Topper’s Talk | Rishabh Choudhary | AIR 28 | UPSC CSE 2024 | Classroom Foundation Course

So my strategy was that I used to prepare only one subject in a day. If I talk about efficiency, my questions are very rarely wrong in PT. My questions are very rarely wrong in Environment. This examination process teaches you a lot of things. And preparing sincerely has many benefits that will be very useful to you at any point in life. A question came in Prelims 2023: What are the states which border Ukraine? As I told you earlier, I used to divide the day into two parts. I think reading the newspaper is the most essential part of this exam preparation. My accuracy should be maximum. Even then, 100% accuracy never came for me. Just because of the fact that out of two options, you don't know one. You should not leave it. [Music] [Music] Good evening everyone. Am I audible till the end? Okay, I welcome you all to the Toppers Talk at Vision IAS. Thank you all for coming. Today we have a very special topper with us. We have Mr. Rishabh Chaudhary, All India Rank 28, UPSC CSE 2024. And why do I say that he is a very special topper? Because he is also a Foundation Course student with Vision IAS. So, two years back, he was sitting right in the same place, having the same speculations that you all have right now. He is very special because you all can imbibe a lot because of the similar journey. Right? So, I welcome Mr. Rishabh here. Rishabh was born in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh. He did his primary education from there. After which he did his Bachelor in Technology from MAIT, Bhopal in Computer Science. Post which Rishabh has worked for two years with Deutsche Bank, uh, I know that you must have heard of the name, right? Anyone? Okay. So, having this brilliant experience, he started preparing for UPSC CSE and he cleared the examination in his third attempt. In the first attempt itself, Rishabh also appeared for the Forest Services interview, right? So, he is an epitome of hard work and smart work combined together. And I am sure that you all will have a lot to learn from him. Having said that, I welcome Mr. Rishabh Chaudhary to the dais. Please, sir. So, before I give the stage to sir, I would ask our esteemed faculties to please felicitate Rishabh. Sir, Ashok Sir, I will ask you to please request your presence and felicitate Rishabh. Please give him a huge round of applause. Next, next, I ask Mr. Himanshu Khatri Sir, please felicitate sir. Book. [Applause] Now I will ask Kaniska Sir to please come over and felicitate sir with the plant. [Applause] So, now I am giving the mic to sir to help you all gather from his knowledge. Please give him a huge round of applause for that. Hello. Can everybody see the screen on here? Hi, good afternoon to all. My name is Rishabh Chaudhary, uh, and I have secured All India Rank 28 in UPSC Examination 2024. Uh, first, let me, uh, uh, tell you what we are going to do, uh, today. Uh, so this is a brief outline of the session which I thought would be useful to you guys. So, I first, first, I would briefly introduce myself. Uh, then I would share the timeline of my UPSC preparation, which is going to set the context of our discussion further. Uh, third, I would be discussing the strategy of the examination, what I did, how I did it, and, uh, the timeline would set in the context of the strategy, uh, what I applied, uh, for Prelims, Mains, and Interview. Uh, then we can have, uh, a Q&A session. After after that, you can also ask questions in between. So, it is going to be a discussion type of thing. If you feel anything, I would be showing my screen presentation as well as my notes which I used. Uh, so if you feel like asking anything in between, feel free to raise your hand and ask the question right away. Uh, then I would discuss the challenges which I faced and how I would like to dedicate my, what, what are the reasons or how from whom I would like to dedicate, uh, the success in UPSC. Uh, then we would conclude towards, uh, the takeaways for the session. Uh, now, uh, let me just make a brief inquiry. How many students here are from English medium? Okay, good amount of people. How many students are from Hindi medium? So, I, our Hindi medium students comfortable with me talking in English? So, I would try to explain it in Hindi plus English format. So, I will try to talk in both Hindi and English. If you don't understand anything, or if you want me to repeat anything again, just raise your hand and ask right away. Okay? So, first, let me give a brief, brief introduction about myself. Uh, so my name is Rishabh and I belong to a Garoth tehsil, which is in Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh. Mandsaur, which is popularly known as the city of Lord Pashupatinath, uh, which is the only temple of Lord Pashupatinath in India apart from the one which is in Kathmandu, Nepal, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Uh, after that, uh, after that, I would like to say that I have done my Bachelor of Technology, my graduation from NIT Bhopal in Computer Science Engineering. Uh, in 2020. And after that, I have worked as a Senior Analyst in Deutsche Bank at Pune from September 2020 to September 2022. In September 2022, I left my job and I started to prepare for the UPSC Civil Service Examination, uh, wholeheartedly. Uh, uh, uh, so, uh, why I decided to appear in the UPSC Civil Service Examination? So, while I was doing my job in Deutsche Bank, there is this thing that what is going to be the next step in my career. So, I was having a good job, but I want, I was aspirational to figure out, to figure out what is the next thing, how I can accelerate my career. And at that point of time, three things were, three options were broadly available with me. One, I can do M.S. in Computer Science Engineering. Then second was an MBA. And third was in for war is in Foreign Service. So, the reason why Foreign Service, uh, option excited me initially was the fact that I was part of a global bank where my team members were from multiple countries and they were bringing different skill sets to the table, and we