The answer depends on your areas to work in Mains. For SFG, you can follow daily schedule but from Mains perspective, you need to spare at least 4 hours, where you can dedicate half of the time for optional and rest half for the GS. I don't think anyone should leave Mains preparation in December itself as 5-6 good quality questions in prelims can be solved with some aid of mains preparation. One should focus on answer writing for Mains preparation in December, reason being that whatever you study in depth for mains now for a month now with prelims fear or issue in mind, same content can be covered in 10 days after prelims with an open mind. But, the technical aspects of answer writing can be best learnt and adapted at this point of time when you can experiment with your writing style, be it diagrams, flowcharts, maps or having a wider perspective and take this approach to the exam hall. (bol bachchan) :)
Thanks a lot! That's very helpful advice. Will definitely work on it. :)
One more thing I feel is that Prelims these days is more about temperament in exam hall. By temperament I mean your ability to maintain your composure when faced with unknown questions and I believe whatever best your level of preparation is, in the best case scenario you would be confident in maximum 40 questions. In rest of the questions you have to apply logic, reasoning, intuition, gut feeling and leap of faith to attempt. So, practicing tests especially without preparing too much can be very helpful as:
1. You learn not to expect questions from what you have studied (the biggest reason of stress as exam time approaches and one tends to recollect everything as if going for viva).
2. You can do reverse engineering as you can identify specific areas in static portions to focus more in second reading.
3. You will commit mistakes and there is a better chance that the mistake is etched in your memory for not to be repeated again (I have seen many students committing the error of correct vs incorrect statements).
4. You will learn how questions are framed from a particular topic and you will be able to orient your studies accordingly.
5. It is actually refreshing and motivating way of studies if you don't take too much stress about marks.
:)
You’re right. Thanks for the perspective :)
