My name is Shivansh Singh and I have done my graduation in Electrical Engineering from IIT Roorkee. I graduated in 2022 and worked as a software engineer in Bangalore for 6 months before leaving my job in January 2023 to prepare for CSE full time. CSE 2023 was my first attempt at this exam and I cleared it with AIR-164. My optional is Anthropology. I am grateful to Mudit sir for providing me this opportunity to share my overall approach towards the exam.
I started preparing for the exam in 2021 during the final year of college. The main hurdle in my preparation was identifying the right sources for each subject including my optional. I was also sceptical about leaving my corporate job and taking the leap of faith to prepare for UPSC full time. In my opinion one should consider leaving their job once they are comfortable with the syllabus of UPSC and have a good grasp on decent portion of syllabus. Till then utilise the free time after job (3-4 hours) and try to dedicate 9-10 hours on weekends for preparation.
It is a myth that any one coaching is a one stop solution for UPSC preparation. Once I identified the sources for all the GS subjects I struck to them and focused on their revision rather than going for new sources. I will list the source for all the subjects below that I referred for reference. I took online coaching from Vision IAS and for many GS subjects my go to material was my handwritten notes from the classes. The only standard books which I revised repeatedly were Laxmikant and Spectrum.
I prepared from home rather than going to Delhi. For me the constant psychological support of family was important. To break the monotony while preparing from home, one can go to nearby library or take a stroll in the park and make some friends outside UPSC preparation. Giving some time to your family, friends and hobbies is crucial to stay consistent while preparing for the exam and avoid burnout.
Prelims Strategy
CSAT: I did not prepare for CSAT and gave only a few mocks before appearing for the actual exam. But I would like to share my exam hall strategy for CSAT. Usually in GS paper of prelims we go with an aggressive mindset and tend to attempt 90+ questions. I myself attempted 94 questions. But the mistake that many candidates make is carrying the same mindset in CSAT. I attempted all the comprehension questions first and then attempted only those reasoning questions which I was comfortable with. In total I attempted 60 questions. One should first attempt all comprehension questions and target 23/27 questions to be correct. For reasoning, every year there are around 15 easy standard questions from reasoning and mathematics. One should develop the skill to identify those questions swiftly and attempt only those questions. 50-55 questions in my opinion are a good attempt in CSAT.
Broad Perspective: In every subject of GS, the target should be that one should be able to attempt all those questions correctly which majority of serious aspirants are attempting. One should not run behind those very difficult questions which no one is able to solve. The source must be selected carefully.
Modern History: I referred my class notes and spectrum (4 readings within 3 months before prelims). Spectrum is one stop solution for modern Indian history in prelims. Do not skip this subject if UPSC asks very less questions from this subject in a particular year (like 2023) because UPSC tries to balance out the weightage in the next year
Ancient and Medieval History + Art and Culture: This was my weakest subject among all the GS subjects. But nowadays this subject is also working as a kingmaker because its weightage is increasing year by year. I referred my coaching class notes for the subject.
Polity: This is the most scoring subject of prelims. I referred my class notes and Laxmikant for polity. Laxmikant is enough to cover polity followed by multiple revisions.
Geography: I solely relied on my class notes for geography + reverse learning from sectional mock tests (this holds true for other subjects as well)
Environment: For static portion I referred to Sudarshan Gurjar sir’s videos followed by PT365 of environment for current affairs. Current affairs must be covered only after studying the basic concepts (and not before)
Economics: Class notes for static portion + PT365 of economy
Science and Tech: For static portion I referred to my class notes followed by PT365
IR: I did not cover this subject from prelims perspective separately but one should study it separately before prelims as weightage of IR is increasing year by year. PT365 of IR would suffice.
I referred to PT365 of only 3 subjects – economy, science and tech, environment. But I would suggest reading PT of IR as well. These 4 PT must be revised at least 4 times before prelims so that all the information is at your fingertips.
Practice Tests: I attempted 35 mock tests of vision (including 10 sectional tests) for prelims. Reverse learning from the mock tests is very important in order to further improve the knowledge base. One can cut down on number of mock tests to be attempted but make sure to go through the solutions of all the mock tests.
PYQs are the most important source for prelims and should be given priority over coaching mock tests. PYQs from 2013 onwards must be solved 3-4 times in order to understand the pattern of questions asked in prelims. Moreover, many times options provided in questions become full fledged questions in subsequent prelims. So, one must prepare the topics on which the options are based.
