What worked for you (as you think) allowing to qualify CSE(P) 2020 ..Your takes on what to do or not for CSE 21 ? Kindly comment as this time period is reaching high time to start pelim prep ..

While mocks are important endlessly solving mocks is equally dangerous. If you are not analyzing the mocks well its of no use. Please know questions won't be repeated but through mocks you need to develop the knack of dealing with questions you don't know, elimination technique, optimum number of questions to be attempted, time management (yes, questions are getting lengthier in exam and you may not get 3rd round - I didn't in 2020 prelims).

Static will be your savior. If you do a question from basic books wrong it can cost you heavily. 

You can make a list of topics that UPSC often asks questions from. Don't sit for a day and ponder over it but keep adding things in it as and when you find them. For ex - national parks, ramsar sites, world heritage sites, ancient/medieval terms, Buddhism and Jainism.. These things have high ROI. 

Pyqs are the best guide. During last 10-15 days I had solved several pyqs on a telegram channel especially for pyqs of all exams conducted by upsc. And this helped me enter upsc kind of prelims mode well before the exam. Coaching mocks are not equivalent to it and also it becomes easier to guess the answers in these mocks if you solve all their papers. This kind of needs to be tackled through pyqs. 

Mock scores DO NOT depict your actual exam performance. Always take them with a pinch of salt. Just to give an idea, I was scoring very well in 2019 mocks but failed to clear prelims. 2020 mocks my scores ranged from 80s to 120s (I know sounds weird) but I managed clearing prelims with a decent margin (as per coaching keys). 

Nothing is more important than going in the exam with a confidence level which says if the paper is difficult for me it is difficult for everyone else. You will automatically perform better. Ofcourse this comes only when you have honestly studied and revised and re-revised. 

Beware of all the telegram channels and teachers who say you will clear the exam if you follow their plan/tests/daily sheets etc. you will clear it only when you follow YOUR plan and work on YOUR strengths and weaknesses. 

EDIT - [As suggested by @Neyawn] your plan and strategy does not mean setting unrealistic goals. It is perfectly alright to talk to people who have been at the same place but adjusting it to suit your own requirements.  For instance, till 5 days before mains I was talking to friend who had written mains 4 times and asking him about how to make my revision more effective but I did tweak it to as per my strengths and weaknesses. It is ok to seek help as and when necessary. 

Though I did not get through in this prelim (courtesy CSAT). But my score in gs1 has been good. I have cleared prelim 3 times with one interview. So I have good enough confidence of attempting mcqs now.

You need to understand two things one is preparation part and second is execution in exam. Not much variation lies in preparation, because we all study the same stuff. If you have decently covered basic books and one year current affairs believe me you have done better in preparation.

What I have experienced so far from my failure in prelim and offcourse from my known ones failure, it's the inability to execute that preparation in those 2 hours of prelim and that's where the difference lies.

So I have been now following a check list system.

1. Whether have I covered the basic topics from basic books.

2. Do not rely on coaching mocks. I used to do that paid the price , now I do pyqs only and 2-3 full mocks that's it.

3. If you are into multiple attempts, take the py paper and just note in how many questions you committed silly mistakes. Always remember you do not fail because of 3-4 subjective questions but due to the easy and basic questions which everyone who clears pre get right.

4. Attempt 90-95, take calculated risks it is needed in these times as everyone is doing it, if done correctly it tends to increase your marks also.

5. Do not solve the paper in iterations, maximum follow 2 iterations. For the last 2 attempts the paper were lengthy. So even in best execution one can barely finish off with 2nd iteration. So make sure to mark the damn question, even if you are stuck in 2 options, choose one and mark, and such marking has to be based on knowledge based intuition. Donot leave it for 2nd iteration because there is very little probability you ll mark the other option. By 1st iteration itself you should mark 75+ questions.