were collaborating together to work for a shared goal, to develop and promote our application. Now, at that same point of time, I read a book of a former diplomat, Sir T.P. Srinivasan, sir, and that the name of the book is "Words, Words, Words: Adventures in Diplomacy". And that sparked my interest in Foreign Service. And I decided that at that point of time, that, uh, if I had to envision my career 30 years, 35 years from now, what I would like to do for the rest of my life in career, and Foreign Service, uh, uh, was the thing which captivated my heart. I wanted to do it with all my heart. So, that was the reason I left my job and started to prepare for, uh, Civil Service Examination. Now, coming to, uh, the fact that what happened is that while I was, uh, working in the job, I didn't have the capacity or the time to prepare for the Civil Service Examination. I enrolled in a Vision Foundation Course online mode, but I could not, uh, complete the classes there. Uh, so, but still, I wanted to test where do I stand if I had to seriously appear in the UPSC. So, where do I stand between the peer groups and, uh, what is the level of my preparation? Uh, so without a lot of preparation, uh, without basically going through the standard books or even the classes, I appeared in June 2022, while I was doing my job, for Prelims. Anybody would like to guess how much marks I scored there? So, basically, I scored 34 marks in Paper 1 and 67 marks in Paper 2. So, I failed in both the Paper 1 as well as Paper 2, and in Paper 1 by a huge margin. So, that gave me a perspective, a reality check, that, uh, UPSC examination is a different ball game, and just because of the fact that I am coming from a technology background, I don't have the, uh, I don't have that understanding of the examination right now. So, that's why the decision to leave my job in September 2022 was, I had taken, just to maximize my chances for the success in this examination because I have to read a lot of things and I have to prepare an optional. Uh, uh, Computer Science and Engineering was not an available option in the Civil Service Examination. So, for that, uh, I thought that if, if I have to cover so much ground, then I should be wholeheartedly preparing for the Civil Service Examination. Now, after that, let me, let me make it very brief. So, from September to November 2022, what I did was that I finished all the GS standard textbooks and some other sources, which, which I would be discussing later, uh, to basically complete the static part of the examination. GS static part. In November and December, uh, what I did was that I started preparing for Essay, Ethics, as well as Political Science and International Relations. So, as well as, uh, Shri Utkarsh Dwivedi Sir's notes, which he has posted on his blog. They are still there. Uh, he secured All India 5 in 2020 examination. Uh, after that, uh, in January, uh, 2023, I completely pivoted my preparation towards preparing for Prelims. And due to some personal reasons, there was some fact that if I had not been able to clear the Prelims of 2023, it would be very difficult for me to sustain in the preparation without being employed. So, uh, that being said, I basically prepared for Prelims since January 2023 till the date of the Prelims, which was, I believe, in June, uh, or end of the May. Uh, till then, my primary focus was to clear Prelims at any cost. Uh, and I didn't have that, uh, long-term vision or clarity that what I am going to do after I clear, uh, Prelims. So, my vision was that first, let me, uh, handle the Prelims business, and then I would figure out what I have to do after that. Let me first clear the Prelims. Because it is, uh, it is, it is, it is a roadblock. In case if you clear Prelims, then you are not, you don't have the opportunity to appear for Mains, and just appearing for Mains gives you a perspective on how to prepare for the examination, uh, further. So, uh, after from September, from June to, uh, September, I prepared for the Mains. Fortunately, I was able to clear, uh, Prelims examination, uh, in this attempt, 2023, and I was able to clear Prelims with a good margin. Uh, I scored around, I scored 98.99 marks, and I cleared the cut-off for Forest Service as well. So, uh, basically, there was an improvement of almost 66 marks or more than 66 marks from the attempt in 2022 to 2023. So, uh, and after, uh, Civil Service preparation, after the Mains of Civil Service finished, from the next day, I started to prepare for the Forest Service Mains. And, uh, I, uh, appeared in the Forest Mains in November, uh, and, uh, almost end of the November. And till that time, the result of Civil Service Mains were out with the, uh, brief period of maybe five for 10 days, 10 days delay. Uh, and unfortunately, I could not clear the Mains 2023. Uh, I scored 733 marks and I missed the cut-off, final cut-off by eight marks. So, uh, but, uh, after some time, fortunately, I was able to clear the Forest Service Mains. So, uh, which I didn't expect at all. Because I had no idea. I had prepared Forestry and Geology in the brief period of two months. Uh, but just clearing the Forest Mains provided me the opportunity to prepare for the Forest Service interview. And after that, I have fully focused my gears on the, on doing my best to clear the Forest Service interview. Yes, ma'am. Please. So, tell me, tell me. So, if you allow me, I will tell you. So, as soon as my, uh, Forest, till April, I did Forest. Now, you have told everything, so I will wind this up quickly. Forest Service interview, I appeared in April 2024, 2023, 2024. And after that, I started preparation for Prelims 2024. And fortunately, I cleared the Prelims and I appeared for the Mains. And I think that I can skip after that. After that, what I will tell you in the strategy would make more sense. So, Prelims strategy, what is this? My strategy till now, does anyone have any other questions to ask? Does anyone have any other questions to ask? So, Prelims strategy. So, this is my Prelims strategy for the 2023 attempt, which I did from January to June. So, I had a time of approximately 150 