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UPSC IAS IPS Strategy

Intro
Five Part article series on How to approach UPSC Civil Service IAS/IPS Exam: Prelims, Mains and Interview
Books
Tips on Notes-making, Standard reference books, Yojana Kurukshetra etc. Explained here
Prelim-Mains-Interview
Detailed Strategy for General Studies, science-tech, yearbook, economy, history, polity, IR-Diplomacy with booklist, free study material given here.
Doubts
Basic doubts regarding Coaching, Working professional, time Management and Non-English medium
Backup
Some guidelines for adopting career backup plans incase you can't make it to UPSC

SSC CGL

GK / GA
How to approach General Awareness for Tier-I, explained here with free study material download.
Maths
How to approach Maths, Quantitative Aptitude, Trigonometry, Geometry for Tier I and II? To-the-point strategy n tips given here +free study material
Reasoning
General Intelligence and Logical reasoninig for Tier I of SSC-CGL exam: booklist, tips shared here.
English
How to tackle vocabulary, grammar and comprehension for Tier I and II.

SBI PO

GA/Computer/Marketing
strategy booklist for approaching General Awareness, Computer, Marketing, Current Affairs in SBI PO 2013, includes free material as well!
Reasoning (High)
strategy booklist for approaching Higher Level Reasoning in SBI PO 2013
English (Descriptive)
strategy, free studymaterial, essay list for the SBI PO English MCQ and Descriptive paper!

Others

CAT (IIM)
Ragtag strategy on get 90+ percentile in CAT-prometric test.
LIC AAO
Strategy for the upcoming LIC Assistant Administrative officers' exam with free studymaterial, jobprofile.
CSIR
Studyplan + Free study material for CSIR combined Administrative services (CASE) exam
State PSC
How to approach RAS, MPSC etc explained here
CAPF
How to become an Assistant Commandant in BSF, CISF, CRPF: strategy, booklist, free studymaterial provided here.
RBI
RBI Grade "B" Officer studyplan, strategy, booklist and free download material is provided here.
SSC (FCI)
Food Corporation Grade III exam
SPIPA
For getting admission in SPIPA, Ahmedabad, which provides free coaching for IAS exam.(Gujarat Only)
ACIO
Assistant Central Intelligence Officer recruitment: booklist, strategy

UPSC tips

India Yearbook
how to efficiently utilize INDIA Yearbook for UPSC prelims, mains, interview= explained in this 6 part series article.
5 Levels
Explains five types of players in UPSC competition and why daydreamers fail in this exam.
100 Days
Why you can't succeed with vague strategies in UPSC Prelims, explained here.
Newspaper?
How to read The Hindu/Indianexpress quickly and efficiently in less than one hour for Current Affairs?, explained here.
Art of Aptitude?
3 Cardinal Rules on How to approach Aptitude section in any competitive exam.
Quotes
Motivational and inspirational quotes for competitive exams.
Essay Tips
How *not* to write an Essay in UPSC Mains exam, explained here
IR
How to prepare India World + International relations (IR) topic, explained + free download material
Stat
Approach to Statistics and Graphs portion of General Studies Mains Paper II+free study material
R.T.I
How to file R.T.I application to UPSC? explained here

Analysis

CSAT'12
Analysis of the GS-Prelims paper and how it broke the backs of Coaching classes.
GSM-12
Analysis of the General Studies (Mains) Paper I and II of 2012 and how they (again) broke the backs of Coaching classes.

Edu Tech

Auto NoteMaker
Mrunal's Autonotemaker for quickly taking notes out of PDF files and Webarticles (Win XP only)
Hindu Reader
How to use Google Reader to efficiently read The Hindu online, for Free!.
OneNote
Learn to use Microsoft Onenote software to organized your notes on computer, quickly and efficiently!
Archive
Monthly Archive Index page of everything I've published so far. (In the old articles, ignore advice written before Jan 2012, because UPSC trend has changed a lot.)

[Tips] Yojana and Kurukshetra: How to use them for UPSC preparation without wasting time?

Question from a reader
I use to read articles of Hindu, economic times daily and cover articles of yojna,kurukshetra within a month.How to prioritize this as they take much time and eats up time of the subjects.
Answer
  • You don’t have to read Yojana or Kurukshetra line by line.
  • They’ve information on a few schemes, some suggestion for Development, [overrated] success stories of SHG and NGOs.
  • The exam oriented information in each month’s issue, can be summerized in a note in barely 2 pages or even less, depending on your notes-making skill. [Most of the names,dates,numbers and data-tables given in the magazine, are useless from exam point of view.]
  • So, just scan through the pages, note down any useful fodder related to schemes and Development [which you can use in descriptive answers or essay] and then throw away the magazine in the store-room [or delete the pdf file from the harddisk].
  • This exercise should take less than two hours and two A4 sized pages, each month for each magazine of Yojana and Kurukshetra.

