The Mighty Prelims

This post is all about how I cleared the first stage of CSE in my third try at it. I call it the 'mighty prelims' because for many aspirants, prelims poses the biggest hurdle and bars one from sitting in Mains. It is getting increasingly competitive and dynamic. However, the very objective of writing this post is to share my experience of prelims preparation and tell you that you can declutter some of the challenges you have been facing in the preparation to ensure you clear this stage.

To start with, I spent days reading topper blogs, watching YouTube videos and glancing through the syllabus, past year papers of prelims. I got an idea of what I was getting into. Here I had to decide whether to join a coaching right away or not. I did not join a coaching at this point because I felt that I should at least read the basic books so that even if I do take help later on, it is useful to me and I am able to get the best of what is being taught. Hence, I started self study with reading NCERTs and basic books.

Here I will list down the subject wise standard sources that I referred, along with my strategy. It was in two phases. Phase 1 entailed reading the sources for STATIC + CURRENT. Phase 2 entailed revising STATIC + CURRENT combined with practicing MOCKS (Note: These ran parallel to each other initially. The focus in the last two months before prelims solely shifted to Phase 2 -revision & mock tests).

PHASE 1: READ, READ & READ

1) History (Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Art & culture)

I referred NCERTs of 6th to 10th for history. I made very brief notes of some important facts from there and I never opened these books again. After NCERTS come the standard reference books. I read Bipin Chandra's book on Modern History. The good thing about this book is that it narrates modern history in an engaging manner and gives a very good understanding of events, which helps in memorizing as well. After this, I read Spectrum and focused on appendices and summary pages for prelims. It helped me remember the chronology and important facts well. I referred to RS Sharma for Ancient history and Tamil Nadu Board Standard history book for Medieval history. For Art and Culture, I referred to Nitin Singhania's Art & Culture book as well as glanced through 11th Class NCERT book on Art & Culture. These can seem vast and boring at times but you need to have patience and read it keeping past year questions in mind. Try to ensure that you are able to get those questions right which are straight forward from the standard sources and most aspirants will be able to do them. Don't try to change your strategy or start digging new sources just on the basis of one such question which was indeed somewhat random.  

During the Preparation I also watched freely available crash course on Ancient, Medieval and Modern history by Abhishek Srivastava Sir on Unacademy for quick revision. I came across the new History NCERTS very late in the preparation which I could not read. However, I would suggest the new aspirants to consider those Themes in history book as well.

It is very important to understand the return to your time and effort in each of these. This will tell you which portion to focus more. In the initial stages of my preparation, I invested disproportionately high time reading Ancient, Medieval, Art & culture and comparatively lesser time reading modern. Now, I believe modern history should get relatively higher priority among these.

2) Geography (Physical, Human, Indian Geography) + Environment

I only glanced through 6th to 9th NCERTs getting a broad idea of basic things. After this, I watched Mrunal videos on Geography (freely available on YouTube). Then I moved to reading 10th, 11th, 12th NCERT very thoroughly. I also referred GC leong selectively. For environment, I referred to one single source, Shankar IAS book. There were times when I did not understand a concept from the book, then I used to watch a short video of the same on YouTube.

Here I would say that Geography is very vast and you must develop that sense of what is more important, probable based on past years. For eg: In recent years, map based questions on rivers, mountains, seas etc. have become important. I also believe focusing on Environment portion is more rewarding.  

3) Polity

I did not read basic NCERTs for it. I read Indian constitution at work of class XIth first. It helped me understand Polity in simple language and less jargons. I then read Laxmikanth cover to cover which took quite a lot of time in the first read. Subsequent reads become normal and believe me, Polity becomes one of the most comfortable and scoring portions in Prelims. 

4) Economy

First of all, I watched Mrunal economy videos to get an understanding of basic concepts. It was very helpful to start with. Then I read Sri Ram IAS economy book to further consolidate my understanding of different segments like Fiscal concepts, Monetary Concepts etc. In addition, I believe reading Economy section of the Newspaper is very helpful in understanding the Economy basics to all aspirants irrespective of their backgrounds.

5) Sci & technology

I referred to Vajiram classroom notes for basic concepts of space, nuclear and defense technology (difference between Geosynchronous and geostationary orbit, need for different kinds of satellites, India's 3 phase nuclear program etc). I also read XI or XII Biology NCERT's selected chapters for concepts of biotechnology. Sci &Tech is one such portion which can majorly be prepared by current affair booklets. 

6) Current affairs

For each and every subject mentioned above I augmented the static knowledge with current affairs. In the first year of my preparation I used to struggle with Newspaper reading as it was time taking and I used to feel that I am not able to devote time to other subjects. This anxiety was a constant in the beginning. In order to cover for my irregular Newspaper reading, I read vision monthly current affairs magazines thoroughly. The boxes in the magazine helped me build good understanding of the background, related bodies etc. However, later on I followed newspaper regularly and listened to onlyias editorial discussion & prelims booster on YouTube. As Prelims approached, I read PT 365 of VisionIAS multiple times to be more comfortable and quick in tackling questions.

While I was reading these books , I also tried to solve past year questions and that acted as an anchor in my preparation, gave me direction from time to time. For example, in the recent years UPSC has been asking at least one question from Buddhism or Jainism, then it is imperative that you read them in detail with special attention. 

 

PHASE 2: REVISE AND PRACTICE

Just two months before CSE prelims 2020, I made a very basic plan of revision. I listed down the sources I have referred for each and every subject as mentioned above and then allocated a rough estimate like 10 days for each subject. I kept another column where I used to update the actual time taken to revise that subject. It helped me balance out the remaining time in some subjects with those that were relatively vast.

This is the time when PT 365 is released. Since I had followed newspaper almost regularly in 2019-20, reading PT 365 was relatively easy and enjoyable process. Let's say I took 7 days revising STATIC portion of Environment Shankar IAS book, so on 8th day I used to sit entire day with Environment PT365 and finish its first reading. (Note: if the PT booklet is relatively thicker, then it used to take two days, and in first reading I used to avoid going deeper to complete it on time).

In this ongoing process of revision, I used to take out time for practicing mocks. I did not enroll in any prelims test series but bought the test booklets and gave them at home as per my study routine. Initially, as you revise a particular subject, you can give sectional tests to consolidate on your revision. After doing all such sectional tests you can go for full length tests. Generally giving test and analyzing them is time consuming, so I used to focus mainly on some aspects like my overall accuracy, number of questions I should generally attempt to maximize my score, gauging sections where I am strong or weak etc.

Note: there is no ideal number of mock tests that u must do before sitting in prelims. In my initial two attempts, I had practiced around 35-40 mocks and yet I didn't clear prelims. In my third attempt I hardly did 5-6 full length tests and yet I scored well above the cutoff.

Tests are time consuming and since I could not manage my time well in the initial two attempts, I ended up compromising heavily on the revision part which is very crucial. So, one must take these into account while charting the time table.

At the end of day, you must find out what is your source of confidence that will enable you to give your best on the Prelims day. For me, multiple revisions of static, current and solving past year prelims papers were more important psychologically.

The subsequent post will talk about those two precious hours of prelims in the exam hall.