Suggestions for IAS aspirants based on my experience of UPSC exam preparation

The intended audience for this post are people who are preparing for UPSC civil services examination. This post is a general synopsis of how to prepare ourselves for this unique exam. I'll write more on specific things like GS, Geography and Psychology. So, here it goes:-

UPSC, to be very frank, is a test of your patience and ability to hold your motivation and efforts without being given immediate results of the efforts put in. Unlike IIT JEE and CAT, this is not essentially a test of your aptitude but a test of how much you know. Thus, the amount of information you know plays a crucial role. So, I think that the only way for cracking this exam is hard work.

Regarding the approach to study for this exam, I think that it should be exploratory and one should endevor to connect the dots. An exploratory approach essentially means that one tries to ask questions based on what one reads. For example, if you read an article on 'The population policy of India', try to 'THINK ABOUT IT' and ask questions like 'What is the population policy of china?', 'What is the population policy of japan, or the US or Europe?', 'How have these countries performed?', 'Is it ethical to force citizens to not have more than two kids?','How do we go about supporting such a large old age population'?. Being exploratory is thus thinking logically and trying to amass knowledge by extending from the existing knowledge. If you have internet availabililty, try and find the answers. Even if you do not have access to internet, it will help if you write the questions in a copy made specific for this purpose and ask some of your friends/teachers for the answers. You might also get these answers when you subsequently read other references/textbooks. Logical thinking is trying to ask 'How?', 'What?', 'When?', 'Why?', 'Is it always true?', 'What is the data to support the given argument?', 'What if we vary one of the conditions, will the conclusion still hold true?', 'If the same thing happens in the US/Europe/China/Japan, will it hold true in Indian context?' For example, most of us know that chlorination is used to purify water but do we know the mechanism as to how chlorine purifies water? Probably not. Why? I feel because we never asked anybody who taught us or ourselves when we ourselves read. So, let us not take things for granted. It will help surely to develop the attitude of questioning.

Thus, the exam is also a journey of exploration where we can appreciate the things going around us and develop a better understanding of the world that we live in. Ofcourse, there is no limit to what we should know. Hence, time management is also crucial. How do we about managing such a big syllabus? How much time should be devoted per day? How does one distribute his/her time among the three subjects? The answer is surely not simple and might vary from person to person. Rather than imitating somebody (the toppers, i mean) or following the premise that the number of study hours is directly proportional to the quality of study, might not always help. Hence, i feel that each one of us should be in coherence with what one is rather than forcing ourselves very hard. It is because this exam is a marathon race and running fast only bears fruits during the last phase. My personal experience has been mixed. Since i was working, i wasn't able to study regularly so it was around 5-6 hours on the weekends while one hour on the weekdays. Inspite of the fact that i managed to get through, i will still suggest you to develop the habit of studying on a regular basis rather than studying too hard one day and not studying anything subsequently. When you study on a regular basis, take an approximate count of the number of hours that you study. Try and maintain this strike rate for atleast a week. I don't think increasing the number of hours abruptly will help because a slow change will help. Studying should be in intervals. inspite of all the above advice, i would like you to develop your own style rather than blindly following anybody. The premise is hard work so whether you work hard in early morning or late night, in intervals or a continuous session is of little relevance. Work hard as much as you can, as long as you can. Motivate yourself on a regular basis. You can refresh yourself by watching news on tv or listening to news on radio. I also benefited a lot from music.

Another thing which gave me strength was that you've to score only fifty percent to get selected, be it prelims or the mains exam. Many a times, we are bogged down by the huge number of people taking the exam. But, if we think about it, our competition is with ourselves. Nobody is stopping you from working hard albeit others are also working hard but we need not worry about others. We just have to work hard to reach the fifty percent mark and then you are there - you've cracked the exams. I was extremely happy when i analyzed this from the marksheet of candidates selected in the year 2009 . Hope you would also be encouraged to devote yourself to hard worK and put in your level best effort. But, if you are still not convinced, then send me a mail at vikrampg@gmail.com . I'll send you the marksheet.

Another problem is that we tend to forget a lot. Since there is so much to remember, forgetting is natural. One can thus only minimize the amount of information that one forgets. I used to make notes of almost whatever i read, be it an article in a newspaper or a blog article or a chapter of the textbook. Making notes helps in two ways - when you first understand and write it in a copy, you are less likely to forget it. Secondly, instead of reading the entire book again, you just need to go through your notes at the eleventh hour.

Pnemonics - making formulas/easy ways for remembering a lot of things, also help a lot. Since there is so much to remember, one needs to devise clever ways of learning. For example, 'BHAJ' might mean babar, humayun, akbar, jehangir; 'My big elephants have no chronic problems' means mexico, belize, el salvador, honduras, nicaragua, costa rica and panama (in the order from north to south). Sometimes, they can be very funny and personal as well :). Cultivate a habit to learn things by linking places/sentences/words. Slowly and slowly, you'll do it. One can also discuss this among his/her friends.

