1. Bio
2. Coaching
3. Inception
4. Information
5. Study-Momentum
6. Strategy: CSAT (Aptitude)
7. Strategy: GS
8. Mains 2013
9. Optional Subject: Veterinary Science
10. Optional Subject: Zoology
11. Optional Subject in Mains 2013?
12. Compulsory papers
13. Essay
14. Insecurity  about “Profile”
15. Career Backup
16. Family and Friends
17. Interview
18. Marksheet
19. Wisdom
20. Bogus marketing propaganda

Bio

Name	RAJ KAMAL YADAV
Roll number	464985
Rank (CSE 2012)	21
Optional Subjects	Veterinary Science Zoology
Number of Attempts	First
Medium for Mains Exam	English
Schooling (Medium)	English
Centre for Prelim exam	Delhi
Centre for Mains exam	Delhi
Name of home town/city	Shikohabad (UP)

Edu

% in class 10	80.6
% in class 12	73.2
Graduation course and %	B.V.Sc & A .H 86.9 %
Name of college and year of passing out	MADRAS VETERINARY COLLEGE, CHENNAI 2011
PG (if applicable)	CURRENTLY DOING IN VETERINARY SURGERY 1st yr FROM IVRI BAREILLY

Extra C

1. Football is my passion played for school , college ,university, IPSC.
2. NCC
3. Did my externship in Michigan State university, USA on university scholarship
4. Prefer factual reading rather than fiction
5. Coin collection is my hobby

Family background

• Father – Bank Manager
• Mother – Social Activist
• Brother (Younger) – IIM –INDORE
• My Family And Friends (SAC ,SKB,SWATI ,INDU, UJJWAL,P.BABU )are my strength-they always believed in me.

Coaching

Did you join any Coaching?	NO but I gave a few mock interviews
Did you join any postal courses?	NO
Did you join any Mock test series?	NO.only stuff available online and free.
Did you appear in any other competitive exams? Provide details including success and failures.	Nothing at graduate level .after 10+2 many that is a long story .i will only say THAT MY JOURNEY IS MY REWARD

Inception

Every successful candidate has many things to say about his inspiration and all blah blah blah. My dream was to be a fighter pilot as I was a SAINIK school product but life took a U-turn and on joining graduation I decided that highest administrative service is my target. During this tenure many people inspired me. The most important fact was that fire which the comments of people created in me after my initial failures- Many said “ban gaye collector”, came back home I kept that fire alive all these years and now GOD has shown his mercy and blessings upon me. Other than that my senior UJJWAL KUMAR (IAS prob) always motivated me and his grand success worked as the final push and continuous push of my friends (Sac and Indu) helped me a lot.

Information

Q. Outside Delhi, it’s hard to dig how to prepare for civil service. So How did you gather the necessary information / strategy / booklist?

Ans. Seniors were a big help for this.and I was in Chennai, did’t realize the emptiness of not being in Delhi moreover I think now a days it does’t matter which city you are staying in .there is almost all the info available online.best e.g  mrunal.org

Strategy was very simple finish of basic GS like history geo polity and full syllabus of optional  in graduation itself later I focused on PT specially paper 2 I was confident to do well in it as my GS was just average.

Study-Momentum

Q. People initially prepare with much enthusiasm but then a boredom phase comes – they don’t even find the motivation to read the daily newspapers, let alone studying the books.  How did you sustain the study-momentum and fought the mood swings throughout the journey?

Ans. You pointed out this thing very accurately it does happen and happened with me too I think group study which we were having in college helped me a lot moreover I never prepared for UPSC solo. I was always having course curriculum and the stuff viz. exams, assignments etc etc which prevented my preparation from being a monotonous routine, and as I was spending more time in it I was having an inner urge that yaar I wasted so much time here now let’s make up for it and  study more.

Other than that I used to play and watch all my favourite series I think keeping fun as a part of life during preparation helped me.

