- Prologue
- Act I: Mindset of the Enemy
- Prelims GS
- Prelims Optional
- Mains: 90s Era
- General studies (mains) of 90s Era
- Optional papers: 90s era
- Literature optionals: 90era
- The Back-breakingTM era (2010 onwards)
- BackbreakingTM era: Prelims
- BackbreakingTM era: Mains (General Studies)
- Adaptation
Prologue
- There are lot of tips scattered in various articles, but for a new person it is sometimes hard to follow what is going on here.
- So this is my attempt to combine and consolidate everything onto five part series on prelims cum mains cum interview approach for General Studies for UPSC Civil Service Exam.
- If you’re following this site for many months, you will find repetition of ideas and tips in this article, so apologies in advance for any boredom caused.
War on Terrorism UPSC, consists of three battles
1. Prelims (CSAT) | Multi choice questions (MCQs) |
2. Mains | Descriptive-essay type questions |
3. interview | — |
This strategy is divided into five articles, click on the appropriate links:
Topics discussed | Article link |
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Discussed in this article itself. |
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Click ME |
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Click ME |
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Click ME |
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Click ME |
Act I: Mindset of the Enemy
We can classify Bollywood movies into eras- tragedy ridden 50, musical 70s and so on.
Similarly UPSC question papers too have gone through evolution.
To keep it simple, I would classify this into two phases
90s era | Back breakingTM era | ||
Timeline | Everything upto 2009 | 2010, 2011, 2012…continued | |
Prelims | Main areas |
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Weapons |
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Mains | Main areas |
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Weapons |
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Mostly Newspapers, your own notes. |
So how was the 90s era?
- Most people did not have internet or computer. Internet was prohibitively expensive. Even cybercafés were hard to find. There was hardly any information on internet, about how to prepare for this exam.
- And whether information/booklist was available was mostly jingoistic and impractical in nature. (will be discussed in Act II “List of Not recommended Books”)
- Those who could afford to goto Delhi for coaching, had distinct advantage over others. Because they knew what to prepare, from where to prepare and what to skip. (Nowadays situation has drastically changed).
in those days, Prelims had two papers
- General Studies (150 marks)
- Optional Subject (300 marks)
There existed a proportional representation system rule. Crudely speaking it means
- Suppose 2 lakh students appeared in prelims and 20,000 had History optional. (10%)
- And UPSC wanted only pass 10,000 students for next stage –mains exam. In that case, UPSC would need to reserve 1000 seats for candidates with history optional. (10%)
Prelims GS
By and large the structure for prelims was like following
- There would be about 20 questions on History. You had to Mugup old NCERT + any coaching notes regarding location of Harappa sites and other boring trivial things.
- There would be 30-40 questions on Geography (including places in news): so you had to prepare old NCERTs + competitive magazines + TheHindu accordingly.
- About 40 questions on science: NCERT + GS manual.
- Prelims GS questions used to be current affairs heavy : Almost 40 questions on persons/places in news, books-authors, sports, awards, science-tech etc. so competitive magazines (chronicle wizard etc) and coaching class material on current affairs compilation were precious.
- Remaining was filled up with polity, aptitude etc questions to make a paper with total 150 questions.
Prelims Optional
Let’s consider the case of Public Administration. The topicwise breakup was pretty much identical every year. Basically you had to mugup following books religiously and you would clear the prelims (even without coaching or great command over GS).
- M.Laxmikanth’s book on Public Administration
- Prasad and Prasad
- Mohit Bhattacharya
- Sharma n Sadana (or Avasthi or Fadia)
But in those years, if you lived in a small town, there was no internet and nobody to tell you those books were important. So you had to join a coaching class in Delhi, just to figure out the damn booklist (or worst- fail in first attempt and learn from mistakes).
- Overall, The nature of prelims questions was such that you’d need to mugup lot of data on solar planets, PSLV missions, metal-alloys, location of Harappan sites, winners of lawn tennis, Shanti-Swaroop Bhatnagar awardees and other boring things like that.
- Same for your optional subjects. (for Public Administration you had to mugup quotes-who said what, books and authors, timelines etc.
- Because of the proportional representation rule, in the preliminary exam you were only competing with the people from your optional subject group.
- And thus Senior player had distinct advantage over first timers. Because optionals were worth 300 mark, and he had rock solid command over facts because of revision.
- The victory rule was straight arithmetic:
- If Someone revised above cited Public Administration books for 15-20 times (I’m not kidding) then he was riding a Tata Sumo @90 kmph.
- If a newguy had barely read them 5 times, so he was riding a desi Atlas bicycle (used by postmen,).
- Now imagine what would happen if these two clashed?
