Civil Services Mains 2020 Results: In or Out ? Way ahead, gratitude and Pain
The Civils Mains result has been declared. This thread is for sharing your grief , joy , mixed feelings - absolutely anything and everything.
» show previous quotes» show previous quotes» hide previous quotesNot being dismissive and pessimistic, but all these strategy wala post irks me after 4 failed attempts.
I never believed that mains is unpredictable, but this time, even after doing so much, i failed again.
Maybe my optional was the culprit. But having an optional is itself inviting unpredictability in the exam.
I sometime feel that all the effort ib have put into this exam isn't worth it.
To be honest this exam is ruining lives of young generation in India, who fall into trap of toppers and coaching wallas selling the idea that hard work surely pays off.
Yes it does pay off, but the risk to reward is very high in favour of risk.
I would only say that the decision to prepare wholeheartedly for this exam should be based on a rational analysis of risk and reward and never fall in the trap of - If I hard work more, I will surely crack it next time
This exam doest want individuals who are creative and innovative. It wants those who could rote learn, write fast, and have good writing skills.
Sorry to be pessimistic again.
You are not pessimistic,you are pragmatic.
Those who can rote-learn loads of facts-both relevant and irrelevant- and vomit in an eye-catching manner come across as good performers to the evaluators,who are accountable for nothing,to none.
Writing skill means not linguistic proficiency.Many recommended people are noticeably bad in this regard.
I laugh at those who waste time,energy and money on so-called test series,conducted by under-qualified naive people.
This response is not directed to any of you per se, but I have quoted your comments to set the context. It is primarily to provide a counter to the thought process that some you have put forth above. This is going to be a long one, but bear with me.
First thing is that when we are unable to clear the Mains or the Prelims ( or the Interview ), we have two ways of thinking
One, is that it is unpredictable ( and nothing can be done about it )
Two, there is something that I am not able to figure out or crack. Its simply not occuring to me.
If you think from the first perspective, we can not have an action plan. And practically, we can go ahead and pay Russian roulette with the expectation that out of several attempts, we will be able to crack in one of the attempts. And exhaust our attempts.
Also, that, we need to make no major changes, do nothing and go on and on.
If you think about the second option, you have a massive task of figuring out what is not working, what you have not understood and what others are doing right. That will require looking outside to real people ( not toppers from internet - but meeting the same folks in person - and this year as the results will come, i am very sure that may people from this community will clear and you can ping them and actually meet them . I can help with this if some of you want it )
But the major point is that we need to believe that something is being missed by me - its simply not occurring to me - and I need to find that out. And the best people to guide you are the ones who have just cleared the exam. Meet several of them, and find out what is commonly held by them, and derive your conclusions from there.
Not on anecdotal evidence.
Also, do not go by exceptions. Or the path of minimum effort. Something like - "I only studied 15 days, and did not write any tests and still I got through / go interview call".
People got through / got interview callnot becausethey only studied 15 days or didn't write any tests , butdespitestudying 15 days ORdespitenot writing any tests. That is a big difference.
It is true that the exam has high-risk reward - which is true with anything where the rewards are high. The prestige ( I am not even going to say perks, power ( which I dont think exists much anymore ), privilege, public interaction ) are insanely high - and I will not go into whether it is right or not, and why it is there in the first place. )
But risks are high not because of the effort needed. The risks are high because this is a post graduate level examination. Which means two things.
(1) Candidates are of a certain age where very soon there will be earning pressure / marriage pressure from parents / society - exceptions are always there.
(2) Candidates are already financially exhausted given that the education budget of the family is already spent in 12th coaching / graduation/ college. Hence, we have the minimum financial resources left at this stage of the exam.
(3) The seats are so less, and that getting a lower score ( such as clearing the Mains or the Interview ) is not a ticket to lesser jobs / PSUs ( unlike CAT or JEE where you can get something even if you dont top )
We do not say IIT is unpredictable because of the science-maths and humanities dichotomy ( Humanities will always have subjectivity )
If we are stuck at some stage, please note that we have to find out what is missing.
I will tell you in Civil Services, how teachers get stuck. And that is, when their notes produces some good ranks, then they dont update notes and now the notes are common, and upsc does not award marks for those notes any longer. So teachers after a few years become unpopular, unless they changes his notes.
The same happens to students also.
Consider this that between 2002-2008 almost every IAS officer you meet will say , to crack IAS, just take psychology optional and join a certain Pathak Sir.
It is not a myth.
It is a reality.
And between 2007-2012 every IAS topper will say take Pub Ad with some Mohanty Sir .
