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Do you want prelims to be postponed? Complete this tiny survey to vote yes or no.

Here is alittle surveyregarding the big question that has kept all the aspirants worried.
Do you want the Prelims to be postponed? Yes or No? And Why?

Just out of complete curiosity.

Prelims Survey


jack_Sparrow,Neyawnand5 otherslike this
19.1k views

27 comments

@forumiasacademy @Neyawn  In case we get an official notification regarding postponement of Prelims, are you planning to start SFG like programs for Optional? It can consist of daily target completion and timed answer writing(to be uploaded during a given time slot) that can be uploaded on the platform followed by test discussions and preview of best answers. 
I don't know whether you already have such courses or not but it would certainly help students in time bound completion of syllabus.

What Optionals Support are you looking for? Currently we have History / Anthropology and Sociology. Do consider the fact that SFG works because of competition. 

People get their scores. We have been thinking on the lines of SFG but there are three issues.

  1. Post Prelims, people have plenty of things to do - GS, Ethics, Essay and Optional. Classes and / or Test Series. SFG type programs require single minded focus. This is difficult to achieve post prelims. ( Please observe that a LOT of people from SFG are already complaining that you can only do SFG while you do SFG. That is what we want. When you do Polity, you do polity well. But people tend to want to do everything . And thats why things fail )
  2. Quick Evaluation is key to SFG. With copy evaluation for Mains Type Papers , there is "human involvement", raising the cost of the program. Also since humans are involved, the speed o coming out with copies will be slow.
  3. 7AM Discipline. We banked on it for SFG because in Feb you should be doing ONLY one thing - Prelims. But after pre, a lot of people would say ) I have to do GS, CA, Ethics, Essay and I stay awake till late night. I have x,y,z classes. So we cant get people to turn up at 7AM

Having said this, we are open to Innovations and Suggestions.

I was looking for help in Anthropology optional. Regarding the challenges mentioned

1. I guess the time is most opportune for such a program given that we are in the times of uncertainty. This period of limbo could be pretty well utilized for optional preparation. Being a SFG student i can say with confidence that i barely lost a day or two in past 1 month, all credits to SFG. So the month of May can be pretty much utilized for such a program with a single minded focus on our optional. (Considering the prelims dates wont be announced till the pandemic is under control which is far from being near.)

2. Regarding evaluation of copies:Conducting 1.5 hrs test for three/four days a weekwould reduce the work load. And economies of scale could help in keeping the program affordable.


3. As said this 1 month period of May will have most students stay put at home devoting their time only to self study(no offline class schedules). Further the confusion over dates of prelims, speculations regarding the same and daily news of world nearing its end would certainly overwhelm many of us and would derail our preparations. A targeted approach towards syllabus completion would certainly help us go a long way.


Having said all that i firmly believe ForumIas has been kind enough to help students at the times of such crisis. These are my suggestions but the feasibility of the program has to be judged by you based on the demand of the students. 

gauravexam5529,
3.6k views

I, with couple of my friends, had attended AWFG for mains 2019. Being a student of SFG last year, I was looking for something similar for mains. AWFG was very close to it, if one has a good peer group with whom you can discuss, review,
and assess questions. It was cost effective also. Quality of questions and solutions was top - notch. It was instrumental in coverage of syllabus.

However, it meant more focus on GS than optional. Evan at that time, I wished for something similar for optional, benefits of having it for GS were visible. With sustainable peer group and quality questions - synopsis one can extract tremendous benefit. Few of my suggestions would be -

  • Have programme placed similar to that of AWFG but for optional. 2 days a week or sometime 3 
  • Evaluations and feedback can be kept optional at an extra cost or even integrated test series can be started. Not every answer needs to be evaluated. 
  • No need for 7 AM timing, AWFG had flexibility of even four hour time slot, that too in the afternoon, and I know people who did not miss a test. 
  • Peer group is the most important thing for success and benefit of such programme. The programme can be a facilitator where we can set micro-optional targets, complete syllabus comprehensively and timely, and do some answer writing along with it. 
  • Need to expand to optionals like PSIR, Geography, Pub ad.
2.2k views

Ye review hai ya promotion!
kafi sync hai last k 3-4 comments me

1.9k views

Ye review hai ya promotion!
kafi sync hai last k 3-4 comments me

1. Please leave that to moderators

2. Since this issue always will be there, let us say that ForumIAS shall reserve rights to promotion on this website. 

3. In discuss please see that no such threads were entertained and they were deleted as we planned to keep academy and community separate. We did not delete negative threads though. However, we now plan to provide replies here and to keep them integrated given that when we don’t reply here, people think we are irresponsive.