6. Always keep a maximum limit of wrongs which you can afford, in my case it is 30, if I attempt 95. How it helps, whenever you lack courage to mark among 2 options, always remember you can afford to get maximum 30 questions incorrect, this 30 incorrect questions window will provide good confidence in the exam hall.

7. Dont loose sleep over current affairs questions, they are general in nature, if it is easy you will get it correct, if it is tricky or unheard of, try to look for any hints in the framing of questions or elimination of options.

8. Don't loose your sleep over marks in mocks either, upsc marks and mock marks have no relation IMO.

9. And don't take CSAT lightly, very fresh learning from me and also for me. 

Step1

5-6 jo basics books hain usko gande tareeke se padh lijiye, itna ganda aur itni baar ki u must feel like u have digested those pages.

Step2 

Ek saal ka current affairs ko 5-6 baar padhna hai

Step 3 (very important)

Previous year question of 20 years ghhot lijiye and last 10 years ki PYQ par bina content k baare mein jyada soche tukka, logical guess lagaiye... ye sochiye ki mindset kya hai puchne waale ki.. Mindset of the question maker must be in your mind.

Step4 

Mocks lagaiye but uske score ko dil se mat lijiye. Last 20 days mein kisi bhi institute ka mock nahi lagana hai. Last 10 days mein 30 percent of time on daily basis sirf aur sirf previous year par hi dena hai.

Step 5

Your mindset on day of exam is very very very important. Dariye mat, agar aapne padha hai aapko nahi aata toh 90 percent ko nahi aata, kosis kijiye ki kya isme logic lag skta hai ya nahi... kosis kijiye 1st reading in an hour cmplt ho jaaye so that u can have more time to think or ponder upon question that u dont know.

*sometimes questions are asked frm current affairs well beyond 1 yr. But dont run to do evrythng. U can't do evrythng. Understnd there is an limit. But basic books and last 1 year current affairs k source mein aapki 99% accuracy honi chahiye....

Aur upar waaale par bharosha rakhiye. Your time will come.

+1

Be careful with advising people to follow their own plan. You will meet someone who will have the unrealistic plan of cracking prelims in two months and did everything as per the plan, but still didn’t clear - as advised by you.

Sometimes be yourself is the worst advice you can give to some people :P

The first thing that I started doing is stopped listening to people who haven't cleared the exam or who have not repeatedly cleared prelims. I quickly exited the Prelims groups on Telegram and stopped relying on advices written in good English. 

If a number of topper say something worked for them, it will work for you. Just stay away fromMISGUIDANCE. Every 2nd person on social media platform has started acting like they are an expert and we tend to believe them. Avoid that. Follow toppers, follow people whom you know personally, follow the credible mentors in this field. 

As far as strategy is concerned, a lot of people have already written about it. I believe prelims is a very intense stage that demands a lot. I personallydidn't benefit much from mocks of coaching institutes.Last year Vision made one of the worst papers. I found them totally irrelevant

But I did keep practicing questions especially PYQs repeatedly trying to understand the favorite themes. I also revised a lot, around 6 iterations (Thanks to the lockdown) of the entire syllabus. In my opinion you can have the following strategy

1. Finish basic books.Don't run after trivial thingsfor example the Socio cultural religious reform movement need not be done in that great detail. Focus more on Munda, Santhal etc. This can be learnt from the PYQ analysis only. 

2. Practice some questions. In my opinion, programmes like SFG (I never joined), IGP (IASMocks) & question banks (Like Laxmikanth polity question bank), these are more useful in testing whether you retain what you studied in these basic books

However, you also need to practice FLTs, this requires good simulators. For eg : ForumIAS simulators. I found Edukemy, Rau's papers aligned and mapped as per PYQ requirements. Now why do you need to do these FLTs ?