When after some years the notes are not updated ( as we are facing with Value added material of some major coachings ), we see that we stop getting marks.
This is a very harsh reality.
So if you know some senior who has 3 interview calls or 4 mains and is not making it and is stuck, a good way to break the ranks is to entirely change the base material.
Of course the senior will be comfortable with the notes as he knows that those notes at least guarantee an interview call and will be reluctant to change it, just like teachers are reluctant to change their notes because they think it is the pinnacle of all wisdom that can ever exist in the subject.
But one thing is for sure - If we have to clear this exam, we will have to accept what "is" and go ahead with it rather than try to create what "should be". Our preparation always has to align is what is, instead of what "should be" as far as exam preparation is concerned.
I will share with you something.
In the past 8 years, there have been exactly twopeoplewhom I have consciously tried to discourage from writing the exam - on grounds that they are wasting their youth and parents money. I wanted them to help me with something.
My point was that one of them had a very slow handwriting and I knew that with slow handwriting there is a glass ceiling. The other had the habit of reading things back to back, end to end without thinking in terms of "ispe question aayega toh kya likhenge" .
One of them told me point blank that "parents ne paida kiya toh kharcha toh bharenge, aur jab budhdhe ho jayenge toh hum unka bojh uthayenge ) . The other one kept quiet and doubled his / her effort.
I never discussed this with them any further, but somehow, at least one of them took it as some challenge( which was not my intention at all ) and both these people somehow cracked the exam. After cracking one of them sent me a message - You never thought I would crack the exam. They were friends. Close ones.
I can tell you that people who have pulled themselves out have accepted that something is amiss and have looked for it somehow, found it and worked on it.
Success always looks effortless and easy once it is done, but a lot of effort goes into making things look effortless.
I will give you two case studies. Take a look at this.
He scored a single digit rank.
A very common ( or common sensical ) thinking will be that he was genius and he did "nothing" - no class - no test series - and yet he got single digit rank.
When you will look from far, you will think "O he is a topper, and he is paid by coaching and what not", but the point is that you gotta meet people and see the amount of effort they are putting. It is intimidating even for me, though I see people slog day in and day out.
I can tell you that he had the choice of accepting his fate of not being able to score beyond a point and accept a certain service, ( and frankly if you ask me, I do not like the idea of leaving a comfortable service and rank and getting into the grind of rajinder nagar and ruining one's life for like six months )
He did not settle for his comfort zone, and I hate these guts, because frankly I dont have these guts.
He took classes, did test series and what not. He slogged like a beginner,and I think you should know these stories too.
Also, averagely, we cannot think beyond what we have seen or sometimes beyond our capacities.
Some of you have mentioned that you would laugh at those who do test series. If we are looking for any improvements, we have to see what is the person doing.
I am not a great advocate of doing mindless test series, but let me tell you that out of Top 10 ranks, nearly 4 do a test series like an insane person, another 3 join a test series, but do not put so much effort, and may wrote 5-6 tests and the remaining 2-3 may not join a test series.
You are practically laughing at all the people putting the effort.
Also, Let us say a student has written 8 Tests between Prelims and Mains with above average dedication. Do you know what that means.
First it means that he has done at least 24 hours of answer writing, which is when he would have fixed his speed, question handling issues.
Secondly, if he is a little sincere, he would hae studies at least 15-18 hours before every test. This means that he has done verified studied for least 120 hours - which also means that some changes would already occur in his personality as well as his preparedness, compared to someone who is waiting for prelims result.
And these are not people who are ignorant, lack exposure and are under misguidance. They are the ones who have friends and family in service, completely focussed, and they know what they are doing.
They are not doing some class or test series because they saw an AD. They did their due diligence, asked around and took decisions and held themselves accountable for those decisions.
I can tell you in my personal capacity I have met some people, whom I thought will never never never make it, and felt like telling them and yet some of them have gotten proper IAS and home cadre. To the point that I have stopped making an early assessment of anyone.
And there are at least a hundred people right on this forum ( and old discuss ) who slogged to a level ( which I personally think is not worth it - unless you want something that badly )
Toppers Taking Money and Saying they did answer writing from Day 1
So a famous educator had put a video saying that toppers take money and say that they did answer writing from day 1.
I will also like to throw some light on this phenomena here.
First is that, there is a myth that toppers of IAS exam get paid a lot by coaching institutes. This is a very clerical level thinking , very pedestrian and very low level thinking.