days. So, I have explained it as a 3R strategy: First, you need to Read, Revise, Recall, and Practice. So, what I did was that the first 75 days, this is the score which I was talking about, about the improvement. So, first, what I did was that at that time, I, uh, in the first 75 days, I read my static sources and simultaneously gave sectional tests. Now, in the next 75 days, I revised it again and I kept giving full-length test mocks. And I have repeated this process for 75 days, next 7, and I have done multiple rounds of revision, due to which there has been some improvement. Now, what are the important things for Prelims strategy? One is that what were my static sources for the exam, you would be interested to know. Second, what did I do for current affairs? Where did I practice? Which tests did I take? How did I take them? And fourth, what did I do for CSAT, which is a concern for many people. So, for static sources, I have referred to very limited textbooks. For History, I have used Spectrum for Modern Indian History. For Art and Culture, Ancient and Medieval History, I have not referred to any books. For Geography, I have referred to 11th and 12th NCERTs. Uh, for Economy, I have used NCERTs from class 9th to class 12th. Uh, for Environment, I have referred to Shankar IAS book. And, uh, for GS 4, I have a study material from Vision, classroom modules. There are three booklets. So, I made my notes through that. Now, what I did, basically, it is not enough. Because I have not referred to many books, and I had that paucity of time. So, in that situation, to cover many things, what I did was that Vision's classroom synopses which are uploaded on the portal. I basically collated that at one place and I revised it, revised that multiple times for almost all the topics. So, if I had to show you how does it look. So, you can see in this, like, this is the synopsis for Art and Culture in GS 1. Uh, here, whatever was in the class, I added my value addition to it. So, this synopsis, I have not watched any, I have watched very few video lectures, and at specific locations where I felt that I need to do something. So, I have not gone through all the video lectures. I have just collated the synopsis and revised that to improve my efficiency. Uh, so that helped me, uh, basically to cover this ground, how I can cover the syllabus of GS in very less time. And this strategy was the same for all the classes because all the classes had happened before that, or I had done, I was not able to go through the classes. So, through this, basically, I did that I revised this only, so this became an important source of my static. Now, this helped me in multiple ways in the exam to improve the scores in Prelims. Now, what happens is that we attend classes, and I did not understand many things. And for that, I referred to video lectures, as well as I tried to see Google search, YouTube videos, all these things, and tried to understand many things. But this helped me to create the base notes for Preliminary Examination. Now, these notes are primarily, uh, for Preliminary Examination. They are not for Mains Examination. So, the reason why I did that for Preliminary Examination is that at that time, when I was appearing for the Preliminary Examination, my sole objective was to clear the Preliminary Examination. Till that time, Mains was not, I had not anticipated what I would do in Mains. My primary objective was how to clear Prelims by any means, just to get a skin in the game, that I get the opportunity to appear for Mains. Uh, because due to some reasons. So, in that case, I tried to do that, and through this, my static syllabus for Prelims was covered, and it was covered comparatively with efficient use of resources and minimum use of resources. Minimum resources and maximum output. In this, I, this was my basically strategy to do it. Now, for this, apart from the static sources, uh, what I did was that I had appeared, I had done many mock tests. So, uh, I have given more than 60 mock tests for Preliminary Examination. Uh, full-length tests and many more sectional tests. So, I believe I have solved more than 10,000 questions for Prelims, just to get the knack of solving MCQs and how I can, uh, improve on, uh, uh, on my marks. So, if I had to show you the logs that how I have improved my marks in Prelims, then you can see that when I started preparation, I was scoring very low in Prelims. So, can you check that in some initial tests, I was getting marks like 29, 42, because my negative marking was very high, and I didn't have that much knowledge base from which my marks could improve. So, what we feel is that when we give Prelims tests, we feel a little bit disheartened that our marks are coming low, what should we do? We are facing this problem. So, in that case, but since I gave multiple tests, so you would see that as I improved giving tests, and these marks in this Prelims paper are because I have solved the UPSC Examination questions before. So, just because of that reason, the marks are high. But recurrently, when I gave mock tests after revision, so you can see that around the end of May, I was in a better place, where my average score, which was initially coming between 40 to 50, started going above 80 plus. So, I was in a comfortable place at that point of time. And through this strategy, that one, I had fixed my static resources, which I would study. And second, I would repeatedly give full-length test mocks to refine my preparation, refine what, and I have also, uh, logged what are the mistakes I made, uh, and how I should improve on those mistakes. So, if I had been making mistakes of multiple negative markings, then I analyzed which section I am getting more negatives in, and I specifically focused on that section to improve it. So, basically, this was my primary strategy for Prelims, and through that, I was able to score decent marks in the 2023 attempt. So, does anyone have any questions about Prelims now? You said you read all the standard books from September to November. So, one is Laxmikant and Spectrum, all these take a lot of time. Meaning, and so quickly.