Hours

Q. On an average, How many hours did you study per day?

Ans.  3-4hrs max, but for august to oct I managed 8-10 hrs(min)

Q. How many months did it take you to complete the core syllabus of GS and optional subjects?

Ans. For  GS I think 3-4 months. For zoology I took a long time, for veterinary science 1month as it was my core subject

Strategy: CSAT (Aptitude)

Topic	Books/sources
Maths	Nothing specific, just revised all basic formulas and concepts of 9 to 12
Reasoning	Did some stuff from my old RS Agarwal and my brother’s CAT stuff.your website and blog.
Comprehension	My brother’s CAT stuff and passages from whatever site google used to flash
Decision making	Ur website and my gut feeling as I was told that finally it’s you who should believe in your answer

• I think mrunal.org have wonderful stuff to prepare for aptitude.
• For comprehension the more u read it will be useful. I usually follow remove the garbage trick and keep a road map of whole passage in mind. Read questions to be answered even before starting the passage never miss marking your probable answers in passage understand the difference between inference, assumption, conclusion, theme, refernce because very often answer changes according to these terms being asked or mentioned in questions.
• And finally read as fast as you can, because here all that matters is time.so PRACTICE
• For decision making. I didn’t follow any strategy, only gut feeling .it worked for me.

Strategy: GS

		Book/ source
History	Ancient	NCERT
	Medieval	NCERT
	Modern	NCERT,SPECTRUM,BIPIN CHANDRA
	Culture	SPECTRUM,NIOS STUFF ,mrunal.org
	Mains	Same as above
Polity	Basics	Laxmikantan
	Current	Chronicle,Hindu
	mains	again same thing
Economy	Basics	RAMESH SINGH
	Current	CHRONICLE+ HINDU
	mains	Some notes from coachings my seniors notes.and current issues from economic times
Geography	Physical	Ncert and that book from oxford lenchong(name is very confusing for me)
	Indian	Only ncert
	World	Nothing specific
	mains	Just revised old stuff and chronicle issue
Environment, Biodiversity	Basics	Nothing specific just hindu and chronicle ,mrunal.org
	Current	Do
	Mains	Do
Science Tech	Basics	Hindu and chronicle and mrunal.org
	Current	Hindu
	Mains	Same
Yearbook / Govt. schemes etc.		Various ministry websites , india year book., prsindia.org, pib.nic.in
IR/diplomacy		Hindu alone

I was focusing more on my optionals so for GS I just revised the old stuff I have read for PT

To be more precise I mainly focused on polity and economy as I felt that chances of scoring with preciseness was more in these two subjects, for rest others I just read through the core syllabus

Mains 2013

Changed syllabus warrant a very good strategy for GS .because without it just forget selection.

Moreover I have not given much time over planning for the revised syllabus but as far as the syllabus is published I think UPSC has just elaborated the previous syllabus with more headings and sub headings with few additions like world history and disaster management etc so for GS preparation things will not be that much new and surprising .but the weightage which is given to it will attract more time and attention.

Optional Subject: Veterinary Science

• My college notes.
• Booklist is exhaustive and I almost got everything compiled in college itself.
• Left over topics were covered from websites and notes which my seniors already had.
• This is a very specialized subject and people who will be taking it as an optional will be professional students of this subjects so things will not be that much difficult to them, but still if this has to be an optional one need to prepare it in graduation itself or else the voluminous syllabus is very difficult to cover
• please do not commit a mistake of omitting strange single word topics! because UPSC is asking lot of questions from unconventional areas of syllabus.

Optional Subject: Zoology

1. Kotpal ( vertebrates and invertebrates )
2. Armugam (vertebrates and invertebrates)
3. Genetics ,ecology ,molecular biology from P S VERMA
4. Evolution from ARMUGAM and BEER BALA RASTOGI
5. Animal behavior  – Reena Mathur
6. Some coaching note from delhi.(for economic zoology and instrumentation)
7. Notes from my seniors .

Optional Subject in Mains 2013?

Q. Instead of two, now UPSC will have only one optional subject. So if you were to give Mains 2013, which optional would you keep and why?