It is the same thinking that some people have when they pay a 100 rupee bribe to a constable and think that Delhi police commissioner gets a cut. And if a traffic constable by bribes earn 30,000 ( for the sake of example ) , then Delhi CP would be making x,y, crores.
This is a very simplistic thinking, but very popular because it appeals to the common man. Its easy, does not require any deeper digging .
I happened to be friends with a school and college juinor whose father was the then CBI director. There is this common thinking that CBI Chief would be such and such person, but he was very regular person and very honest. ( His father went on to be a Governor )
Also, a clerk level thinking is that a CBI director would make lot of money ( because constables / inspectors / SHOs make money ) , but the truth is far from it. Just because a CBI inspector may take bribe does not mean the DCBI would end up getting a "cut". People don't do that. He had a simple, but elegant house in a very posh area - govt accomodation that comes with the job.
Remember that the world is not as motivated by profit or money as it is by ideology or thinking. I can tell you the audience here that not a single coaching among the top 3-5 coachings would ever pay money to a topper to say something.
Toppers are like you, and even if right now you think, that for money you will do something like this, trust me you wont do it when the time comes. At best you may work at coachings and you may get paid for it. But that has been happening since ages!
And people dont take money / or gifts to promote someone. At best, if they get a gift, they may be asked by a smaller coaching usually not to take the name of any coaching which they had actually taken up.
Also when inthis video,the popular idea that is floated is that Toppers take money to say they did answer writing from Day 1, trust me there is no truth at all in it.
But you will have to dig deeper.
Let us wind the clock a decade back.
Since 2011, the Commission started reforms. There were huge protests for CSAT when it was introduced all of a sudden in 2011.
Then 2013 changes came is GS paper and now we had 4 papers instead of two.
Limites space writing and all that.
There was huge uproar. The govt then was a lot more democratic and actually gave platforms to students to raise their voices.
The UPSC was under tremendous pressure and the papers that came were on the easier side.
If you see 2012 -2016 papers, the questions were fairly straightforward and were actually asked from the mains news that were doing the rounds!
That was also the time when several dotcom websites came up with answer writing initiatives to cater to the directly asked questions.
Papers were current oriented and hence no foundation was needed so much. You could actually do answer writing on the internet and expect a lot of questions to come from there!
And they did!
It was because of this reasons that answer writing became a rage - it was no propaganda by websites or coachings or toppers. People actually did that.
And when paper turned to more analytical, or foundation level things - people who had spent doing coaching benefitted more.
Which is why you will find that toppers from that era vouch for current affairs like anything. They were not paid to promote answer writing.
They did answer writing.
In fact, everyone did!
And it helped too.
However, ideas such as floated above, are easy to understand, make immediate sense. Imagining the world to be a thief , scheming liars makes our life's woes easier to understand.
My point of writing all this at 12:45AM is because I believe that this forum is ( and can be ) a small community ofmainstreamaspirants who write the prelims, mains, interview and have the right perception of the exam, as opposed to the youtube crowd which has a completely different thinking about the exam.
We are a more aware crowd here, and some of us actually clear prelims, some of us actually clear mains, some of us actually clear in the final list. We are not an ignorant community. The world is a rational place.
Look , we all think while preparing that we are "the" ias aspirants ( and ias aspirants are like us ). But the pool of aspirants as well as people who clear the exam is very vast very varied. The exam caters to all.
It is not the best exam. It is not even an ideal one. But this is what we have.
And it is natural to be pessimistic on days when it is not our day.
I apologise in advance to people who may be offended by my post, but please be assured that it is not my intention to offend anyone. The only purpose is to not end up with nihilism - nothing exists, nothing is true, and nothing can be done.
I couldn't agree more.
A concerted approach is all that is needed to qualify this exam.Luck might play a bit of role, but the dominant role is that of hard work. I wrote my first mains last year. People asked me about my performance. I told them I wouldn't qualify. I was pathetic in terms of preparation and that's why, I picked my optional a week after mains got over! I didn't wait for results, because I knew I was not in the competition.
So, I slogged hard for 4 months- October to January. I did nothing, but optional. The 2019 optional paper had me feeling ashamed of myself.
After 2020, the same people asked me about my performance and I said I was hopeful. The result was favourable. Had I failed this time too, I might have developed negative outlook about the exam.
The point being our understanding of the exam is contingent upon our performance at different stages.
Ask a guy who clears prelims every year and is not able to clear mains. He would say prelims is all about knowledge and sound application of logic. Ask someone who's failing prelims, he would say it's indeed a Russian Roulette! Ask someone who has cleared all the stages of the exam, he would say it's not random. That's why, many successful candidates go for rank improvement and appear again.