After reading, if you then took the test, you must have also made a revision strategy, meaning you were continuously revising while taking tests. You mentioned that what was your strategy for revising Laxmikant, Spectrum, and others? And as you mentioned a note on the Kyoto Protocol, you have integrated these as well. So, what were the sources for all of this?

As I mentioned, the sources were Shankar IAS's book, which contains the Kyoto Protocol and all the environmental things, international organizations, and treaties. The second source was Vision's classroom notes, Synopsis, which is uploaded on the portal. Those were my other sources. So, these were my primary sources that I have mentioned here. Very, very limited books that I referred to were Laxmikant, Shankar IAS, some NCERTs, and for Ethics, Vision's classroom material. These were my primary sources for Prelims. So, I did nothing extra through these sources.

And as far as the revision strategy is concerned, with the first round of static reading I did, I took sectional tests to understand how much progress I had actually made after reading it and how many questions I was able to answer correctly in that specific section.

Now, from September to November, I did this. Now, from January onwards, for Prelims preparation, what I did was I divided it, that I had to complete the entire syllabus in 15 days, and then I would take tests. Initially, I think it took me a month to complete the entire syllabus, the whole month of January, and then I took a full-length test. But after that, that time gradually started reducing. After that, I probably did it in 20 days, and finally, at the end of the preparation, I would revise the entire syllabus in a week and take a full-length test. And in this way, I have taken repeated mock tests. And it wasn't like I was studying all day and taking mock tests. My strategy was that I used to divide the day into two parts. In one part, I would do the mock tests at the timing when the main examination is conducted, 9:30 to 12:30, and after that, I would prepare for, I would revise the static part and the notes which I had, and I would evaluate the answers of that test in the evening, and that test would be finished on the same day. So, I did this because of that, I was able to complete multiple full-length tests. And just one month before the Prelims, what I did was that I stopped the full-length tests altogether, which are basically mock tests, and I solely focused on revision and UPSC PYQs because that helps in creating and understanding, that helps basically in getting into the mindset of UPSC and the language that UPSC uses.

There, we use a lot of elimination techniques. And I have identified that these elimination techniques are often not applicable to normal mocks, and we get a better understanding by applying UPSC's techniques to UPSC PYQs. So, in the last month, before the Prelims, I solely focused on solving UPSC PYQs, which I had already solved before. It's just the fact that I was solving them repeatedly to get very familiar with them, so that in case if any questions or any option from any questions is repeated in the next preliminary examination, I was able to solve or tackle that question with ease. So, that has been my strategy.

Now, as I am just starting my preparation, I face a lot of challenges with Laxmikant, Spectrum, and others. So, what would you suggest for that? Like, there is a lot of information. So, how were you able to tackle it so quickly in a month?

So, the reason is that I didn't understand a lot of things. As you are saying that you don't understand, I also understood very little. But the fact is that as you revise it repeatedly, you get to become familiar with things. So, in the first round of revision, I understood very little in Laxmikant. But just because of the fact that I had to cover a lot of ground, I had to read a lot of things. So, my sole understanding at that point of time was not to understand in depth, but to cover everything which is under the syllabus, which I have decided that I need to read. So that I get at least familiar with what is what, what are all the things which I have to cover for the preliminary examination. Now, after that, when I revised Laxmikant, or Shankar IAS, or Spectrum multiple times, through that, I became more familiar with those things, and I was able to answer questions related to those things more easily.

Thank you, sir. Did you leave all the questions of Art and Culture, Ancient, Medieval, or did you attempt them in the mock tests you were giving?

So, what I did was that for Art and Culture and Ancient and Medieval, I did not refer to any book. But I had that Synopsis of Vision for Art and Culture and Ancient and Medieval. So, these are the class notes, synopsis notes which are present, and I have added value in that where I felt that some things needed to be added, or very often it happens that when we take test series, we get new information from there. When we are reading something during preparation, we get some new information from there. So, I made digital notes, and the advantage is that you can add them at a specific point of time, anytime you can just modify them. So, through that, this was my primary source for Art and Culture. For Ancient and Medieval, this was my primary source. Ancient and Medieval is not part of the Mains syllabus, although it isn't from the perspective of Prelims. And there, even in Mains, you can always leverage the knowledge which you have acquired for Prelims to apply it in Mains or even in the interview. So, this was my primary source. Apart from that, I have done the questions from mock tests, but my efficiency or, let's say, accuracy in Art and Culture and Ancient and Medieval questions was initially very low because of that, and it gradually improved. But ultimately, even if I look at it finally, my accuracy in Ancient and Medieval is not that good even finally. In Art and Culture, it is comparatively better than Ancient. But if I talk about efficiency, then my questions in Polity are very few wrong. My questions in Environment are very few wrong. My questions in Economy are very few wrong. And I focus on those topics where I can maximize my score. As far as some topics are concerned where there is a lot of factual information, and obviously, we cannot remember everything, and very often questions come out of the blue in Prelims. So, in Ancient and Medieval, Art and Culture, I managed with this. After that, whatever questions I could answer, and if you look at the Prelims, I think that questions on Art and Culture and Ancient and Medieval history are on the difficult side. So, my accuracy was a bit low in Ancient and Medieval because of this.