Regarding How to read newspapers,- read this article
http://mrunal.org/2012/06/current-affairs-ias.html

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25 comments to [Tips] Yojana and Kurukshetra: How to use them for UPSC preparation without wasting time?

  • Sds
    Reply to this comment

    i read hindu within 1 hr now.. thanx to mrunal

    • aditya jalan
      Reply to this comment

      how to read the Hindu in 1 hour please tell just be specific with the news which you first read,which news to skip ,which news to read only overview(HEADLINE).
      take any date news paper as reference.
      and tell how to tackle time with G.S. optional daily for e.g. take 2 subject a day or day by day switch regularly.

      • Mrunal
        Reply to this comment

        how to read the Hindu in 1 hour please tell just be specific with the news which you first read,which news to skip ,which news to read only overview(HEADLINE).

        It is already explained in this article:
        http://mrunal.org/2012/06/current-affairs-ias.html

        tell how to tackle time with G.S. optional daily for e.g. take 2 subject a day or day by day switch regularly.

        depends on individual’s taste and study habit. No cut and dried methods here.

  • aditya jalan
    Reply to this comment

    hello sir
    i have to ask one question please tell is i have to work on writing skill together with my preparation for optional and G.S.(i have started from last 2 month) or should i prepare for it after pre. exam.

  • dhaval
    Reply to this comment

    hello sir.

    i have one question that if i dont read the hindu and will read indian express or times as they are easily available here in ahmedabad as in case of hindu u know u have to subscribe it or u have to ask for a copy from a retailer or a vendor from whom u get ur daily news paper, it cost more than 400 when the above two cant cost even half of that of hindu together. so please sir let me know does it make any difference to my preperation of current affairs,

    thanks sir

    • Mrunal
      Reply to this comment

      you can use Indian Express. It is a good substitute for The Hindu.
      Times of India = not good for UPSC preparation

  • joe
    Reply to this comment

    hey !
    how many hours should one study on an average ?
    i am a full time preparer.
    I dont have any contacts with other preparers… which is why i am asking…
    regarding my speed of study.. i can cover say geography topics faster.. like say one topic-geomorphology in a day.. but polity and pub ad does drag me..
    hope you will clear my doubts..

  • cmvt
    Reply to this comment

    Hi mrunul…from where can we download PDFs of Yojana or kurukshetra as u have mentioned in the article. Thanks for your help.

  • raghava
    Reply to this comment

    Sir please help me to improve writing skills and reading skills.thank u.

  • pooja
    Reply to this comment

    hi sir.. please tell me how to do study for prelims.?

  • kumar saurabh
    Reply to this comment

    In your opinion, which paper is better ? hindu or indian express? I got a chance(and time) to read In. Ex. recently and found it to be more explanatory and conataing diversified topics( i.e. topics relevant to gs mains).Suggest any one only.

  • Gagan
    Reply to this comment

    I appreciate your help in this 1.5 yr preps for the UPSC Exam. When can we find the latest issues of frontline and yojana on your blog?

  • Bidya Goswami
    Reply to this comment

    hi mrunal,your contribution to those preparing for competitive exams is commendable.can u plz suggest me the strategy and study plan for geology as an optional for upsc mains.

  • kiran
    Reply to this comment

    thankx for vital info…
    kindly explain how to use chronicle…

  • Prem
    Reply to this comment

    I am going to complete my graduation in 2014. Am I eligible for CSAT which will be held in 2013.

    Waiting for the response.

  • PANKAJ
    Reply to this comment

    sir is there any way to get to know about the last 6 months general knowledge … as i have jst started preparing for the upsc exam …
    thanks in advance …

  • Saiteja
    Reply to this comment

    Hi mrunal, My coaching centre preferred me to study magazines, rather than following newspaper daily.. Does replacing news paper completely with Yojana makes any difference? please answer me, i m so confused

  • mohit
    Reply to this comment

    i have started with 2005 edition of history ncert 10 class as i have only that and 9 10 11 12 geography and indian polity doing from tmh.i am appearing for cpf 2012.would it be sufficient for gk and for sci i am reading post by you and reading from other resources so ,i am on ryt path or some other consultation i need to take.

  • jai chawla
    Reply to this comment

    sir i m preparing for civil services and i hve already appeared in the 2012 csat but not qualified even prelim. Now my problem is that im working from 7am to 4pm so i m not be able to manage my studies , please sir guide me.

  • Rajan Chaubey
    Reply to this comment

    Sir, Will u plz suggest some names of good GS manuals.

  • Gurusrinivas G
    Reply to this comment

    Yojana and Kurukshetra is that both required ???? and apart from tiz do v hve to read civil service chronical also ???? and what are the differents between these magazines? sir….

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