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Thread to Clarify Doubts, Seek Guidance from 2021 Batch Civil Servants

Hi, everyone! Starting this thread, so we can all seek specific guidance from, clarify our doubts from friends who successfully cleared CSE 2021. Please feel free to ask any and all questions, however trivial, so we can collectively benefit.


It's opportune time for this, as with Pre 2022 ending in a few hours, friends giving Pre this year can also benefit from their Post-Pre Preparation Experience.

Tagging 

@sjerngal  @Pam123 @AzadHindFauz @TheFinalStand @CSLWARRIOR @Arsene @Bubba_gump @Apollo11 @impatientoptimist  @whatif1997, and requesting them to enlighten us plebs on tricks & trickeries of preparation.

Edit: Adding@Newton981 (AIR 107)

curious_kid,DMand25 otherslike this
130.3k views

248 comments

Hi guys,

Messed up pre big time, scoring only 80, selection unlikely. Missed some straight forward questions due to lack of revision and some brainfade during the exam. I have a few questions:

Q 1) My mains portions are not at all covered and neither do I have notes made for them. So I have decided to enroll in a mains test series (offline), wrap up these mains specific portions by December and optional with notes along with some answer writing. Commit to full fledged pre prep after that. Is this a good way to go about it?

Q 2) I am struggling with current affairs in general. Saw most of you guys have gone with monthly magazines, but I find doing that less rewarding. The current affairs bits that stick with me organically are those that I did on a daily basis, but haven't found a daily source that is as good as Vision when it comes to presenting/ wording stuff, can you guys suggest a daily source (except insights)?

 Q 3) Did you guys make notes of Laxmikanth, spectrum etc? I find revising from the texts itself difficult in the last few weeks of the exam, any tips on that front? Is it advisable to make notes of such texts?

Q 4) How did you make use of mains PYQs? Did you write answers for them, what did you compare against?

Q 5) How did you make incremental improvements on the answer writing front? While comparing topper copies, did you answer the same questions in their copies and check what you could have done differently?

Thanks for your time in advance!

Same here mate...borderline in pre...not made notes on max mains topics..can't find a route on how to start..planning to join MGP if prelims dont go as expected.

Rick_C137,Street_lamp
5.3k views

https://academy.forumias.com/current-affairs-2022

hey sorry for a silly ques- are these current affairs classes for mains 2022 or just prelims 2022

5.1k views
Mains;
You will get some previous prerecorded videos as well from sept/oct 2021 as well for mains only


rebellion,
4.9k views
@ArchAngel96 thanks a lot


5.1k views

What would be a good plan for next 3 months, brief timeline about GS & optional 1st reading completion & revision & answer writing practice? 

@sjerngal @CSLWARRIOR @Pam123 

5.1k views

Some unsolicited advice; get your Vaccine (Booster Dose).

You never know what might happen in Septemeber.

Ash5Man,arjunas
4.8k views
Which Test Series is better for Geography Optional ? Preferably with some mentorship guidance
Consistently scoring less in Mains. P1: 107  P2: 93

Any advice is welcome. Please
Vesuvius,Weltschmerzz
4.9k views
@caped_crusader  did you figure this out? Scored 248 in geography this time, i seriously need a good mentorship to improve my marks 


Vesuvius,
4.7k views
» show previous quotes

+1

For mains Current affairs I joined ForumIAS' Current affairs class. It's excellent. Concise notes, Value added and dipin sir will help you to remember the content in class itself.


+1

DM,
4.4k views

Hi guys,

Messed up pre big time, scoring only 80, selection unlikely. Missed some straight forward questions due to lack of revision and some brainfade during the exam. I have a few questions:

Q 1) My mains portions are not at all covered and neither do I have notes made for them. So I have decided to enroll in a mains test series (offline), wrap up these mains specific portions by December and optional with notes along with some answer writing. Commit to full fledged pre prep after that. Is this a good way to go about it?

Q 2) I am struggling with current affairs in general. Saw most of you guys have gone with monthly magazines, but I find doing that less rewarding. The current affairs bits that stick with me organically are those that I did on a daily basis, but haven't found a daily source that is as good as Vision when it comes to presenting/ wording stuff, can you guys suggest a daily source (except insights)?

 Q 3) Did you guys make notes of Laxmikanth, spectrum etc? I find revising from the texts itself difficult in the last few weeks of the exam, any tips on that front? Is it advisable to make notes of such texts?

Q 4) How did you make use of mains PYQs? Did you write answers for them, what did you compare against?

Q 5) How did you make incremental improvements on the answer writing front? While comparing topper copies, did you answer the same questions in their copies and check what you could have done differently?

Thanks for your time in advance!

1. This sounds perfect. Make sure that you have your notes for maximum portion of mains, ready before the prelims itself. This will help u a lot in the gap between pre and mains.
2.  I also agree with the fact that reading magazines is not everyone's cup of tea. I am also not a big fan. I used to read newspaper daily and along with that I used to watch Only IAS prelims booster discussion daily on youtube. I find it better to study through video method, so it worked perfectly well for me. I also used to read forum's factly magazines, which I found quite good.

3. I have made 15-20 pages worth of notes of entire lakshmikant, and i highly recommend that u do something similar. Considering the fact that u do have a lot of time at ur disposal right now.  These notes helped me revise Lakshmikant 5-7 times before the actual prelims exam. 
I will attach sample photo of my notes in a few days.

4. For optional I made my notes according to the PYQS itself, so it really helped. A group of my friends from forum itself used to discuss pyqs that helped us understand them better and formualte answers for that. 
For Gs, I did not write complete answers for all the PYQs but I made sure that I had sufficient material to answer those questions.  If I found something new, I used to add it in my notes.

5. Incremental changes came from answer writing and more practise. I personally was not able to write FLTs because of time constraint, but I did go through topper's copies like u mentioned. I used to write answers to the questions that toppers had already answered, in a time bound manner and then I used to compare my answers with them .. 
I also used to allot 1 hour timer for 7 questions and would practice writing answer. I focussed initially on content and then on presentation, followed by time management. This was my process of incremental improvement.

dalpha,DMand27 otherslike this
5.7k views

@sjerngal as you joined forum CA my question is have u done mains 365 also?

3.7k views
Like for environment or SnT mains 365?
3.7k views
Deleted
hello everyone , this was my 2nd attempt in prelims , and through several answer keys i am scoring 120+ in gs paper1 , however in csat i am hanging at borderline although through various answer keys i am still at 68 -70 , but i am feeling that i am going to fail in csat , and so am unable to bring myself to prepare for mains , also i dont have a degree that can get me any job , so should i go for some other backup like preparing for cat , or should i begin with mains prep, also how should i convince myself to start preparing for mains without doubt of failing in csat ?
BelieveIT,roronoazoro
3.1k views
@Underdog44 Not yet. Options are Guidance, GSscore, Masterstroke and Shabbir

Too Confused. tilting towards Guidance/GsScore

3.3k views

Any History Optional

  1. Mentor
  2. Crash Course
  3. Test Series

Recommendations ?? 

3.1k views

@sjerngal as you joined forum CA my question is have u done mains 365 also?

Nope.. I did not

3.4k views
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