Sir, the strategy was for 2023? Yes. So, the Prelims preparation I primarily did for 2023. In 2024, I basically repeated the same thing in one month after the Forest Service interview was over, so appearing, doing multiple full-length tests, and revising the same thing again. So, in the initial time, when I did full-length tests or sectional tests, it took me a lot of time initially. It probably took me 3.5 to 4 hours to analyze a 2-hour test. But after a certain point of time, you start to, because of the fact that it is an iterative approach, you are not basically, you, it is not like that you have prepared everything beforehand and now you are ready to solve a question paper and in which you are going to score 100 marks. It doesn't happen like that. It is an iterative improvement. So, with this iterative improvement, what happens is that you start to understand that this could be important, this piece of information in the explanation could be important in the actual examination, and some piece of information you feel that they are less relevant or perhaps not as much relevant as the other piece of information could be. So, you start to filter that out, and through that, your understanding of those explanations, and there are certain explanations where things are already highlighted, there are maps. So, that helps sometimes. And very often it happened that for questions where I was absolutely certain of the answer, I would not read their explanation. So, if for example, if I am attempting 90 questions and out of that 50 questions are correct, for example, out of those 50, there would be 25 questions for which I would not need to read the explanation. So, I would skip their explanation. If I felt that there was no important new information that I didn't know. Otherwise, I would go through them. And after a certain point of time, you start to understand or get a knack of the thing that this isn't, this you should keep in notes or this I never revised the test. That was out of the question because I have solved a lot of tests, more than 100 tests. And it is practically very difficult to revise the explanations of all the tests. So, what I used to do was either I used to take a picture if it was a physical test, or if for the same test, any digital PDF is available, then I would take screenshots of it and affix it within my notes at the relevant place. So, what happens is that I don't have to put in separate effort to revise it separately. When I was in the phase of revising my static sources, the notes that I told you, so I used to get the knack that this thing I learned in that test, it would get revised at that time. So, this was the way in which I approached this.

Thank you, sir. Okay. So, yes. Sir, it's about to happen. Sir, what is the role of current affairs in it, and sir, where should we read current affairs from, and is Vision IAS's PT365 enough? And there are many other things. So, sir, what should be our strategy to utilize the last few days effectively?

Okay. So, for current affairs, basically, my sources were the newspapers, The Hindu and Indian Express, which I used to read regularly. I used to read these daily. And the second was PT365, and the compilations that came, I used to read those. Now, my strategy corresponding to this was, and the third was that the information I was getting from the mock tests related to current affairs also helped me in current affairs. Now, regarding its revision, I used to do multiple rounds of revision of PT, the PT365 which I had read once, and through that, the information covered in the newspaper, and when I used to read the newspaper, I didn't read it superficially. When I read the newspaper, I used to go in depth. For example, a question came in Prelims 2023: What are the states which border Ukraine? So, what are the countries, sorry, what are the countries which border Ukraine? So, this is information that you can only understand when you go into the depth of what was happening, because in the news, there was a context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But this is information that can only be understood when you look at it in a bit of depth, that this could be asked, this could be a question that can be asked. And when you analyze UPSC's PYQs, you will understand that these types of questions are generally framed. So, when you do UPSC PYQs multiple times, you develop this sense of understanding that what questions can be framed from an article in the newspaper or a piece of news. And it is not going to be verbatim questions from the newspaper, that what is written in the newspaper article will be asked directly. It is going to be something that will test the depth of your understanding or test your faculty to go a little bit further and take that next step to inquire that, okay, in the context of this, these things will be useful in static. For example, questions can be asked about the boundaries of Israel. Or, if any environmental event is happening, then what were its outcomes? Questions can be asked about those things. What was its background? For example, if there was a recent COP related to Paris Climate, then what happened in Paris? Or what happened in Kyoto? What happened in the old COPs? So, current news, newspapers give you an idea about what is currently in the news, and you have to look into what is the static part of that news and focus on that, that I need to strengthen that, because questions might be asked from its backstory or from its static part, and you have to prepare that as well.

Okay, sir. Thank you so much, sir. So, my strategy in this was that I used to prepare only one subject in a day, because I used to prepare one subject in a day, and unless I finished the whole subject, I didn't used to prepare three or four things in a day. As I told you earlier, I used to divide the day into two parts. In one part, I would pick up any one subject and complete it. And in the second part, I would write tests and analyze them. So, my half day used to go in writing the test and analyzing the test, and my half day used to go in revising this, revising the stuff for Prelims. Apart from that, I also tried to do some other things for Prelims. For example, for Prelims, we have to make a lot of notes. A lot of things that we have to memorize. Like the names of national parks, what are the species, endemic species found in different places of the world, what are the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, what are the exercises that happen in different parts of the world. These are all very static things that if we have knowledge of these things, or what are the countries in which region of the world, mapping related things, and what are their boundaries, what is special there, and how it is relevant in the current context. So, all these things are used to form questions in Prelims, or if you have this knowledge, then you can eliminate certain options easily, which can help you improve the efficiency or the chances that you, if for example, if you eliminate two options, then your probability of guessing correctly becomes 50%. So, that helps in that aspect.

To be available for current affairs in such a situation, what are the newspapers like The Hindu and Indian Express, and sir, why is it still considered necessary?