Ans. I would have taken VETERINAY SCIENCE as I m comfortable with it and will be able to manage the question paper without devoting much time for preparation. The changed syllabus require more attention on GS  so selecting an optional with which you are more comfortable is very  important

Compulsory papers

Q. Your booklist/strategy for compulsory Regional language paper.

Nothing just usual reading

Q. Your booklist/strategy for compulsory English language paper.

Nothing just usual reading

Essay

Q. How did you prepare yourself for the essay?

I used to write down important points out of articles and memorized some universal quotations that’s all.

Q. Which Essay did you write in Mains-2012?

The one on PPP.

Q.Provide some keypoints/highlights of your Essay.

I  divided my essay into many sections like

• What PPP actually is ?
• How the idea came into inception of the govt .
• I gave lot of examples of various projects on PPP model and their success story Yamuna express way, e-loo ,airports etc
• In a small segment I wrote about the failures but pointed it in the name of implementation failure rather than policy failure

Overall I was in a strong support of the model and no where in my text I have contradicted my thinking and views about the success of PPP. (SCORE: 87 marks)

Insecurity  about “Profile”

Q. Many aspirants have the (unnecessary) fear of interview, thinking that “my profile is not good because  I’ve low score in class 10/12/college/ I’m from unknown college, I’ve no work experience etc.etc.etc.”   What is your message to them?

Ans. I think profile do matter but not to a level where It should make someone insecure, the bigger the profile the bigger the risk and the bigger the expectation of board .final out come a big fall if u are not able to justify yourself, you will turn out be a liar in front of board, so a medium profile is most advantageous.

This is my personal opinion it could be this way or that way

Almost 60 % interview was from my profile

I didn’t find any question uncomfortable but at certain points I was not able to convince the board on my views but somehow things were pleasant in the room.

Career Backup

I would have continued my career as a veterinary surgeon I love the profession

Family and Friends

Q. Behind one topper are many people who stood by him/her during those uncertain times when he/she was merely an ‘aspirant’. Would you like to tell the world, who were those people in your case? Any specific motivational/inspiration incidence that you would like to share with the readers?

Ans. First of all thanks Mr Patel for giving me this opportunity to express my gratitude for certain people. Yes there are many friends who helped me but it is my family who believed in me and stood as a pillar along my side always.

• Bajrangbali is always there for me and finally with his blessings I reached where I wanted to be. My father always motivated me to aspire the best, my brother NAVNEET always use to support me in all my endeavors ,my cousins are also very supportive.
• My friends SACCHAN, SURENDRA, INDU, SWATI helped me a lot, they were always there during my difficult times and I used to rely upon them for all the info I can’t access due to shortage of time, thank you guys.
• It was INDU who inspired me the most, motivated me and most important corrected me at every step.
• Finally Dr P BABU and Dr UJJWAL SIR-it was not possible without your help and support. I will always be obliged for your help.

Interview

Q. How did you prepare for the interview?

I myself prepared profile based  questions and tried my best to get a satisfying answer. My friends helped me in this task, Later I joined few mock interviews at vajiram ,CL and SAMKALP
Q. Who was the chairman of you interview board?

Lt Gen REDDY

Q. How long was the interview?

37 mins 44 sec (from the time I removed my wrist watch to the time I got it back.) main interview must be somewhere 25-27 mins. I was tensed as I was the first guy for the interview

Q. Provide the list of questions asked (and if possible answers also)

Chairmain

1. asked  about my school
2. Than why I want to quit the most noble profession of a vet to come into busy and pressurized civil services
3. Why veterinary universities got separated from agricultural universities? Was it right ?

First member

1. Why you football ? why football is not so developed in INDIA ? why cricket is so much money?
2. If given authority I’m sure you will give all the money to football ? When I said no-he asked than how you will proceed?
3. Recent initiatives to develop football?

Second member

1. Since you are from UP lets talks about your neighbor NEPAL.
2. What’s going on there? What is INDIA’s stand on all this? Is it right if not what should be done?

