1st post. Silent spectator untill now.
Personal Profile:
2nd Attempt, 1st Mains. Not Selected
Job Ex 2.5 years (left in dec 2018)
Exam Overview:
Essay moderate to Difficult
GS 1 moderate
GS 2 moderate
GS 3 Easy
GS 4 Difficult due to Case studies
Optional (Sociology)
1st one Easy, 2nd one Difficult
Exam Experience:
Attempted all Questionsin each paper
Used flowcharts, diagrams and spider format in most questions.
Used SC judgements, Commitees/Commissions, Articles, Data, SDGs in almost every question especially GS2&GS3.
Optional was also well managed (some apprehension about paper 2 but used sociological terminologies extensively)
Did daily answer writing of PYQs (2017-19) without fail along with comparison of model answers.
Wrote 12 GS FLTs and 6 Optional Tests b/w pre & mains, analysed toppers copy also.
Before pre already wrote 12 GS & 8 Optional Tests (total 24 GS+ 14 optional) and had all my notes ready (1 pagers/crisp) for each topic of syllabus before pre itself.
Feedback for tests mostly good w.r.t content, context (especially) & presentation.
Basically ticked all checkboxes as most toppers says, literally.
Thought I would at least get interview call, though secretly thinking my marks will be in 850s +/- 20
Now back to Zero. Feeling disgusted and humbled at same time.
However, we must 1st accept the idea there would be some scope of improvement, otherwise for next mains no motivation for self improvisation.I learned
-we should not oversimplify inherently complex things (like calculating marks above).
-Smartwork NOT equal to Shortcuts.
-Complacency at any stage will kill your chances.
(If i compare my prelims hardwork vs mains, the ratio would stand 2:1)
-Never showoff your gyan untill final selection.
-Own your mistakes, rest assure there will be. Right now i am not good enough, not yet.
- Time to focus on Prelims and only when marks come, will improvise on my shortcomings. (May include some overlaping aspects of gs mains but not beyond april)
After looking many posts here, I feel i am not alone who is feeling the same way. Let's get rid of this worst hangover of lifetime and start afresh with new perspective. The caveat here is after this upcoming 3rd attempt, will take up job and prepare side by side as most things are done and incremental efforts are less.