I think reading newspapers is the most essential part of this exam preparation because continuously following news helps in developing an aptitude for what is happening, what is going on, and what could be asked. And more than that, I think newspaper reading helps you in general awareness about the examination and what is happening around the world. So, I think that there could be some people who might have such a strategy of not reading newspapers and solely relying on compilations of different institutes. But my strategy was that I used to wholeheartedly read newspapers, one, because I love reading newspapers, and second, I didn't find that it was not decent, it was not useful for me, because I can understand different things and I used to research what is in the backstory of that news. So, that helped me in improving my understanding of the current current current affairs events. And in compilations, and at the end of the preparation, like PT365, I used to refer to it. I did not refer to any monthly magazines. I used to refer to the year-end compilation that came, and I used to revise it multiple times, through which the understanding of these things, whatever is in the news, would get revised, and in the last moment, we could recall them during the exam.

Sir, UPSC examination is a three-phase examination. Sir, in which phase is it mandatory to read newspapers? In this phase, sir, like interview, is a newspaper needed? Sir, like Prelims, Mains, like PT365, PT Mains, but sir, if someone skips the newspaper, what are the bad effects, and sir, what effect will it have on the journey?

I think that there could be a number of ways to clear this examination, and what was my way was that I have not skipped the newspaper. I have not skipped the newspaper even a day before the Prelims. So, I did that very religiously. Meaning, the day before Prelims, I knew that it wouldn't come in the exam, but I had that habit of reading the newspaper daily. So, I got up and read the newspaper. So, not on the day of Prelims, but the day before Prelims. So, this was my strategy. There could be a number of strategies, and maybe some people could find out their different ways to cover different aspects of current affairs. But I used to follow the newspaper religiously and also believe that it is very important from my perspective to prepare for the examination. So, I used to read two newspapers rather than one, The Hindu and Express. And even at the time of interview, I increased the newspapers to three or four. At that time, I also used to read Economic Times and sometimes a local newspaper, Times of India or Dainik Bhaskar. So, for me, newspapers, I like reading newspapers. I enjoyed reading them. It develops vocabulary. It helps you in a lot of ways. It helps you improve your articulation, how to write, or how sentence formation happens. A lot of things that you cannot directly understand, directly identify their value, but objectively, it helps your answer writing, a lot of things, newspaper reading helps, in my opinion. So, I know I have not skipped newspapers in my preparation strategy.

Thank you so much, and congratulations on this success story. So, during the Prelims examination, I used to solve the paper in three rounds. So, three rounds are often not possible, depending on the examination, on how much time the first round takes. But I used to do at least two rounds. So, in the first round, I would read all the questions once. It used to take around one hour, one hour 20 minutes, depending on the difficulty of the examination, the difficulty of that paper. And based on that, I would initially answer 40-50 questions. And in the second round, I would try to attempt the remaining questions. And what used to happen was that in the first round, I would try to maximize my accuracy. Even in that, 100%

