in between
Unrelated but there is a way to large difference between IIT (Adv) and UPSC-CSE in terms of unpredictability.
In Advanced, some candidates are too sure of getting under 10 AIR and they get it. When I was in 12th, there used to be a prodigy kid in class 9th. That kid used to solve Irodov and JD Lee very easily. Yesterday I was reminiscing my school days, Googled his name and Whoa ! he did IIT-D (CS) and is now in London.
In CSE, the AIR-1 also wishes to "just get in the list".
Unrelated but there is a way to large difference between IIT (Adv) and UPSC-CSE in terms of unpredictability.
In Advanced, some candidates are too sure of getting under 10 AIR and they get it. When I was in 12th, there used to be a prodigy kid in class 9th. That kid used to solve Irodov and JD Lee very easily. Yesterday I was reminiscing my school days, Googled his name and Whoa ! he did IIT-D (CS) and is now in London.
In CSE, the AIR-1 also wishes to "just get in the list".
Yup. Even before exam people start predicting name of rank 1. After exam coaching centers informaly release possible rank 1.
Bt in civil services nothing is certain. So much of unpredictability is there. One performed well in optional bt that optional got butchered. Performed well in mains bt interviewer was sad as salt in samosa was more than usual......
First mains ,gave just iasbaba free mock a week before mains and few pyq on my ownIn the few mocks I wrote ,I was struggling to complete 17 questions (marks were around 80) due to time constraintsBut on the day of exam, I started attempting from 15 m and then 10m in GS ,in essay I just alloted 5 min for structure formationSurprisingly I completed all questions on time and had 9-10 minutes remaining during which I added any missing terms ,underlining double underlining heading and terms like it's done in schoolI'm sure that neither quality of answers nor handwriting did not go too bad,it was mostly relevant points and legible enoughThe person sitting next to me gave a weird look like how the heck you got time to underline stuff even in Ethics😬I know the marks cannot be predicted but I'm really afraid on finishing fast my papers although the average content and legible handwriting was there ,did anyone else experience similar surprising powers in exam hall ?
No offence bro, but even a prodigy in English language would have taken 5 min just to understand the questions in essay paper, i don't know how u have formed a structure in 5 minutes. Anyways u might be exceptional.
Height of Confidence
The 2012 Topper of IIT Jee was Arpit Aggarwal. He was from our school. 1 week prior to exam, he and the 2009 topper (Nitin Jain, he too was from our school) visited our classroom to give us some tips. I asked Arpit how come he is so sure of topping the exam. He smiled and said that no one else is scoring as much as me from the answer keys.
On the result date, he started to wait for the chairman's call and the call of congratulations did come in the early morning.
What if UPSC too declares Mains marks prior to interview...