Third member

1. What are the issues INDIA facing in health sector ? At ground what is the most important problem doctors and veterinarians facing in the field ?
2. Different routes of infection? then a long and jovial discussion on it. Where on one of my answer everybody laughed
3. What is maternal mortality, infant mortality and our social and health indicators?

Fourth member

1. Why is Firozabad(my district) famous ?
2. Than law and order problem here and the child labour issue in glass industry.
3. What is MSME? Even after govt is spending so much on it why we are not getting desired results?
4. Difference btw CHINA MSME & INDIA MSME model,why china is doing better than us ?
5. Why we are not much of value added meat products even after being a rich livestock country ?

third member (again)

1. what is important sanitation or hygiene ? drainage channels will fall in to what category ?
2. Important diseases transmitted by oral route?

Finally chairman asked .

Dr Raj I personally think doctors are not good administrators. When I said no sir I don’t agree with it, he asked me to prove him wrong by citing some example .than a discussion

Finally he asked if you are not selected what will you do.?

And at last .thank you RAJ good luck and good day

Q. Was your interview on the expected lines of what you had prepared or  Did they ask you totally unexpected questions?  If yes, how did you handle it?

I think it was mixed one. Certain things about MSME were little unexpected but I did my best to manage. I could have done a little better but board was so pleasant and helpful that I got my natural flow of speaking very fast which I realized might not be very helpful. Rest all was fine

Marksheet

Paper	Marks
Essay	087
General Studies Paper 1	119
General Studies Paper 2	143
Animal Husbandry and Vet.Sc Paper 1	97
Animal Husbandry and Vet.Sc Paper 2	159
Zoology Paper 1	146
Zoology Paper 2	145
WRITTEN TOTAL	896
Interview	174
FINAL TOTAL	1070

(#Mrunal’s non-serious comment: It seems UPSC has decided to give only two-digit marks to most candidates in their first optional’s first paper!

Name	Rank	Marks in first optional’s first paper	Subject
Anoop	140	95	Agri.
Shefali	336	67	Geog.
Chandrashekhar	470	49	Pub.ad

although sample size still too small to draw conclusions  but it appears as if the Paper-I of all/most optionals was not only tough but also followed tough evaluation + ”step-motherly” treatment scaling. But then again, all ^these candidates have three digit scores in their second optional’s paper1. And that paper would be first optional for some other candidates, right? or perhaps this calls for a new conspiracy theory on how UPSC applies differential scaling to same optional depending on whether it is given candidate’s first or second optional hahaha! #end of non-serious comment)

Wisdom

Q. Through this struggle and success, what have you learned about life and competition? What is your message to future aspirants?

Ans. About life I have realized what my father used to say always: whatever happens happens for good and at the end GOD always reward the hard work-some way or another.

“My journey is my reward” I will only say that.

For future aspirants I would like to convey my best wishes and would say that it’s a long term motivation to excel in here, you need to read smart along with hard work and believe in yourself because when I can do it, others can do it and then for sure even you can do it.

Bogus marketing propaganda

You are well aware of the unwritten golden rule of conducting toppers’ interview: Final question has to be about the bogus marketing propaganda. So,

Q1. Were you a subscriber/ regular reader of Mrunal.org. And You can even say “no”, I’ll publish it without editing, unlike certain magazines hahaha.

Ans. Here I would really like to say a big thanks to you. I have been following mrunal from starting but got very regular after prelims and it really helped me a lot in mains.

Q2. How did Mrunal.org help you in your preparation?

Ans. The most beautiful thing about your posts is its simplicity. I used to read many things but retaining efficiency I used to get after reading articles here was jus amazing, your humourous and jovial writing is effective and very easy to understand.

Mrunal.org increased my knowledge which I used readymade in various questions.

Your economic survey analysis. I just love it.

Please keep up the good work. It had really helped me and it will help a lot others in future

My best wishes, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to share my experience with others.