1. Time management simulation

2. Tackling unknown questions Applying tricks & intuitions (VERY VERY IMPORTANT)

3. Filling up OMR

Hence to sum up there are two aspects to the Prelims preparation : DIRECTED STUDY (PYQ mapping, Books + SFG or chapter or topic wise question bank) and APPLICATION through FLTs and obviouslyREVISION, REVISION, REVISION (SPACED REPETITION IF YOU CAN)

P.S : I have gained the above knowledge from my experiences. Feel free to ignore them if you don't relate with them. Follow at your own risk (I could clear the prelims in my second attempt in 2020). I am just sharing what I have learnt

It is very lamentable that even in third fourth attempt, there are candidates who have not seen PYPs especially in Prelims.

The other day there was a female candidate who wrote Mains 2020 despite COVID and was very weak. And then a male candidate came up with 5 straight prelims failures. I asked the gentleman to speak to the lady instead as she has cleared Prelims after two consecutive failures.

When they were done , I asked the gentleman what did you think she did better?

He said Sir, all these years I just used to read the book and go. She told me that you have to be thorough with the books so that simple questions you don’t get wrong.

This is something a bit disturbing.

Speaking from personal experience. Practice CSAT religiously.  This time I barely scrapped through this paper. Mainly because I could not find time to practice those questions as I kept that pending for too long. You have ideal time period right now to practice those questions. Do Quant and Reasoning thoroughly.Do not rely on Reading Comprehension passages. They are unpredictable and often different coaching have different answers for the same. It will ruin your sleep if you are somewhere around 70-90. I had attempted all the RCs and my marks would fluctuate between 67-80.

My plan, worked till now. 

1. NCERTs have to be done thoroughly. Make short notes if required, highlight important points - whichever method suits for revision. 

2. Stick to limited sources for Static portion. 

3. Current Affairs - Do the newspaper daily - make notes only of factoids. 

Cover CA from 2 good sources - Epic and Vision works. 

4. Practice atleast 20 questions daily 4 months before prelims. 

5. Practice a paper every third day 2 months before prelims 

6. Utilize collaborative knowledge on one online platform forum for prelims. I prefer forumias. Works wonders - you never realise what clicks where. 

7. PYQ solving - done all of that. Documented very well on a thread here. 

Thats exactly the plan. Look, if you are not able to get time from SFG , it means you are done with the basic books yet. Which is what you should from Jan/Feb/March till June 27. 

Look, I write about so many success stories, but there are very high number of failure stories too. A common diagnosis of most failure stories will be two things.

One, not prioritising Prelims preparation by Feb / March 

Two, having the thought , or misguided by people that "Even if you clear prelims, you wont clear Mains, and that is more painful, so its better you were eliminated at Pre only."

If you are thorough with the basic books, you should take 4-5 hours to prepare for the SFG test. This year also there are at least 10 candidates that I am in touch with who are able to be in SFG and are saying that they are able to finish off the syllabus in 4- 5 hours.

That is the level of preparation you have to reach for prelims.

I repeat, that is the level of preparation we have to reach. That is NOT the number of hours you should give. If you cant do FRs in a day you have not reached that level of preparation.

So do not try to artificially deflate the number of hours by limiting yourself to 3-4 hours for an SFG test. It takes more than the first time.

Secondly, the time for doing the Mains things will come for you after June 27. Do it at that time. On the other hand, imagine you writing 2021 and focussing on Mains till March / April along with SFG prelims prep.

Look, noone wants to study boring Curzon, Wavell, Parliamentary Committee. Everyone loves the optional content. It feels god - damn intellectual. 

So, when you try to do both, chances are you will end up doing Optionals at the cost of prelims. And then when you flunk prelims, you will try to take badla on UPSC by joing a Prelims test series, and join a jnisighst ( and these days dorumias too ) on July 1. You fall into the exam cycle.

People who complain that SFG does not let them do anything else, and they need to do goddam optional - you are right if you have written Mains before. But if you are proven failed at Prelims more than 2 times focus on the SFGs and Prelims. You will clear it.

Because we get better at what we focus on. And focus does not means doing Prelims AND Mains - GS AND Optionals. In trying to do everything, you end up doing nothing.

