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.
@mahi2501 What I mean was that if someone is putting dedicated efforts, understanding the demand of the exam and not wasting time on reading irrelevant things for GS papers which are of little utility in the end (which we often do in initial attempts)... then there is a high chance (though obviously not certainly) that you will reach interview atleast once (unless they drastically reduce seats in next 2 years). But, this exam has so many flaws, that one can never ever be sure of getting a rank... Essay and Ethics alone are enough to prove how subjective and thus, uncertain this exam is... If you have science optional, then you have some amount of control in this process. But for humanities and language optional, you can see how much their marks vary in each subsequent attempts. And still after reaching interview, there is so much variables in interview, that you can either be IN or OUT.
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.
Agree with this! Especially the part in bold. This failure pushed me to a really dark place, and it’s slowly getting better now. The pain is easing up. At its worst, the pain was with respect to the futility of my efforts.
Not a single person can say that if you do x, y and z things, you will clear the examination. I believe it is true for each and every stage of the examination. There is randomness, subjectivity and more than a dollop of luck. This is a fact and anyone who denies this is lying to everyone else and probably even themselves.
However, I believe we give ourselves the best chance when we do not focus on these factors which are simply beyond our control. If we believe our efforts are futile in any case, we might stop honestly putting in the effort that we are capable of. On the other hand, if we believe that we will reap later the rewards of what we sow now, we might put our minds to the best possible use.
If I choose to give the exam again, I want to be at a place where I don’t get too emotionally invested in the outcome. Somewhere during mains preparation, I did become that way. I fell back into the trap of making my life all about the exam. It’s simply not ideal.
If I want an honest crack at the exam, I will owe the exam a lot. However, simply because I pay off that due, I cannot expect quid pro quo. This exam owes me nothing. If it owed me, it would have owed thousands of others as well. It’s simply not the nature of the beast.
@AzadHindFauz @Patootie and others who have qualified prelims a couple of times in the past few years, could you all please tell me about your prelims strategy. Although I did qualify prelims in 2020(1st attempt), I'd still want to work a little on my preparation/strategy.
thepolicydreamer,
@Neyawn I have been associated with this forum for long. I attach importance to your views. I am also an avid reader of your blog posts. I find many of your insights quite useful.I also marvel at the brilliance of many active forum members. As for my candidature, I have qualified mains twice. This year I skipped. I will be appearing for the 2021-2022 cycle. Here I present two cases for you to consider in an impassioned manner. The first case pertains to a candidate who is a Stephen's graduate, the economics topper of Delhi School of Economics. He also worked with RBI governor as a researcher. He has topped IES recently. But he has not qualified CSE mains even once in his 5 attempts. The second case pertains to a handicapped candidate who can neither make nor comprehend a complex English sentence. He wrote CSE in vernacular medium, and opted for vernacular literature. He emerged topper of CSE mains written. If knowledge, conceptual understanding and communication skill had been the sole strength to get through CSE, the former would have got an interview call at least and the latter would have found it difficult to qualify for interview, let alone securing the highest score.
Thank you so much for accepting it in the right spirit and having this debate.
Who should clear the exam?
Depends on who you are asking.
Ask the English Speaking convent educated , engineer or elite college kid, or a tech worker and he will say it is the english-speaking-convent-educated-engineer-or-top-college guy-or-a-tech-worker who will / ( and should get a top rank ).
Or ask the not-so-smart-cant-speak-fluent-english person from rural Andhra who should top the exam,he will say that it is people like them, who know the ground reality, who have lived in villages and who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth , that should top the exam.
The truth is, both of them can top this exam.
Look, I first had change of view / opinion about this exam, when some close friends asked me to take a session on Interview prep and why some people were getting less marks.
I had given some of them my Philosophy notes and I asked them if they will attend if I speak. They said yes, so there were a lot of friends, and people who knew me from the forum.
Until that day, I always believed. and had opinions about "the kind of people who should clear the exam".
It was a great meet, because I think from a single audience of 60-70 people - all from the forum, we were having all massive failures - all the people who had screwed up their interview – we would more than 20 people in Top 100 ranks – partially because that kind of crowd was attracted to such talks.
There was one kid - tall and handsome - like 6 feet tall, who very well looked like he would make a good cop said - Sir , I am already in IPS but i dont like uniformed services as I dont have that kind of personality, so I am filling IRS this year after IAS, what should I say if the board asks why you are leaving IPS for IRS.
We all laughed, because he was the most unlikely person to ask that question.
And then there was her
A lady with a kid. In a classroom of bachelours ( mostly ). She raised her hand and asked a question - Sir I have filled IRS after IAS. Sir, how can we ladies run like men and train like men. 'Woh Sab Naukri Gents log ke liye hi theek hai, Hum Ladies log ke liye to IAS - IRS hi theek hai.
The ways she said it, with innocence the class laughed. Partly because young engineers who speak good english always think that young engineers with good English would and should make best ias officers and should be the topper. Where is the space for ladies who cant run or jog?
I could see that she took a bike to reach HUDA Metro, then took the blue line and came to Karol Bagh.
I didnt see her for a year, until the next year, I was forming groups for HR state people. One of the people from HR , already in Allied service, i lined up with her.
Unfortunately, The group broke and few days later she said - Sir I found another girl from HR. She is also married candidate and profile is like me. Her name is Anu. We are preparing pretty well together.
The rest is history.
I can tell you that there was a certain spark to her, which was unmistakeable. It was impossible to NOT see and appreciate that spark.
This year I met someone smart again.
