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.