- Same was the situation in General studies paper.
And as I told earlier, there was no internet or awareness outside Delhi. So most of the “small-town, self-preparation-no coaching and no relative in civil service” type candidates would fail in their first attempt, because
- they did not have idea on what to prepare, what to skip.
- They could not memorize as much as a senior player did, because of timelimit.
So they’d fail in first attempt, learn from their mistakes, and clear prelims in second attempt (i.e. when they too become senior players). But then they might fail in mains exam for the same reason (lack of right direction), so they’d again rectify mistakes in third attempt and with God and goodluck willing, they’d get selected. Ofcourse there were exceptional cases, but by and large, this was the situation and hence there exists a perception in the society that
- You cannot clear IAS exam on first trial.
- You cannot clear IAS exam without going to Delhi for Coaching.
But that was the 90s. Things have changed now. Many toppers have defied above rules. Cleared the UPSC on first attempt: Shah Faisal, Karthik Iyer, Neeraj Singh, Mohd.Safi to name a few.
Anyways let us continue discussion on 90s era- moving to the Mains
Mains: 90s Era
General studies (mains) of 90s Era
Questions often rephrased and repeated, so if a coaching class sir dictated the answers for previous papers / or provided notes, then all you had to do was religiously mug it up and reproduce the same in your answer sheets.
History
- 3 books of Spectrum: Modern History, Freedom fighters and Culture
- Bipin Chandra
In those years, UPSC would ask 2 markers on freedom fighters (total 10-12 marks) every year. So you had to mupup 150+freedom fighters from Spectrum’s book + coaching material if any. Again, senior player had distinct advantage because he would have gone through the same data atleast 5 times. He can easily recall freedom fighters compared to a new guy.
Indian Geography
- Again questions were repeated and rephrased for example
- “explain monsoon mechanism in India” and “why xyz part receives less monsoon” etc.
- So a coaching class sir would just need to consolidate good stuff given in Spectrum book/Majid Hussain /Dr.Khullar’s book and provide question answers for old papers. That’d be his “coaching class readymade material” and you did not even need a book, just mugup those class notes, and you’d get full marks.
Polity
- Sometimes directly lifted statements on DD Basu, other times merely rephrasing old question.
- Again same as above, coaching notes would save the time and effort.
International affairs, Economy
- You had to just mugup V******’s material and whatever was dictated in the class.
- Statistics was also pretty easy and conventional.
- There were clichéd questions on computers every year like write a note on RAM or email.
- Same for science-tech.
- And whatever Misc. current affairs was left, you could rely on Wizard’s special book on mains current affairs + Hindu.
Optional papers: 90s era
I’ve already talked about that in the Public Administration strategy article. Anyways the success formula was
- Re-mugup the same books you used for prelims.
- Get some fodder material from Yojana Kurukshetra. (or Readymade notes of H******** S**** etc.) and use it elaborate or spice up the answers with so called ‘case studies’.
- Questions were static, direct from the SRBs, repeated, rephrased. coaching sir would dictate the answers, Class notes would save the day.
- Similar things for History, geography, psychology etc.
Literature optionals: 90s era
- In the GS and Public Administration, UPSC atleast showed the decency to rephrase the question while repeating it next year.
- but for literature was so totally clichéd, even Saas Bahu serials look genuine.
- If you just studied the last 10 years paper, you could set your own guess-paper for the fourth year and upsc’s actual paper would 90% similar to your guess paper!
- For Pali or Maithali litt. All you had to do was join a coaching class or get some Arts professor to dictate you the answers of last 10 years’ papers. That’s all, mug it up and you’d get more that 300/600 marks (+ scaling system favored litt.optionals)
In short, first timer/no-coaching type player had almost 0% chance of getting decent marks in mains.
And among the senior players, if Senior Player A and Senior player B. Both had revised notes for 20 times. Who would be successful?
Well, questions like I said rephrased repeated every year. Mains Questions are of two types: analytical or direct.
- For analytical questions (Critically analyse India’s policy towards Afghanistan), you had ready-made notes dictated by coaching class sir, you just needed to recall and write the points. And Suppose Mr.A solely relied on that note while Mr.B upgraded his note further with fodder material from library book or retired professor or newspapers, then Mr.B would get more marks. Therefore quality of notes =important.
- For direct questions (like powers of the Pres of India or explain the budget making process)….in that case whoever could write more points (Mr.A or B) would get more marks. Therefore memorization skill=important.
The Back-breakingTM era (2010 onwards)
- So far we saw that in 90s era, A small town candidate without coaching or tips from seniors/toppers/IAS relatives, could rarely succeed.
