What are the things I need to remember before I start my UPSC exam preparation?

UPSC exam preparation is a tricky business. You should do the right thing at the right time.

Self-awareness is the crucial indispensable first step needed for UPSC exam preparation. Wide consultation with people who can give genuine feedbacks would help you develop better self-awareness.

According to Jeffrey Pfeffer [ a renowned academician], “ one could have a personal board of consultants for developing our self-awareness and eventually developing a unique identity”.

The UPSC Civil Services is not just any regular job that demands you to work for fixed hours. It takes a lot of heart and devotion on your part to consistently deliver results in the Civil Services. Therefore, before you start preparing, you should know how to prepare for UPSC exam. For this, you must be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Further, you should also make your parents and family aware regarding the onerous task you are going to undertake. This is a crucial IAS preparation tip; since support from within would give you that much-needed confidence to go all out for the Civil Services examinations.

Similarly, an aspirant, who intend to prepare for UPSC exam, must be aware of the surroundings – the environment which he lives in, be aware of the social issues and events of importance not just around the world, but also in your neighbourhood. (UPSC interviews usually tend to involve questions regarding your hometown, district, state and so on as well).

The next step is forming a deep understanding of the UPSC exam. As mentioned above, the exam is conducted once a year and the cycle of examination is also a year. Therefore, it would need unwavering dedication and involvement on your part during the IAS exam preparation.

Where do I start my UPSC exam preparation?

UPSC notification on Civil Services Exam acts as the most important guide to your preparation (apart from what you are reading now, we would say). You can call the UPSC Notification as the first key to unravel the mysteries surrounding the preparation for UPSC exam. This carefully worded document is the most authentic source about the UPSC Civil Service examination.

We advise you to go through the UPSC Civil Service exam notification thoroughly at least one time during your preparation days (but this doesn’t mean that you have to read every single line of the notification – it is a document that runs into more than 30 pages, so be wise). It not only guides you through the scheme of UPSC exam preparation but also sets out important instructions to be noted during the application process for the UPSC exam.

Read about what are the 10 things you must know with regard to UPSC Civil Services Notification

The second important thing in UPSC preparation is the UPSC Syllabus for Civil Services Examination, knowing the syllabus tantamounts to know the exam. UPSC syllabus vis-a-vis holds two main purposes.

1. What are the areas to Study for UPSC exam?
2. How to present what you have studied while writing the exam?

Read and follow the instructions mentioned in UPSC Syllabus religiously to make your journey comfortable during UPSC exam preparation.

The third important thing you should do when preparing for UPSC exam is, talk to seniors about how to prepare for UPSC exam or what were their strategies when preparing for the UPSC exam. In case you do not have access to any such person, you could go online and read up on the blogs written by toppers to get a grip over their strategies which have proved to be successful. This would give you a fair idea about how to prepare for the UPSC exam and also about the mindset you should maintain throughout the UPSC exam preparation.

Lastly, you must refer to the previous year question papers of the Civil Services exam which are provided on the UPSC website – www.upsc.gov.in. Please take time to go through these questions to form an understanding about how UPSC frames a question and the areas that UPSC thinks important. This processes, if followed, would help you get an edge over other candidates.

How to prepare for UPSC exam?

Let’s get to the real deal of UPSC exam Preparation. As mentioned earlier there are no foolproof strategies in Civil Services preparation and no shortcuts either. The success always depends on your commitment to your passion of being a Civil Servant.

The most important thing an aspirant must understand, when thinking about how to prepare for UPSC exam, is that although the UPSC exam follows a three-step elimination or selection process, an aspirant must consider it as one single unit. As mentioned earlier, your preparation for Prelims, Mains and Personality Test (Interview) must be mutually inclusive. One glance at the UPSC exam syllabus and you would realize that simultaneous preparation must be done for the exam as a whole. The amount of time that you devote to each stage has to vary according to the need of the situation.

Secondly, we all live in an era of information overload. An aspirant would find thousands of materials [both in its hard and soft form] to aid you in your UPSC exam preparation. You would also be exposed to numerous coaching institutes and other ventures. It is important to note that accumulating information, books, and material is a habit that one must get rid off as you approach the UPSC exam (You must collect relevant information than collecting books and magazines). An aspirant must select those books, newspapers, magazines and even reference sites of the Internet very carefully. Again, the key here is to substitute “hard work” with “smart work”.

We will help you go through this process of clearing the UPSC Civil Services examination and become an IAS officer. In this course, let’s see what are the things that you must keep in mind.

GIVING UP THE BAGGAGE OF EGO

“A thousand-mile journey begins with a single step”. That single step while you undertake the journey of preparing for Civil Services examination is recognizing that this is not the end of the road. Your life would continue, take some other path and the journey would still go on irrespective of the outcome of the UPSC exam preparation.

Equally important here is to set aside any prejudices and ego that might come your way. Some of you might be great achievers, having topped school and college and attaining another tremendous feat in the lead up to the IAS exam preparation. But once you set your mind for UPSC, you have to start fresh, on a blank canvas, leaving aside all those excess baggage.

The degree of difficulty of UPSC exams lies in its simplicity. This is what makes the examination a challenging, yet beautiful process. Often with aspirants, complacency stems out of ego. At the outset, once you start preparing with NCERT and other basic books from school, you tend to overlook certain concepts, which are actually vital IAS examination tips explained in simple language. If you are late in realizing the importance of NCERT in UPSC exam preparation, that would be a costly mistake . and you’d have to wait another year.

Another instance where ego might get the better of you is while you write your UPSC mains examination. There may be questions that are simple, to which you might not have an answer. At that moment, your ego gets the better of you resulting in you spending more time on that single question, leading to crucial loss of time. Those few seconds could be the difference between making it to the merit list and losing out.

The most important thing is to accept failure gracefully. As per the latest statistics, roughly 0.2 % percent of the candidates, who applied for the exam, make it to the final merit list of UPSC exam. An aspirant must give up ego and work selflessly towards the next attempt in case you fail to clear the UPSC exam in the first or second or your fifth attempt. (You must realize that a whole lot of discoveries and inventions were results of grave mistakes and failures, including our very own potato chips).

Once you let go off your ego, you are faced with a basic question – “What and where do I read from?”