What is the 1 thing you learned from your Prelims failure?

•Revision holds the key to see your roll no in the holy pdf

•You cant buy time!. if you are weak in some subjects or not motivated enough etc etc., then take help in form of coaching, mentorship etc. Money can be earned later but not time.

•“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.” Even after following all golden rules, you may still fail. But the reason shouldn’t be lack of your effort. Give your best, even if you fail, you will walk with your head held high.

•Muhammed Ali once said “I don't count my sit-ups; I only start counting when it starts hurting because they're the only ones that count”. Studying those extra hours, postponing your favourite TV shows for weekend, attending mocks on time, analysing and understanding PYQs, waking up on time to attend SFG test at 7am etc…will make the difference 

RECALL. 

If you can't recall today, you can't recall in exam hall. 

Gave my first attempt in 2021 with full effort...... scored 89+/-2...... FAILED

Things which I learnt :-

1. dont devote over excessive time on current affairs....

2. Revise basic books as much as one can

3. Read Ncerts exhaustively

4. Choose your teachers wisely

5. Make habit of sleeping at proper time at least 15 days before prelims so one can awake freshly on prelims day ( It affected my result badly )

6. Keep eyes and mind always open during preparation ( helped me mark questions like lemon grass, hedgehog, 64 yogini, ACE2 receptor, Kui language and test world cup correctly )

That's all guys.....

Decided on new year's eve to skip this 2022 attempt and Preparing for 2023 now........

In this preparation we hear some simple things like do basic books nicely with revisions ,do one current affair,do pyq,do mocks. 

Not understanding the gravity of above was my mistake. More revisions could have given me atleast 3 more corrects,pyq could have given me 1-2 more corrects,mocks could have given me atleast. 1 more correct..

5-6 more corrects...

That, every year around 40 questions can be answered from NCERT's only. Even the so-called presence of mind and awareness ones like mention the crops introduced in India from new world types(class 12 history NCERT).

EVERY FRICKIN YEAR.

Person on his last attempt here.

Writing mains.

Have written all 6 attempts. Passed prelims 4 times. Failed twice. Once in 2018 and 2020. In 2018 because my prelims and mains from PCS happened the same week. (Failed by one mark or less)... in 2020 failed csat but had passed GS cutoff..

What works in Prelims?

First of all F**k all the coaching institutes. Their material and bullshit with their test series. In all of 6 years combined inhave solved a total of 2 prelims tests from the big boy of coaching but hated it... I have however solved all of previous 20 plus years of PYQs... Trust me, if you religiously solve and Google every piece of options in pyps, you will pass... And guess how many revisions I did of pee teee three six five ? Zero. I didn't even read it.... Have read it once in 17 and fell mentally sick.... NCERT, PYP, India year book, Read between the lines, Newspaper and a massive habit of googling the shit out of every thing. It should see you through

My lessons from prelims failure

40% of the qns can be answered through intelligent guessing only. So do more quiz, tests, analyze mistakes and learn from answers. Practice more and analyze logically. Keep a note of all answers(which are done wrong), revise it frequently. 

It's not about reading additional sources/books. static or current topic, practice qns on that topic. This is in addition to revising ur static books, ncerts and pyqs.

4 consecutive prelims failed , 2 on border line ! 

lessons: easy to blame UPSC after prelims failure , very easy to hide your mistake by quotes, motivational lecture available in market specifically for this exam ( unpredictable , analytical , subjective etc etc kind of words ) . But it takes guts to accept tht every year almost 10000 are getting selected no matter what ! dont blame anyone even ur luck ! things didnt work in that manner in real life !! 

take practical approach ! dont make it regular affair and make preparation ur way of life ( i did it , i regeret it ) ...

fix number of attempts according to ur socio financial condition  after that be financial independent ..freinds did wonder in other field after they left UPSC after  1, 2 attempt...and i got stuck here with zero skill set to get a job

trust me this cycle hurts ..hurts badly ..from the most studious in school and college to most criticised adult in family now !!!! hurts hurts badly

, dont follow anyone blindly (even this comment)...