My accuracy never came, but I aimed for my accuracy to be maximum in it. And in the second round, I used to take some calculated risks where I would either tick the options in the first round, the questions in the first round, saying "This is right." And I used to mark that these options are wrong. For example, out of four options, I would mark that these two options are wrong, or this one option is wrong. And when I used to revisit them in the second round, then I didn't use to refer to those options which I had already marked. Then my sole focus would be to decide between those two which one I should tick now. So at that time, perhaps by reading the question again, I would get a little more clarity. Uh, so in that, however, the efficiency was comparatively less than the first round. And but it helped, it helped in a way that, uh, uh, you get a fresh perspective to look at it once. Sometimes it happens that in the prelims paper, you figure out that the answer to a question is found through some other question, or there are some such loops. Not a lot, there could be only a single instance in the whole paper. But if you do it in multiple rounds, then you are better able to solve the questions. And sometimes it happens that you may not be completely focused on the question, and when you read it again, you immediately understand what its answer is, which perhaps you couldn't get even after thinking for a long time in the first round. So this was my strategy to solve the actual paper. And this I developed by solving multiple tests. So when I used to give multiple tests, I refined this strategy in it, how many questions I should attempt. So generally, I used to attempt 85 plus questions in most of the papers. Sometimes, if a question paper was very factual, then I used to score very low, even less than 50 marks. But I didn't change my strategy because of that, because I knew that in the actual examination, UPSC's inclination is not towards very factual questions. There is a sense of, the paper, the demand of the paper is that you can eliminate options and you can identify, or at least identify what is the right answer and take some calculated risks where you are not able to exactly identify, but, just to, basically, increase the total number of questions to attempt. And, because in case, just in case, if you have a 50% probability of correcting an answer, and, you attempt some amount of questions. Uh, the marks which are deducted are one-third of the marks. So, ideally, if you are able to eliminate two options, you must attempt the question because overall it is overall. And it is something which I also identified while preparing that just because of the fact that you don't know one of the two options, you shouldn't leave it. Because if you look at it overall, it might give you net positive marks when you attempt all such questions. Thank you, sir. How your marks improved, what strategies you adopted for that, and sir, how you did your revision and then believed in yourself, how did you do that? Sir, please explain it well once. So, in the first, in the first attempt, I had not read anything, this synopsis as well as static books. So that it was like, it was like a check where do I stand in the preparation. Uh, at that time, I was deciding that I want to appear for the exam. Uh, in the second attempt, what I did was I studied everything. I developed a preparation plan. I developed a strategy. I gave a lot of mock tests. In the first attempt, I had not given even a single mock test. I had not given anything. I just went and sat in the prelims. In the second attempt, I did all these things. And slowly, I could see an incremental improvement in my performance. Initially, I was scoring less. Slowly, it was improving. So, if you see an incremental improvement in your performance, it gives you a sense of hope that you are doing something positive, you are in the right direction, and you can tackle the exam by improving incrementally, or you can clear it by giving your best. So, this was my strategy, how you will improve incrementally in it? Okay. So, I have used almost all the mock tests of all the institutes that are available. Uh, the ones which are available in the market. So, I prepared from my hometown. And what I used to do is that I used to order them, and they used to post me the mock tests at my hometown. And then I used to solve them in the printed form of the test which is available. So, in 2023, I solved mock tests, full length, because my primary objective was to develop a strategy by solving full-length tests, to see in which subject I am scoring less. What are my weaknesses? My primary objective was how to maximize marks? So, for that, I primarily gave full-length tests. So, at that time, I gave more than 60 full-length tests. So, I have given mock tests of almost all coaching institutions. Sir, have you made notes from the newspaper, and what is the importance of editorials which are there in the newspaper, and have you also retained the suggestions that are there? So, uh, first, I have not made notes from the newspaper. I have read the newspaper very diligently, that what is the primary argument which the author of the editorial is trying to make, and in what context he is trying to make that argument. But I have not made notes out of it. I have made notes out of the newspaper in the interview stage of the examination, because what I identified was that there, they ask a question directly from the newspaper article. For example, if there is a Silcora tunnel collapse, they are going to ask questions like that, which auger drilling machine was used. Uh, so, these types of questions you can only identify if you make and give reply to, if you make notes out of the newspaper. But in prelims and mains stage, I have not made any notes out of the newspaper. Okay, sir, thank you, sir. Uh, I have used AI. So, across all the three stages of preparation. Uh, ChatGPT, primarily. So, as far as the gaps are concerned, besides the newspaper, the PT 365 used to cover a lot of things which I perhaps have missed. And there is always a sense of feeling that I was comfortable with the fact that there could be something which I have not covered, but it's okay. Uh, I don't, I am not, I am not after going, and it is practically impossible to cover everything which is going to be asked in prelims. Even if I have given my best, there is a very likelyhood that I may not be able to solve more than 50 questions correctly in the first round. And for all the remaining questions, I have to make some amount of enlightened guesswork, that I have to eliminate some options here, and for some options, I am already seeing some familiarity, or there are certain aspects of that question which, which I feel are giving me an intuition that this is going to be the right answer. So, I was not after a lot of, a lot of material just because of the fact that I thought it is worthless to pursue it, because even if I do, I may not be able to cover everything under the sun. So, for that, my sources were: newspaper and PT 365, and whatever mistakes I made in the test series in current affairs questions, I used to look at them once again carefully, to see how I can avoid making the same mistake again, and I used to add them to my notes, or I used to highlight them and revise them again. Sir, you talked about economy. You were saying you referred to NCERT. Any standard book for economy? For economy, I referred to the NCERTs of 11th, 12th, 9th, 10th. 9th, 10th I read only once. 11th, 12th I revised multiple times. For 12th, I revised the NCERT of Macroeconomics. Apart from that, the synopsis for economy available in Vision's classes. I made that my primary source, and for understanding many things in it, I needed help from YouTube videos. For example, let me show you my economy notes. So, so this was my primary notes for economy. And in this, basically, whatever things were covered in Vision's classes, I read its synopsis and made it my primary source, and for the things I didn't understand, I took help from Google search or YouTube videos, or at some instances, the timestamp, because there is a timestamp which is also available there. So, I went to that timestamp on that video to see if I could understand it, and based on that, I improved. And economy, I think that answering questions of