Mains Strategy
Answer Writing: During my online coaching, I used to write one question after each class (provided by the coaching itself) and then submit it for evaluation. The idea here is to have a basic grasp on answer writing before prelims rather than emphasising too much on it at the cost of prelims preparation. I had done majority of answer writing between prelims and mains. During this period of 90-100 days, the target should be to attempt around 4-5 questions daily, work on feedback and improve a little day by day. I used to submit my answers at ConvertIAS (for GS as well as essay and optional) and found their evaluation quite useful to further improve the quality of my answers.
Test Series: I attempted vision ias and Edsarrthi test series.
Essay: I did not prepare any separate material for essay. I utilised the content from GS in essay. The classes by Mudit sir on various approaches to write essay were really helpful and I tried making broad structure of 4-5 previous year essay topics before going for full-fledged 10–11 page essay. In total I practiced 12 structures and 5 full length essays all from PYQs.
My approach for 1st essay – Covering various dimensions like historical, social, political, economic, environmental, ethical etc
For 2nd essay – I tried making broad headings (3-4) which covers various aspects of the essay topic and wrote around 3 pages under each heading. I learned this approach from Ishita mam’s mock test copy
GS 1: I used the same sources for history and geography as prelims. For Indian society, I made short notes from Vision value added material on Indian society
GS 2: I used the same sources for polity as prelims. I referred to mains 365 for IR and mains 365 of polity for covering current affairs. I relied on my class notes for governance and social justice.
GS 3: I used the same sources as prelims for economy and agriculture. For internal security and disaster management, I solely relied on Shivin sir’s classes and handouts on edsarrthi. I changed my approach for environment and S&T as they carry very high weightage in prelims (around 25 questions) but they have relatively less weightage in mains (3-4 questions). I referred to Shivin sir’s classes and made very short notes on environment and S&T.
GS 4: I solely relied on GS-4 module of edsarrthi for ethics. The classes by Varun Jain sir and handouts provided by him were my only sources. I prepared a list of examples and case studies separately from handouts and revised them repeatedly. I think completing the ethics paper on time with some unique examples and case studies can fetch good marks in GS-4.
Anthropology
I took Sosin mam’s online coaching along with my job in 2022. In my opinion no coaching can act as a one stop solution for anthropology. Coaching provides basic understanding of the subject but one should not over rely on coaching for content. To gather content, one can either refer to topper notes or prepare answers in intro body conclusion format from standard sources for previous 10 year questions. I referred to topper notes for my basic content.
I found Laghima Tiwari mam’s notes (available on her public channel on telegram) to be really helpful and her notes formed as my base material. I added on case studies and examples from 3 sources – my coaching class notes, Vivek Bhasme sir’s book and Dr DK Bhattacharya sir’s lecture videos on archeology available on Youtube. After this I focused on repeated revisions of the final material and tried to attempt the mock tests within time limit. Time management becomes more important in optional than GS because here we have to dedicate first 5-10 minutes to choose which 3 questions we will attempt. This decision is very important and one must consider the rough final score in the 50 marks question while choosing.
Interview Strategy
Interview preparation is relatively more unstructured as compared to prelims and mains because the earlier stages have set pattern and PYQs act as guiding light but for interview it is difficult to deduce a pattern based on interview transcripts.
From my personal experience I can say that in interview it does not matter how many questions you were or were not able to answer, what matters is how you answered the questions for which you knew the answer. I was unable to answer around 40% questions in interview and was quite sceptical about my performance in interview but ended up securing good marks in interview.
The most important part of interview preparation is preparing DAF. Most of the questions are centred around DAF and having thorough knowledge of all the entries in DAF including all the places mentioned is essential to answer the questions efficiently. Many of the questions in my interview were based on electrical engineering.
Apart from DAF, I used to read 3 newspapers daily between mains and interview. I used to thoroughly cover The Hindu and live mint and read only the explained page from Indian Express.
My Advice
UPSC is like a marathon and must be treated as such. It is very difficult to study for 13-14 hours daily. In my opinion 8-9 hours of dedicated study daily is sufficient to clear the exam. The number of hours can increase 2-3 months before prelims and in between prelims and mains. Do not get scared of changes in pattern or unconventional questions in the exam hall. The unconventional pattern is equally challenging for all the candidates. Trust your preparation, have faith in yourself and make sure to give your best effort in exam. Make sure to take a small break after mains to rejuvenate yourself. It is very important to enjoy the UPSC journey in order to sustain ourselves. I would be happy to connect with any aspirant personally to address any of their specific doubts.
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