Hello friends,
I just wanted to reach out to fellow aspirants through this portal. So, let me tell you few learnings from UPSC and how you should plan it.
As you all would have seen, upsc has become extremely dicey, ambiguous and unconventional. Now people who are in the boat, please do not take results to heart. Just smile it off. Most of the people do not know the answers to these questions anyways.
1) use test papers as a means to sharpen your skills to eliminate. Those questions will never come, but it will help you eliminate options
2) read news papers thoroughly. Also, try to have some curiosity of burning issues and google them.
3) Papers will come from those same sources and books. But the questions are interpretational in nature. So, you need to read the standard sources many times. Spectrum can be avoided as it is too overexposed and they are notes. Need to have interpretational sources. Bipin chandra is better. instead of laxmikant, dd basu is better. But thats too cumbersome. So read laxmikant multiple times and for the fun of it, read dd basu selected chapters for analysis.
4) use past question papers as source for your preparation. Its better to google each and every option. So if avalokiteswara or maitreya comes, memorize all the options
5) UPSC is also keeping track of the market. So, whatever is popular in the market is not coming there. Need to be double smart by showing genuine efforts and not reproducing whats there in market.
6) Show your thinking skills and invent points. Use some angle of the gs subjects that you have read and make your answer stand out.
7) Pre is dicey but there are still various things in your control: upsc is going interpretational, try to understand the issue.
They are asking small information from traditional. Now there are 2 approaches. 1) you should know some facts related to the question but that is not sufficient. 2) Use logic to solve those answers.
8) be smart and intelligent. Thats what upsc wants. Show it in your preparation, while answering and in your career ahead.
And coming to career, I would suggest, give one good attempt without job by staying in delhi etc. after that, do it with job and join a local library wherever you are working. You should not put all your eggs for this exam.
Sometimes, people get so caught up with upsc, that they don't know how to come out of it. Few suggestions:
Give cat exam
Give gre exam and go for MS outside
join a job based on your graduation
Study side by side. I still get up at 5 am everyday and study for 4 hours before starting my day out. Also, learn from failures.
If question has gone wrong, think why ? don't blame upsc for that tough question. It won't help. Think as to what can you do to handle this question. What do you not know that you can possibly know. How can you smart guess?
I have met many Civil servants, they are ordinary people like you and me. All they have done is practised a little more than you and me to handle this exam better.
good luck!
- a fellow aspirant who is happy and doing well in life! :)
One more thing guys,
During my IIM days, one of my professor told me which is very close to me:
This world will assess you on your past but only you know your potential and capabilities.
Use this potential and capabilities to try your best! If you achieve your dreams, great, if not, you will not regret having not tried! And in life the most important thing is you need to have that smile on your face because you tried irrespective of whether you failed or succeeded.
One more thing guys,
During my IIM days, one of my professor told me which is very close to me:
This world will assess you on your past but only you know your potential and capabilities.
Use this potential and capabilities to try your best! If you achieve your dreams, great, if not, you will not regret having not tried! And in life the most important thing is you need to have that smile on your face because you tried irrespective of whether you failed or succeeded.