4. This is the first comment of allegation on this new platform. You post more such comments and you will drive real users away. Please note that some of these users will be attempting in 2020 for the first time an know nothing about the old discuss culture.

upsc2020,AJ_and2 otherslike this
3k views

I, with couple of my friends, had attended AWFG for mains 2019. Being a student of SFG last year, I was looking for something similar for mains. AWFG was very close to it, if one has a good peer group with whom you can discuss, review,
and assess questions. It was cost effective also. Quality of questions and solutions was top - notch. It was instrumental in coverage of syllabus.

However, it meant more focus on GS than optional. Evan at that time, I wished for something similar for optional, benefits of having it for GS were visible. With sustainable peer group and quality questions - synopsis one can extract tremendous benefit. Few of my suggestions would be -

  • Have programme placed similar to that of AWFG but for optional. 2 days a week or sometime 3 
  • Evaluations and feedback can be kept optional at an extra cost or even integrated test series can be started. Not every answer needs to be evaluated. 
  • No need for 7 AM timing, AWFG had flexibility of even four hour time slot, that too in the afternoon, and I know people who did not miss a test. 
  • Peer group is the most important thing for success and benefit of such programme. The programme can be a facilitator where we can set micro-optional targets, complete syllabus comprehensively and timely, and do some answer writing along with it. 
  • Need to expand to optionals like PSIR, Geography, Pub ad.

Please add your comment to the following thread. It will help in consolidating suggestions and ideas. Your idea seems quite exciting. 
https://forumias.com/post/detail/How-feasible-is-to-have-a-SFG-like-program-for-Optionals-Lets-pour-in-our-views-to-help-the-admin-evaluate-the-same-1587552376

2.3k views

@forumiasacademy @Neyawn  In case we get an official notification regarding postponement of Prelims, are you planning to start SFG like programs for Optional? It can consist of daily target completion and timed answer writing(to be uploaded during a given time slot) that can be uploaded on the platform followed by test discussions and preview of best answers. 
I don't know whether you already have such courses or not but it would certainly help students in time bound completion of syllabus.

What Optionals Support are you looking for? Currently we have History / Anthropology and Sociology. Do consider the fact that SFG works because of competition. 

People get their scores. We have been thinking on the lines of SFG but there are three issues.

  1. Post Prelims, people have plenty of things to do - GS, Ethics, Essay and Optional. Classes and / or Test Series. SFG type programs require single minded focus. This is difficult to achieve post prelims. ( Please observe that a LOT of people from SFG are already complaining that you can only do SFG while you do SFG. That is what we want. When you do Polity, you do polity well. But people tend to want to do everything . And thats why things fail )
  2. Quick Evaluation is key to SFG. With copy evaluation for Mains Type Papers , there is "human involvement", raising the cost of the program. Also since humans are involved, the speed o coming out with copies will be slow.
  3. 7AM Discipline. We banked on it for SFG because in Feb you should be doing ONLY one thing - Prelims. But after pre, a lot of people would say ) I have to do GS, CA, Ethics, Essay and I stay awake till late night. I have x,y,z classes. So we cant get people to turn up at 7AM

Having said this, we are open to Innovations and Suggestions.

I was looking for help in Anthropology optional. Regarding the challenges mentioned

1. I guess the time is most opportune for such a program given that we are in the times of uncertainty. This period of limbo could be pretty well utilized for optional preparation. Being a SFG student i can say with confidence that i barely lost a day or two in past 1 month, all credits to SFG. So the month of May can be pretty much utilized for such a program with a single minded focus on our optional. (Considering the prelims dates wont be announced till the pandemic is under control which is far from being near.)

2. Regarding evaluation of copies:Conducting 1.5 hrs test for three/four days a weekwould reduce the work load. And economies of scale could help in keeping the program affordable.


3. As said this 1 month period of May will have most students stay put at home devoting their time only to self study(no offline class schedules). Further the confusion over dates of prelims, speculations regarding the same and daily news of world nearing its end would certainly overwhelm many of us and would derail our preparations. A targeted approach towards syllabus completion would certainly help us go a long way.


Having said all that i firmly believe ForumIas has been kind enough to help students at the times of such crisis. These are my suggestions but the feasibility of the program has to be judged by you based on the demand of the students. 

Totally agree. Confusion over the date and wondering around it is really going to cost us a lot of time if this isn't planned well. Since SFG has provided discipline in terms of prelims preparation, it would really be great if it can be materialized for the Optional as well. 


1.6k views
Apparently, the people who wanted it to be postponed have won.
Neyawn,walterwhit3
3k views
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