This is one of the many peculiar things associated with CSE- the varied understanding of this exam. With this post, I do not intend to refute the hard work of those who have failed. I too failed once. I have been there, but I never associated 'randomness' and blamed my failure on luck and chance.
I'll be appearing for interview. I do not know whether I will succeed or not. If I have done all things right, I might. If there's scope for improvement, I might not. I'll take the exam again. Interview might be a stage where there is a certain degree of randomness, but let us not downplay the entire process. Let's not equate a smart strategy with an interplay of rote learning and a play of words. This exam deserves much more respect. It does not make us a lesser being if we introspect and understand the lacunae in ourselves.
@AzadHindFauz All the very best for your Interview! I wonder if this is so linear that as one goes to next cycle with improved preperation, better results could be achieved, then how come they fail even in the stages which they had qualified in previous attempts? I knew many and I am sure you too, the people who qualify and got a rank fail to qualify it in the next attempt. Few fail at prelims stage, few at Mains and few at interview. I fail to comprehend the linearity. Though I am hopeful as theoretically better preperation should yield better results:)
In my understanding, the exam requires proportionate effort every year. I've interacted with more than 20 people who have cleared this exam. This is what I've gathered from my interaction. The dominant reason why some successful people fail at various stages of the exam is following:
- Inability to put in the required hours in subsequent attempts: Those who fail prelims have told they were not able to do the requisite revision within the small time between the publication of result and subsequent prelims. This scares me the most. If I do not clear (God forbid), I would only have, at best, 20 days for prelims. If you compare this timeline with last year's when I had more than 4 months, it's nothing! I wouldn't be confident as I was last year. Last year, I was hopeful. This year, I do not know. One cycle has gone-by and we're back to square one.
- Failure to upgrade notes: Some have told they did not/could not upgrade notes. This is the direct corollary of the first point- lack of time. In the first instance, if they clear prelims, they are unable to cope up with the dynamic aspects of mains i.e. Current Affairs, Optional. They re-attempt with the same base material and now they compete with a totally new set of people who have been preparing wholeheartedly and have done everything that is required to do in that attempt.
Moreover, they have also highlighted the role of complacency. People who succeed at various stages tend to be complacent in subsequent cycles.
Why are we questioning the process, nature of the exam now? When we signed up for this, we knew what we were getting into. It's a hard fact that the exam will attest only 800 people every year. We should try as hard as we can to be one of them. I cannot say for anyone else, but I can tell from my experience only. When I put in decent effort, I was rewarded. When I didn't, this exam slapped me hard and asked me to revisit my strategy.
All I ask people is to live with a sense of optimism. Randomness is there, yes. However, if we keep on making incremental improvements, we can reduce the element of randomness to a great extent.
One friend has quoted me out of context in the above comment. I still stand by words I spoke last year. First, the image aptly testifies how our understanding of the exam is contingent upon our own performance in it. Something I highlighted earlier. I failed and branded it as a luck event. However, I was far more determined to eliminate the play of luck through more work.
Secondly, those who were on forum last year know Bevancom. He didn't know the fine line between confidence and over-confidence. I called him out- his rigidity and neglect to accept diverse views. He was someone who believed that X amount of hardwork guarantees Y amount of success. It could have been true had there been a yardstick to quantify hard work. Whose hard work is better? Yours or Mine or someone else's? We cannot be sure about these things.
This reminds me of yet another aspect- being mechanical about the whole idea of preparation is absolutely futile. X number of prelims mock tests do not guarantee success. Y amount of hours everyday does not guarantee final selection. When we take such a mechanistic view of our preparation, we end up being depressed and pessimistic about the entire process.
It's always the qualitative work that decides where we stand in the crowd. Wouldn't qualitative work be rewarded? Think.
PS: I do not intend to hurt anyone. I apologize in advance if my words have caused hurt. I just wanted to call a spade what it is!
Friends,
I have read many of the comments written above. Different people have different views of the exam pattern and its difficulty etc. But one thing which is common is that the exam definitely tests one's patience and perseverance. One has to always keep in mind that the competition for such coveted posts is very high and failure at any point leads one back to square one. So it is always advisable to have one backup in hand while preparing for the exam and keep the spirits and motivation level high.
As far as exam preparation is concerned then it is important as@AzadHindFauz has done in his preparation that one has to make the answer pitch perfect by integrating the conventional information with current affairs. Therefore the notes has to be prepared accordingly.
Also never bow down to the Failure. There is no concept of failure actually. If you donot pass in this exam then destiny may have something more exciting in store for you. Therefore one has to do his Karma and leave the fruits to the almighty.