And if you are planning for 2022, as you have said, stealthily prepare for Prelims and try attempting the paper at home this year ( and do not gloat if you get 120+ at home - its like getting 80 marks in exam conditions in UPSC ) . Do not tell anyone ( or yourself ) you are a 2022 candidate. Then after July, prepare as if you are preparing for Mains . Do the Optionals and GS Mains. Till Dec/ Jan .

You will be much better prepared for next year.

Do not let yourself be driven by what you "like" doing - such as GS Mains and Optionals if you want things to end well.

On the other hand, if you are driven by what you "must" do, you will end up with what you may like doing in the end  - "that is joining the civil service."

Please read about the exam cycle here

https://blog.forumias.com/two-cents-how-to-clear-civil-services-with-a-top-rank-and-avoid-exhausting-attempts/?fbclid=IwAR0yVJpYMEBpCV2BzhT4jxD8ZbwqauTKwHHMt8xh1Uq8E6ziUk9vaaDjL7g

Note that these things usually make sense in a hindsight. 

If you asked me like 8 years back, I may have suggested you to focus on Mains, because I did not face any problems in Prelims ever so I did notknow that Prelims could be a big problem for some people.

Thats also because the forum was for Interview prep and most folks in the initial days dint have the prelims problem.

Only when I met offline students , I realised that a whole generation of people do Mains prep till March / April and then after Prelims , when they are not able to perform well, they do the Pre preparaton AFTER the Prelims - i realised the scale of this problem.

+1

That pretty much sums it up.

Remeber this is humanities . So people who say I have read Laxmikant - they may have very different knowledge levels depending on individual standards of complacency and hard work.

This is different from Maths and sciences where when some one who says - I have solved Irodov or I have solved HC Verma - the variation in problem solving skills will be very less.

Any strategy or smart work begins after you have done what@Siddhurules has stated.

Smart work is not a replacement of hard work. It’s about having the output of hard work by optioning time ( and not necessarily labour )

Oh, So I had this candidate who had written about Feminism in her hobby. She was full of feminist ideas - and thats OK - and a lot of "I" in her mocks. Like 2 weeks before her Interview, I sat her down and told her - Look, if you talk like the RBI Governor or the Indian Cricket Team captain saying - I think that .. I feel that .. I ..I .. You will go below 120. You aint giving an Interview to the paparazzi or to the media,even if you are from Stephen's.Humble down and give a job Interview - like a child speaking to elders.

She did make changes. Didnt get very high marks, but managed under 40 rank. 

And then she did what I had feared. Judged me and giften me "Why everyone must be a feminist"

And I must tell you, I read the book 1 year later and I think everyone should read it. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is also famous these days after her very slim books on feminism.

I want to ask all the seniors here and@Neyawn sir that do you think this years gap(70 days) between prelims and mains will be good enough for first timers for exclusive mains preparation? Am I at a disadvantage?

Would definitely read sir. But feminism shouldn't be disguised as 'I ',  the way it is done in every other discussion. Equality and Equity (differential treatment) are the roots from where feminism has arrived. So Talking of 'I' in feminism is the same what Gerda Learner says, Feminism turning into a bourgeois movement of the elite who think about 'I' , leaving the very basic motive of the movement. This is what is maligning the sole flavour of the term. 

Like every other 'ism ' used in society this 'ism ' has also become a matter for division.

Why can't we denote a Set and Subset kind of definition for these? Humanism to be the Set and isms like feminism to be the subsets coming out of them so that it doesn't get to become the big 'I' centric word. 

Buddhist studies are the best to get a sense of the 'I' which they denote for ignorance. (As the starting point of every other suffering). 

So , feminism and 'I' are two different things altogether.  'I' is anyways wrong , be it for a male or a female. And feminism without 'I' is the most beautiful concept one can ask for. Same way the world without the word 'I' would be the best and the most ideal place to live in.