Dekh bro. Been there, suffered that (and continuing to be in a certain way) most of us are never going to be IAS or IPS or IFS etc. That is the truth. You know I have a friend who studied in top 5 collegesin her area of expertise not of India but of the world! She failed six attempts at prelims back to back. Why? No idea. In her last attempt she passed GS but failed csat. MC csat. This is the world's shittiest exam. Those who pass will say we always knew. Ask them one day before prelims or mains or interview or result. Sab ke moonh me kabzi ho gayi hoti hai... CSE junta is the most hypocritical and unethical inhave seen... I have studied in a top college myself and here I am fckng my life... But you know I moved in to a job after three attempts at this exam and got engaged and have a really prestigious job in my state... I am taking this mains with the calm of a Buddha... My advice is you are not alone...  Alot of us have been fucked by this exam... Secondly get a state services or rbi or any other job... Then come back harder at this 

Well some things that one should keep in mind:

1) Revision is the key - the more the better

2) More focus on Full length mocks and less on sectional

3) Although current affairs are important but not on the cost of standard books

4) Don't mess up time management in Actual exam

Failed prelims twice, cleared prelims twice with a 50/50 track record, I majorly learned:

1. Don’t underestimate the prelimsand give it the time and energy it required. It’snot going to be a 2 month affair if it’s your first serious attempt. You will have to learn to balance both GS and optional for a good 4-5 months.

2. Don’t think you are above rote learning(huge mistake I made my first 2 attempts). If you think you’re bad at it,develop a systemto become decent at it. There will be things you have to mug up. It makes no sense when you’re doing it, but you won’t crib about it in the exam hall when you are able to mark the right/ eliminate the wrong option.

3. Revise your static, be thorough with it. My spectrum came apart, so I made notes of them, my notes have now come apart. Same is the case with my Lakshmikant. You might not find direct questions from these books to a large extent, but it will give you theconfidence to eliminate things without doubting what you know(also prelims was never a book based test to begin with). I missed my 2nd prelims by 3 marks because of not doing this.

4. Goes with the point above, butread your basic sciencebooks as well. It helps you to logically decipher a lot of questions as well.

5. Test series are not a knowledge bank. It doesn’t matter how many coachings claim that “X no of questions came from our test”, don’t be gullible enough to fall for marketing. No test series can replace revision. The purpose of a test series is to merely help youpractice your timing and accuracy ratio. And to figure out what kind of questions you should avoid/ do. When doing tests I used to have a system where after correcting it, I would mark out few questions which I thought were basic and likely to be asked, it would total to around 10-15 per test, the rest are only filler questions to bulk it up to a 32 test series, treat them as such.

6. Stay calmand don’t think about what will happen if you clear/ don’t clear the prelims while attempting it. In those two hours, everything except those 100 questions cease to matter. I again lost out my 2nd prelims because I panicked for 15 minutes straight after getting the paper and messed up my timing royally afterwards.

7. If you have not donemathsafter 10th, or do not feel comfortable with maths,practice it for CSAT. Don’t rely on English solely, it’s going to be an uncomfortable 15 days of waiting for results otherwise. Don’t ignore it at all.

That’s about it.

Yes just the NCERTs. I didn’t even buy them just used the NCERT app to read them online. I paid close attention to the biology ones.

6- 10 and 11-12 for bio

Its like scratching wounds which has not even healed properly but will definitely share my learnings.

1. When you hear "give 3-5 months before prelims exclusively to prelims" means you leave any mains preparation and revise only for prelims and does not mean you start studying for prelims for the first time in those 3-5 months. This time is only for revising and not understanding the subject for the first time. (especially for first timers and who are not from Delhi/ any coaching hub/did not join coaching and watched only topper's videos)

2. You don't give up before even trying.

3. You don't judge yourself/your preparation / performance /compare yourself with others in the exam hall.

4. Static books>current affairs

5. Run after basic/conceptual questions and not few obscure fact based questions.