Thanks
Himanshu
And again, I am not saying this because i failed. In fact I told many a friends of mine that if I clear mains and appear for interview, I would surely point out the flawed nature of the exam to the panel.
I saw many copies of toppers from 2018 2019. Yes, some copies are good and way beyond average..
But majority of those who clear, write on a level similar to thousand others in the competition. But it's these toppers who clear, and not the other thousands.
There is way too much variable in this exam.
1)Your writing speed needs to be fast. That itself cost me 2 attempt.
2)You will be evaluated based on optionals, which doesn't bring parity.
3)huge subjectivity in Evaluation of essay and ethics.
I have no qualms in people clearing this exam. But when people say that you didn't cleared Becuase of your own flaw, I feel that either they were lucky to be in the list, or they don't want to sound like other failed aspirants.
But, if we, as a aspirant, starts to believe that this exam is all about luck, then we will be frustrated daily about this randomness and will never be able to prepare diligently. I wasted my 2019 attempt in this frustration and negative outlook and solving random mocks and then more frustration and I failed by a huge margin in prelims. Thanks to Patootie comments on forum, I atleast was not frustated this time. I gave only 4-5 mocks (because 'I' believe they divert you attention to not so important portion of the syllabus) and was not able to revise some portion of Polity and History, and also messed up in the last month, but still I had positive outlook this time. Although I scored only around 102-105 but I will say it was the revision which I neglected in last month, which costed me dearly in prelims. I made around 7 questions wrong which I had studied and are easily given in multiple standard sources, but didn't revise those things in the last month. We have to look what we are doing wrong and amending it, rather than blindly copying some topper's strategy. There is a good amount of chance that we may still not be successful at Prelims or Mains, but atleast we will be satisfied with our efforts. I also believe Prelims is highly random in last 2 years, but UPSC is not going to change pattern in foreseeable future, and we just have to play in this brutal game, but it is 'us' who are choosing to give this exam, so we have to accept its consequences also.
The crux is, new aspirant shouldn't focus too much on that 'luck' factor, it will deter your meticulous preparation in initial phases. That initial phase of preparation is highly crucial, as it is the time when your enthusiasm is very high and it is which builds your base later on and allows you to make amends as and when required.If you have decided to give this exam, accept the uncertainty and give your best. You can also have some backup in mind after a certain threshold to be pragmatic in this preparation. You can speculate on that 'luck', 'randomness' etc when you are out of this process, but if you are still 'in' the process, it will do nothing good but will definitely affect your preparation in a negative way.
@Neyawn @AzadHindFauz @mahi2501 How to prepare ARC summary.. GS score arc summary of all 17reports comes out to be heavy dose for revision. How did you use ARC ?
@Neyawn @AzadHindFauz @mahi2501 How to prepare ARC summary.. GS score arc summary of all 17reports comes out to be heavy dose for revision. How did you use ARC ?
I tried to integrate ARC summary with the topics. Didn't do it as separate exercise from any compilation. It is indeed difficult to read and retain the entire summary. We must ask ourselves where would the ARC comments fit in our answers. I used ARC where I didn't have a better option to conclude my answers. So, I didn't read them all. I cherry picked around 8-10 points.In my understanding, liberal usage of ARC across all questions gives a sort of mechanical tinge to our answers. (Feel free to differ). Answers that appear organic gives us an edge over our peers.
@AzadHindFauz Now I have genuine doubts over my preperation! Does a guy who only read Vision Monthly without any inclusion of other sources including newspapers, not stand any chance as far as Mains is concerned? Btw, I failed this Mains and have no corpus of notes, mind maps, committees, indices etc while going to next cycle.
I believewhat you present in the paper determines your level of preparation. We read so many things, but what is more important is to reproduce them within 7-8 minutes. Fancy things like mind maps, committees, indices etc. cannot be written in every question for the reason that it becomes almost impossible to retain such things across so many subjects.
However, in my understanding, some of these fancy items can definitely be used in areas where one is sure of getting a question. For example:
- Federalism, Local governance, Electoral reforms in GS2
- Renewable energy, water crisis, cyber security etc. in GS3
- Case studies on Civil servants under political pressure, choosing duty over empathy etc. =>You can prepare examples, constitutional articles like 311 etc.
If one identifies some recurrent themes and do them selectively,I believethey would benefit from the spillover effect of writing above average answers in 5-10 questions in other average answers.
PS- Words inBoldto emphasise what is my understanding. I'm not highlighting this as an ideal approach.
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