I am also working on a more specific post for General Studies preparation, Psychology and Geography. If you have any comments in this regard, please feel free. When I was preparing, I wanted to talk to somebody who got through the exam so that I can ask what should I do and how should I manage. At the end of the day, I found nobody. I consoled myself that the only way out is hard work and that there is no magic formula for success. I still have an ardent belief in this philosophy of the supremacy of hard work, however if you still want to ask something, please feel free.

Do as you wish because you think no one is watching

This year IIMC selected only 8.5% OBC students for the PGDM program as opposed to the declaration of 27% announced post discussion with MHRD couple of years back (detailed out in http://www.iimcal.ac.in/iimc-cat-inf.pdf). Many deserving candidates, falling under this category, anticipating call from IIMC were left disappointed. One of the candidates filed an RTI against IIMC seeking explanation as to why quota of 27% for OBC was not reached. The RTI response can be seen on
Rohit's blog

As the RTI response points out there were total of 408 seats (241 general seats i.e 59% , 74 OBC seats i.e 18 % , 62 SC seats i.e 15 %and 31 ST seats i.e 7.6 %) in the previous year, while this time there were 375 seats (232 general seats i.e 62 %, 48 OBC seats i.e 12.8 %, 56 SC seats i.e 15 % and 28 ST seats i.e 7.5 %). In response, IIMC replied that due to lack of adequate infrastructure these decisions were made. Even if the reason is to be believed, no document stating why only OBC selection was reduced to 8.5%. The number of general seats were unchanged since there is a SC directive for the same. As per the SC's order, the number of general seats shall not decrease when compared to the base year (which I think was 2008-2009), is what the directive was.

Another issue is regarding the correctness of the RTI response. As per the response, they have admitted 48 OBC candidates while the actual number of OBC candidates admitted are only 39. We can ourselves check if the number 39 is correct by checking these urls - 29 OBC students admitted to the PGDM and 10 OBC candidates admitted to the PGDCM program on IIM Calcutta's website.

Even if there were internal concerns in expanding the infrastructure, Who is responsible for the delay in setting up the infrastructure? Why was the number of seats reduced this year as compared to last year? At least they were on the path to full implementation of OBC seats (3 % in the base year, 18 % in the last year but now 8.5 %). Why did take a step back? Additionally, no such information was shared with the candidates prior to their interview. Such ignorance on the part of premier management institute demands logical explanation and measures which shall be taken to avoid such confusion.

Another issue is that they have called 409 OBC students for GDPI and selected only 48. Albeit the number of OBC candidates selected including both the programs is 29+10 = 39 (another big inconsistency in RTI!! ) which dilutes case of people with high percentile and shows that they were more "selective" about OBC guys.

If you have any suggestions on how should this issue be pursued, please let us know by your comments here on this blog or on Rohit's blog or mail us at vikrampg@gmail.com or rohitesh.gupta@gmail.com. We are looking for a lawyer, a journalist or an RTI activist who could assist us in following up on this issue. Please let us know if you know one of them. Additionally, we were thinking if this issue can be filed as a PIL. If you know more about PILs and related procedures, please let us know.

Relevant Links:-

http://www.indiaedunews.net/IIM/IIM-Calcutta_hikes_fees_by_50_percent,_intake_reduced_11171/

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/OBC-reservation-in-institutions-to-spread-over-six-years/articleshow/5654132.cms

Information Dissemination Challenge

Rohit and I were discussing about a situation where information dissemination is critical. The idea is to have a counseling service in general (the broad theme) and to disseminate health information in particular. Let me narrate to you the exact situation which we faced. At 11 pm in the night, I got a call asking about an hospital in Lucknow (or a private doctor) for emergency care of a student (she studies in Kanpur in a school run by the NGO Jagriti) who was diagnosed to have a stone in her pancreas. The doctor in Kanpur (of Abhishekh Hospital) concluded that the case is critical and expressed his inability to treat further (after he had been prescribed saline and glucose drips + general antibiotics + pain killers for two days. The immediate thing we did was to think about any acquaintances in Lucknow and to call them and ask for information about doctors/timings/who is good or who is bad.

After this incident, it came to my mind that in this world, most of our time is spent in acquiring information and information really is power. There could be a case where the girl & her family would not be knowing anybody who could tell about the doctors in Lucknow. What about a situation where in we wish to know that which is the nearest hospital in our locality and what are the timings? Also, there could be cases where in we need quantitative information e.g which hospital in Bangalore is the best in Gastroenterology? Which doctor would be good for a bone marrow transplant? Which is a good as well as an affordable hospital?

Another thing that disturbs me is the lack of a streamlined way of accessing information e.g there are far too many websites for blood donation in emergencies but just because of the sheer number of players, one doesn't know who to contact when exactly one is in need. If we put ourselves in somebody's shoes who has to look for medical care of his family members, it appears that there are lot of avenues where people can be assisted. Mostly, they need information rather than anything else. How do we provide the information to them is a challenge. Additionally, if we can somehow use technology for streamlining organ donation, we can really make a change. There are lakhs of people wanting kidneys, corneas, lungs, bone marrows. How to do this is a challenge to me. I wrote all this because if you have any idea regarding how all this can be done, please tell.

Can we do anything about it is the fundamental question.