[ Official ] How was the Prelims 2021 paper?

The sacrifices we have to make for this prep are innumerable.  I can't spend an evening with friends because of the guilt that encompasses me later. I didnt celebrate my birthday because I had to study..

Only to answer who is winning some random award.. 🤣🤣

Made the same mistake as you.. I thought committed judiciary refers to a judiciary committed to the constitution.  🤣🤣 these are the qsns that are gonna hurt the most. 

That's right! For people like us - there are two ways- continue studies until you reach PhD or give exams! Nothing more and nothing less. 

Can anyone upload answer key for paper 2? i know its not accurate but i need to have an idea

I don’t think I’ll clear. I also dont intend to check the keys released by coaching. Call it stupidity or whatever… I’ve given a couple of other entrances and get a rank for B.Ed at a university so I’ll be doing that. I cannot sustain this prep without a fallback option anymore, given that this was my 4th attempt. I might even move on entirely, who knows.

As for those of you looking for a backup, please choose something that you will actually enjoy doing for the rest of your life besides this. And i know it might not feel like it at this time that you could actually enjoy nothing else, but you will. Give it time, for it heals almost all wounds.

Those of you who aren’t yet at that juncture, please have a credible exit strategy in mind. You don’t want to end up after 4 years not having a clue of what else you want to do in life. You don’t want to spend your life regretting you’re choices (which we will inevitably)…

I was trying to answer this question thinking about mere ghar ka cooker , but my cooker had seetee and then I didn't know kya karu? 

I agree. Let this pass. These two three days are not meant for any life altering decisions. 

I was busy cheering only for India, did not look for other things, toh 7-8 din bhi waste gaye aur answer bhi galat hogya.

It is the trapped steam that enables cooking. Temperature of flame is such a funnily worded statement. What does it even mean?

Hi guys.. Like I mentioned yesterday, Hoping to clear prelims with 102+ marks as per 4 answer keys that I matched.. Feeling confident about CSAT because I solved maths and reasoning more than english (as was my strategy).

Since, everyone is discussing about the difficulty and randomness , I want to share my two cents and also describe my state of mind while giving the exam. It might be a long comment so read at your own discretion.

1. I scanned the paper for the first 5 minutes.. Just looked at questions and their placements.. I had Set-D, so first page was full of S&T, out of which I felt 2 questions were from some PYQs picked out verbatim. Unfortunately, I wasn't even sure of answers for them. I then looked at the 100th question and saw that 80-100 is all history and I had no courage to start paper from there..  So, I started from the beginning. 

2. At one point maybe around 30-40 questions, I felt like I was giving one of Vision's mocks.. All this while, I have been a strongly opposed to Vision's mocks and somehow the paper yesterday, just reminded me of that. 

3. I usually go through one reading of the paper in one hour. But by the time I was at 60th question, it was almost 10:45 and I had not even marked the bubbles. I almost felt like crying... 

4. Somehow I reached 80th question.. I will not lie, I had no hopes from history, but I did 80-100 questions in almost less than 10 minutes. It was the easiest portion FOR ME  in the paper and I will come back to it , why I say it was EASY "FOR ME".

5. I filled the bubbles and in one go I had filled just 60 bubbles. I knew the paper was bad overall and I was not sure of many questions, so I had to attempt  more..  I attempted 90 questions.. Honestly, I felt like attempting more because I knew my accuracy was not that good.. But I stopped at 90. 

Now, coming to easy/difficulty of the paper. IT WAS NOT AT ALL EASY. I love watching cricket and even look at points table , but I got confused and this question kept haunting me throughout the paper. Ofcourse, I did it wrong. I first marked correct but then changed it and got it wrong...

I WILL NOT LIE GUYS.. IF I CLEAR THE PRELIMS (which I am hopeful of, unless upsc decides to mess with me), IT IS70% HARDWORK AND 30% LUCK. 

I was lucky that whatever questions that came in history, I knew many of them.. Who knew that they would ask where do Ajanta Caves lie? But I had read it , I do not know where, maybe in a video, maybe in some mock, god knows. I knew nothing about the other three options..This is luck. Sheer luck. No amount of hardwork can help you in such random questions. 
I knew the answer of Lemon grass, because my father had planted it in our garden 2 years ago. Now we have never studied it in any source, this was pure luck. 

I just want to say that paper was as random as it could get. And I am pretty sure , it would be more random next year as well. So, I would just say that don't chase random current affairs materials. None of them might feature in the paper, but what will actually feature in the paper and will give u a sense of calm are the questions from basic books. Like someone said polity and economics will always be your best friends. I see people running after random current affairs/mapping/indices and many people just don't give ENOUGH importance to basics. 

Also, it is high time people study ancient and medieval properly. Gone are the days when toppers used to say "Medieval se kuch nahi aata". In our attempt to chase "Marketed study materials", we neglect our basics. NCERTS are the bible, no matter whatever other people say. 

Honestly, I used to feel so anxious that people are reading PT365 and what not and magazines are something that have never been a good friend of mine. I did read monthlies. I did try to recall facts, but at the end, I knew there is a limit to what I can attempt from current affairs. It will not be a surprise that coaching mafia will now compile sports as an important column in their magazines. What if UPSC next year asks 5 questions on Defence and all.. 

At the end, I would just say from my own little experience with UPSC that don't run after random current affairs. Focus on your basic books. For subjects like History please read NCERTS also apart from the other books that we usually use.  BASIC MIGHT NOT HELP YOU IN ANSWERING ALL THE QUESTIONS, BUT WHEN YOU SEE BASIC CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS FROM POLITY OR ECONOMICS OR SOME FACTS FROM HISTORY THAT YOU READ IN NCERTS, YOU FEEL SAFE DURING THE EXAM. IT MAKES YOU A LITTLE BIT CALMER, WHICH MIGHT HELP YOU IN ATTEMPTING RANDOM QUESTIONS WITH A MUCH COOL MINDSET. WHEN YOU ARE SURE THAT YOUR CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS ARE RIGHT, YOU WILL GO FOR THAT EXTRA QUESTION WHICH YOU THINK MAY BE CORRECT (and which you otherwise leave in that moment of stress). 

TL;DR: Paper was not easy. Randomness --->infinity .. Make your basics very strong that you don't get any questions wrong from that. .. lastly, UPSC prelims is a gamble and LUCK IS A BIG FACTOR.. So, people who deny the importance of luck, please do it somewhere else. 

I have a background in Psychology, and this field requires loads of higher studies before you even take off, and even then you wouldn’t be remotely close to working in ‘that’ kinda psychologist job as one would think 😂

Its a mess. But if I do have to take it up, I guess I’m looking at a lot of self-therapy first before anything else 🙃