Civil Services Mains 2020 Results: In or Out ? Way ahead, gratitude and Pain

Focus on CA only to an extent. Static is the key, not current. 

If you have not read monthlies, Doing PT thoroughly will be more than enough. As someone said above, you do not have to get all correct, just 55-60 odd ques.

So, ratta-fy your PT's and focus all your energy on Static.

You will also be solving a Test Series, there also you'll find some CA questions. 

So, do not fret over it! :)

Thanks a ton 😊😊

👍🏻👍🏻😊

@sjerngal,@kasanasandy007133 ,@whatonly , thanks for the kind words guys :) 

Absolutely tragic, he was just 19. I did google a bit more and I’ve discovered that helium cylinder accidents are very frequent and most, if not all, linked to balloon filling ones. Might be a quick way to earn some money but very unsafe since rough handling can lead to such incidents. 

@whatonly , I haven’t gone back yet since there’s since last night a very large police presence. They’re still trying to find something. Will try to get some info. I think there’s going to be a case against the residents for violation of COVID rules because they were organising a party. 

In all, please avoid helium balloons for any celebrations. One obvious reason is that the handlers don’t always care about safety and such incidents are quite frequent. Other is helium is anyway a completely non-renewable resource.

i wrote 3 vision mocks and did not get more than 10 marks in any case study . Marks hover between 8-10. 

Hi Forum peeps, I have a genuine concern regarding some reading and revision habits. So, I am in a difficult situation with regards to my reading habits. 

Today while revising something from mrunal, I got to know that I really don't remember things rather I have a pictorial memory by which I mean, if you ask me what is sharam yogi mandhan yojana, I won't remember what it is at first instance, rather would have a pictorial image of where I have read it and then would remember, which sometimes gets difficult when you don't have a clear image. 

I wanted to know, it is only me or others are also suffering from this. And how do we chnage this?

Happens with everyone.

There are 2 strategies to get over this:

1. Limit your sources and do repeated revisions
2. Internalise the information. For ex, if someone asks you when was Gandhiji born? No image will pop up in your mind and still you will be able to spill out the answer. This is because this information has been internalised. This strategy usually involves extensive reading, instead of limiting the sources

I think this is how the mind works. We remember information by linking it to something we already know. As we learn more and more new neural connections build in our mind. Since with repeated readings you have gotten familiar with sources like Mrunal and all, you have linked information with those sources. This is where knowing the syllabus by heart is useful. For example, while reading Shram Yogi Mandhan don't associated it with Mrunal or some other source, rather link it to "Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections" under GS2. Syllabus can serve as our "tree of knowledge" with different topics as the branches. Then we can link new information to these branches. This can also help in one additional way. While trying to retrieve this particular scheme from memory,  say while writing a mains answers, related material which you have also linked to the same branch, may also pop up in your mind and give you more things to write.   

@RonWeasley Limiting sources work for me. Neither have time , nor I think its beneficial for me to do extensive reading. 

@sbhati That's a gem of an advice. I should stop this mindless reading of same text and maybe start internalising by the way of linking as already rattafication has been done to a good extent. I feel this issue only with the GS subjects and not with optional, maybe because in optional I have given more emphasis on understanding than rattafication. 

Thank you .

That is probably because generally optional study is more structured. Its easy to internalise the "logical tree" of the subject in mind. With GS, we study so many unrelated things from so many sources. Therefore that structure has to be superimposed by us. Syllabus offers a good starting point for building such a structure. But at some places you may also go beyond that. For example, in history, if you keep the big picture and the timelines in mid, it becomes easier to remember minutes details by linking them to the big picture.  

Yeah. The more revision I do, the more clearer the picture is however I am afraid that it would be a problem during mains. In prelims we have options in front of us , we can use that and our pictorial memory to deduct options(only if the image gets more clearer) , but when you need some value addition points in mains, it might pose a problem. Solution provided by the other member, is really a fine thing to do. Would be trying that. And an additional benefit would be I can appear learned person in front of people, because now if someone asks me something it takes whole lot of time for me to reach that page. Pheww! 

B/w , my notes are all black, red and blue , no space for any other colour. I fear after some time words will disappear and only black, blue and red would remain. 

Yeah. And GS is too much to remember and all scattered. 

I am going with a little twisted approach, I am not linking the things I read with syllabus but with some solutions to mains questions , if ever they are framed on this issue, because I don't and can't remember syllabus like that. 

So right now, I have got some solution, reading it again to built pictorial memory and then also linking it to the solutions.