- And By small town I mean every place except Delhi. (Same way for IIT entrance exam, everyplace except Kota, Rajsthan, is a small town.)
- Anyways, suddenly UPSC wakes up and realizes the problems faced by first timers and small towners.
- So UPSC starts taking certain reformative measures in the exam process to prevent coaching classes and senior players for gaining much advantage.
- This is phenomenon is referred as BackbreakingTM move of UPSC.
- The exams conducted in 2010, 2011, and 2012 are examples of that move. Now let’s try to understand what was changed during this era?
BackbreakingTM era: Prelims
- UPSC removed Optional subjects were from preliminary exam (2011 and onwards) it introduced a new thing called Civil Service Aptitude Test (CSAT). It had two papers GS+Aptitude. Both papers have same marks. So there goes the advantages associated with proportional representation, 300 marks of optional subject MCQ paper.
- Even in Aptitude, from 2012 It reduced questions from conventional Maths: to prevent Engineers/IIT/MBA types from gaining advantage.
- UPSC introduced new topics in the syllabus such as environment and biodiversity, rights issue.
- In GS prelims, it stopped asking trivial current affairs stuff (person/places in news, awards etc.) for example I’m copy pasting certain questions from 90s era
Which of the following organization won the CSIR award for S&T innovation for rural Development, 2006?
- CLRI
- NDDB
- IARI
- NDRI
Which city has been the venue of Asian Games for maximum number of times from 1951 to 2006?
- Delhi
- Tokyo
- Bangkok
- Beijing
Match the following
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To solve such questions you had to constantly follow current affairs magazines (or the readymade current affairs notes of coaching class). But Nowadays such questions don’t appear much in prelims exam.
- UPSC changed the nature of questions from History and Science. For example here are few from 1999’s paper
Q1. Match Following
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Q2. Volcanic eruptions donot occur in
- Baltic Sea
- Black Sea
- Caspian Sea
- Caribbean Sea
Thankfully UPSC stopped asking such questions nowadays. So you don’t have to mugup a lot of data like in the 90s.
For Prelims, Nowadays most of the questions are 4 Statement True or False (4TF) type. So you’re given one term/phenomenon and 2 or 3 or 4 statements. Your task is to identify the correct statements. Ofcourse it does require memorization, but they more aimed at checking your basic understanding of a topic rather than your mugup skills (like in above questions from the 90s) for example here are some questions from 2012’s paper
Q1. Mahatma Gandhi undertook fast unto death in 1932, mainly because :
- Round table conference failed to satisfy Indian political aspirations
- Congress and muslims league had differences of opinion
- Ramsay macdonald announced the communal award
- None of the statements (a), (b) and (c) given above is correct in this context.
Q2. Consider these factors
- Rotation of the earth
- Air pressure of wind
- Density of ocean water
- Revolution of the earth
Which of the above factors influence the ocean currents?
- 1 & 2 only
- 1, 2 & 3
- 1 & 4
- 2, 3 & 4
To get more idea on this, read following analysis of 2012’s CSAT (preliminary) paper CLICK ME
BackbreakingTM era: Mains (General Studies)
For mains exan, UPSC stopped asking conventional direct stuff from History, Geography Instead emphasis was given to public health, environment, sci-tech, yearbook and current affairs from newspapers.
To get more idea on this, read following analysis of 2012’s General Studies (Mains) paper click ME
Adaptation
And while writing all ^this, I donot mean even an ounce of disrespect to any senior player or his success. No one becomes senior player by his conscious choice, everyone wants to clear UPSC in first attempt- But things don’t turn out that way for many, So, he is a victim of circumstances created by the (supervillain) UPSC. And life and society is very cruel to him, as you’ll see in Act IV and V.
Initially UPSC had the upper hand in this war. When UPSC significantly changed the question style in 2010’s preliminary paper, most senior players were shocked and caught unguarded. But UPSC can’t trick them everytime. They’re fighting for their life and career. In 2011, 2012 they changed their preparation strategy accordingly and adapted to this uncertain environment. So question papers are not as ‘shocker’ for them as UPSC expects.
Similarly coaching classes have been trying to adapt. UPSC keeps an eye on all the study material released by prominent coaching classes of delhi, to make sure no questions are asked from such material. So coaching classes too have came up with new ideas, for example
- Nowadays ‘good stuff/ ultra-important topics ’ are not given in their printed study material but mostly dictated during the lecture. (Because printed material usually get pirated by Xerox centres of Delhi hahaha)
- They intentionally released their current affairs material very late (just 15-20 days before the exam) to prevent UPSC from changing the papers.
This is like a game of chess, you have to constantly keep moving your pawns and adapt to the moves made by the enemy, same way UPSC too keeps coming up with new ideas and new back breakingTM moves every year.