In fact, this year there was one kid, a super smart one, whom when I asked have you spoken to a mentor, his exact lines were - no I think I am yet to implement what the evaluator has asked me to.
I was a little surprised because most people generally complain that they are unable to interpret what the evaluator expects of them.
When he got Rank 21, I shared his story on my FB. And tagged two smart forum members ( crazyphoton and kabira ) , because I felt that this kid was kinda ahead of the curve - by which I mean he is sharp and smart and which may be compensated for by lack of social skills ( almost all of us wil have some weaknesses and strengths ) .
I posted this on FB
You can see other people comment.
I was a little concerned that he would be trolled on the Internet because of making the exam look very effortless, but the point is that he did say that he had never worked so hard in his life, not for other entrance exams, not for JEE.
He was also a little grateful.
I did watch his video a couple of times.
Now I am a person always looking for answers. Like who will make it ( in life ) and who wont and why? Is coaching necessary and for whom? What does it take to crack IAS in one go? What are the things coachings do wrong? How can they be made right?
What are the *final* answers to such questions?
So when I watched his video a few times, I wasn’t satisfied, and I pinged another student of mine, who had like slogged for a year “like a donkey” in his / her words before she got rank in 30s.
I asked her this question. - You slogged for like a year making your whole prep coaching centred, using coaching material like crazy and what not. He has done without much coaching ( apart from MGP )
She said something that added a very new perspective to my thoughts. She said.
They say - Sir, I think *everyone* does at least this much. This is bare minimum.
And I would reply - "No, Mr X. Hearing that you did "nothing" for essay at least a few thousand people will actually do nothing.And for you nothing means 6-8 tests + 70 pages of thematic notes + quotations + anecdotes but for some people nothing actually means nothing."
Look, we all want our clones to clear the exam. Some of us may have ideological frustrations with the overall selection criteria of the commission that some of us might even quit writing the exam, and thats an individual choice, but in no way can we say that it is the right thing or the only thing.
In my previous post, I have said about two people whom at some point I said - why waste youth and parents money, you see how one of them after clearing the exam texted back - You never thought I could clear the exam ( I didnt , I knew he / she would eventually crack ! )
We are not the ones given to decide who should be selected and who should not be selected. The only things we have in our hands are what we can do with the time that is given to us.
We have no rights and the world is not designed to give us what we want. Nor is the world designed to appeal to our rationality. You could be a global leader in Human Rights and democracy and your whole population one day would end up voting for trump who would lay seize to Capitol Hill and wipe out hundreds of years of democrartic and liberal credentials you have built and championed. The world isnt designed to be fair.
And if you want something that badly, you will have to up your risks and go for it even if there are chances of failure.
There is absolutely nothing in this world that does not come with risks. At least nothing worth having.
And for those of you expecting lot of fairness, i would urge you to read this kick - arse article by Oliver Emberton.
I am no knight. Do not call me Sir|Philosophy behind ForumIAS
I am no knight. Do not call me Sir|Philosophy behind ForumIAS
^^ The Whole post above is messed up with HTML formatting. Working on it, will take time.
@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!
Okay
Yaar mai toh bs ek baat janta hu ki jitni seats hai utno ka hi hona hai chahe sb mains likhne walon ki answer copy me same level ka presentation, facts, bol bachan ho..Subjective exams me aisa hi hota hai..I gave 12th board exams twice to improve my score..Phli baar me english me 73 mila..Next time diya toh 89 mila..Aisa thodi hai ki maine ek saal me english me koi jaadu kr diya tha..jo hai so hai ab..isi tarah se exam har saal ho rha hai aur log select ho rhe hain..facts to yaad krne hi hote hain bhaiya..sb conceptual nhi ho skta..aur concept pakadne ke liye bhi facts/rote learning ek level par krni hi padti hai..Mai to iss exam ko itna serious kabhi liya hi nhi ki nhi hoga toh kya krunga..I love to read various subjects so I give this exam and not the vice versa..Hua to theek aur nhi hua toh bhi theek:)
I found a strange thing in interview qualified kids-out of 1st 11 in a row,it has selected 5 guys including 3 girls with xcellent handwriting even though 1 got essay copy snatched half written.Next 31 guys rejected ,i calculated 24 guys in a class ,so it means randomly rejecting whole class?or s it just coincidence??
I am no knight. Do not call me Sir|Philosophy behind ForumIAS
sonder,Gloria Steinem
shubham4_m7770,
While at this stage most of us (including a few toppers) agree that some element of luck is involved in the process, it is weird how this is junked altogether by some. For 300 odd vacancies thousands are competing. It's too naive to say do smart work along with hardwork and you are good to go. This does maximum harm to the newbies who think work is sufficient and that is all they need.
We chose this process for ourself so it's only wise to not expect fruits of our labor and not get emotionally attached. But I really wish people start accepting that along with all the hard work that they did, they got through because they were lucky. It will save so many newbies from living in a fantasy world.
It was my last attempt an yud I failed. I have pushed down all that pain and not felt it. I am high and it is leaking a bit through my face. I don't know what do now. I have now where to go. I need a dream and I have none.
I don't wanna go in detail but I've lost everything during this journey. I have no where to shout except here.
@carborator Sure
It was my last attempt an yud I failed. I have pushed down all that pain and not felt it. I am high and it is leaking a bit through my face. I don't know what do now. I have now where to go. I need a dream and I have none.
I don't wanna go in detail but I've lost everything during this journey. I have no where to shout except here.
You need to take a break. Inbox me.
I am no knight. Do not call me Sir|Philosophy behind ForumIAS
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