- In the end, competition is tough and exam is not friendly to anyside, anymore, whether you’re a coaching/no-coaching/first timer/senior player…you too should adapt and study hard else you’ll get massacred like an innocent bystander in the action movies.
This concludes Act I (Part 1 of 5). Here are the links to the Remaining articles of UPSC strategy:
i dont understand ka se start karu pta nahi chal raha hai plz help sir ji
I am beginner so can anyone tell me how to start please???
Doing a gov. job, is it possible to get preparation for civil services
Sir could you suggest me best books regarding Bihar Public service commission (BPSC). I mainly want Bihar general awareness in “English”.
I want to know whether graduation in any literature is required to take that subject as optional subject in upsc. Reply asap.
I want to know whether graduation is required in any literature to take that as an optional subject in upsc. Reply asap.
Great Work. Your Information is very useful for freshers. Thanks for this valuable information, it will help me in my preparation for IAS.
Guys… am planning to join the Insightsonindia teries for 2015 prelims, the cost of the test series is about Rs.5999/- therefore am planning to form a group of around 5-6 members for sharing the cost. Those guys are willing to be part of my team please do reply
hi,
were you able to form a group?? im interested in forming another such group actually.
Have have you formed the group or still waiting…..??
Even I want to join the group………
Hi Neha,
I think it will be a great idea.
I am very much interested in group study so that we can streamline our preparations and even we can connect on Whatsapp Group or any other Social N/W sites and benefit from them.
Regards,
Navneet
I am interested. I can get additional discount as i had enrolled last year. is the group forming process still on.
Dear Mrunal,Any clarity whether 2011 candidates will be able to write 2015 cs exam
here is the clarity http://persmin.gov.in/AIS1/Docs/CSE-2015.pdf
sir am i eligible fir IAS csat exam ? my one eye vision 6/24 (-8D glass) one eye 6/6 (-7 D glass)
yes eligible……but not eligible for IPS
Sir,I want to take zoology as my optional for main exam.plz direct me for this.awaiting ur reply
Please guide for 2015 civil services for a working professional
All the best..
yup , i m interested…contact me over my gmail ad..kunalkishore812@gmail.com
sir tell me the study material for art and culture portion of upsc civil services pre and mains.
regard’s
pawan
Sir I am a beginner in civil service preparation so I wanted to know whether it’s enough to read gist of NCERT books or I have to read NCERT books from class 6th to 12th?
rs sir I have completed my 12 in Hindi m & graduate in English m (b.com). and I have a atmosphere of guj m. I also want to take guj sahitya as opt sub .but confuse in selecting a m of writing mains ..please kindly guide me. is there a difficulty in Hindi m in spipa & mamta…… pls guide me
Please tell me about mains optional subject (UPSC) strategy. I have selected sanskrit. Am I right please tell me
sir pl tell me which study material i use for geography mains in hindi medium weating ur reply thanks
I am doing b.sc with maths,computer & management. I want prepare for civil services. Which subjects i will have to take in mains.
hey ! anyone can suggest me the optional subjects for upsc as I m doing my degree in agriculture, related to my degree
What is this ‘GS MANUAL’ mentioned in many posts and articles of you sir?
Priyanka, It refers to the McGraw Hills GS Manual.
Regards,
Navneet
Sir/ma’am
i had cleared my 12 and now i like to take up economics as my owners paper. So please suggest me of what to read, what shall do… So that i shall be prepare to face IAS POST. Thanking you
Hello guys i have graduation in computer sciences …..shall i take pol science and public administration as optional for mains
sir,
i am fy b.c.a student and my aim and dream to became I.P.S i dont know how to start upsc study….
plzzzz give me some suggetion
Sir,
I want application form for AOC Records Secunderabad Recruitment 2015 – 2016 : Army Ordnance Corps Records, Trimulgherry Post, Secunderabad
Total Number of Vacancies : 14
Name of the Posts :
1) LDC : 10
2) MTS Messenger : 03
3) Gest-Operator : 01
No application form mentioned in Advt.sir…..I also surfed in Ineternet
Sir last date is coming soon……Kindly provide me Thanking u sir,
shravan.
Hello, I am having doubts in optional subject of Preliminary.How much mark is alloted for optional subject and what is the passing range for it?
Thankz:)
Differences between data entry and typing test exam?
My son wants to appear for IPS.
He is in final year B.Com.
Pl.suggest how to prepare ips study ?
Any coaching class at Vadodara; Gujrat
Sir m 4m bsc non medical .. which non science optional subjct is good me for mains … n now m in 2nd how I strt preparing 4 UPSC