economy requires you to practice a lot of questions of economy, because there is a certain aspect of, there is a certain way in which the questions from economy are framed. They could be asking questions where they are going to test your critical thinking skills. That, can you go towards the counter-intuitive option, and it is actually the answer? For that, I practiced. For economy questions, and that was my primary source for economy. Any standard book? No, I have not referred to any other book apart from this. You handle mapping. So, in mapping, there were classes for the mapping part as well. So, I probably did the same for that too. Uh, I have added maps from NCERT, because I have taken screenshots from the NCERT which I read in digital format, and I have affixed them within this. And whatever current issues were there in the newspaper, I also took screenshots of their maps or extracted images from Google and added them here. So, this was the way I handled the mapping part. If you can see, these were the static parts of mapping: what are the maps of World Geography? Where is what? What is the highest mountain, different mountain ranges in the world, different deserts in the world? All these things, in which country, what is the specialty, different regions of the world. This static part, apart from that, whatever was related to current affairs, I added it within this. What do AIR to Harshita Goyal and AIR 3 Dongre Harshit Parag have in common, apart from securing top ranks in UPSC CSE 2024? They both began their journey with the General Studies Foundation Course at Vision IAS. They didn't wait to feel ready. They built readiness step by step with structure, strategy, and support. If you are feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure where to begin again, that's not a flaw. It's a signal. A signal that what you need is not more hours. It's better direction. And that's exactly what the Vision IAS GS Foundation Course is built for. Hence, how we guide you from day one. Structured, step-by-step learning. Prelims, Mains, CSAT, and Essay. All taught in a way that's easy to absorb and hard to forget. No fluff current affairs. PT 365 and Mains 365 filter out the noise. So, you focus only on what matters. Mentorship that adapts to you. Real one-on-one support to fix your weak spots, refine your strengths, and build your confidence. Test + Feedback loop. Not just marks, but meaningful feedback that helps you grow with each attempt. So, don't just prepare harder, prepare smarter with the same foundation that built toppers. Batches are starting from 28th April at 5 PM, 29th April at 2 PM, 30th April at 11 AM, and 7th May at 8 AM at Karol Bagh, and 17th April at 6 PM, 30th April at 8:00 AM at GTB Nagar. [Music] Uh, are we, any other questions on the prelims part? Was to clear prelims. Now, I had to make notes for Mains as well. Uh, for that, I had that framework in mind, that in what type of notes I need to make. But for Mains, I actually used a different set of notes through international, through these dimensions, points can be generated. Apart from that, the level analysis approach is there. There are various different approaches. What analysis approach could be there? Uh, so, through these approaches, I tried to prepare answers by generating points for Mains. In 2023, and notes for PSIR. So, what I, I basically took what Utkarsh sir prepared in notes on his Evernote, and I basically imported everything into my notebook and made it familiar in my setting, how I need to use this thing in the examination. So, this was my primary source for PSIR, Utkarsh sir's notes. Because he has made comprehensive notes. Apart from that, which, because of which I was not able to clear Mains 2023. First is that when I was preparing for the Mains examination 2023, there was a lot of ground to cover, and at that time, I didn't have that awareness of how a good answer can be written here. Uh, so, that slowly, when I gave multiple tests, some sense of awareness developed. But it took time. Uh, secondly, it can be said that when I gave a lot of mock tests, so because of that, what happened was that I lagged in the evaluation part, that what am I actually gaining from the mock tests I am giving. So, if I had self-evaluated or looked at it more carefully, that would have helped me in improving, improving from the mocks which I have given. I feel that I have not judiciously improved because of the fact that I appeared, I have given multiple mock tests for Mains, but I have not adequately used them. Third is that, what, because I scored 733 in Mains 2023, but my primary score was low. I scored good marks in GS, but my marks in Essay or Political Science remained low. Uh, because of the fact that for Essay, I had no background. I had written very few essays before that. I referred to Smriti Ma'am's classes for Essay, those five-six classes for Essay. From that, I got a basic understanding of how to write an essay. But despite that, the nature of Essay examination is changing in a way that more philosophical essays are asked there. And I didn't know how to tackle them. So, initially, it took me time to understand, I couldn't understand. In the first attempt, when I gave Mains 2023, and because of that, I could not identify whether the essay which I am writing is a good essay or not, and I was also not scoring very good in the essay examination at that point of time. Uh, the problem in PSIR was that because of the fact that I couldn't study many things in PSIR before this, I have not taken any classes, and I have not even referred to Ma'am's notes. I have referred to Utkarsh, Utkarsh sir's notes for my primary sources. And what I did was that I remembered his notes and wrote them in the examination. So, my understanding in PSIR did not develop that much. And just because of that, my marks in PSIR remained low initially. I scored 230 in PSIR, 133 in Paper II, and 97 in Paper I. So, because of the fact that Paper I was more of a theoretical aspect, my understanding did not develop in two months. So, because of that, my marks in PSIR remained low initially. Uh, because of those factors, what happened was that my Mains 2023 comparatively did not go well. And I could not clear Mains 2023. Now, coming to Mains 2024, what I did this time around is that I identified the mistakes that I made, and from those mistakes, I learned that, so, next 30 days, 30 and 15, one week before the Mains, I have not given any test. I was just focused on revising and revising the entire syllabus once, so that I can recall that thing in Mains. Because of that, this was basically my strategy of how to tackle Mains. Uh, does anyone have any questions on this? We will come to PSIR. I would come topic-wise: how I improved in Essay, how I improved in GS for Mains, then how I improved in PSIR. Uh, in 2024, I think I have not given as many tests as in 2023. So, I may have given around 20 tests this time around. Last year, I gave more than 60 tests. So, this time around, my focus was that how to give fewer tests and self-evaluate them. So, as I gave the test, this time around in Mains 2024, I had not joined any Mains test series. So, I primarily practiced on UPSC CSE and the papers which are available. Uh, and on those papers, I tried to self-evaluate for an alternative perspective, so that I could identify more from another person's perspective. So, I got an alternative perspective. So, I have given around 20 tests. But my strategy was that I do a self-evaluation of my test and do it from a sense of emotional detachment from my own copy. That if I have made any mistake, I should be able to identify that mistake and improve on that. So, that self-evaluation, I believe, helped me in identifying, because what happened in the last attempt was that at the end of the preparation, when I gave multiple mocks, I was scoring very good marks across the papers, except for the Essay. So, I used to score around 100 marks in GS papers and more than 100 marks in optional papers as well. So, that I believe certainly inhibited my ability to critically evaluate my own answers and figure out my shortcomings. That was the primary reason that this time around, I solely focused on how to analyze my own copy myself to improve my marks. Because nobody else has the nobody else has the same skin in the game to improve your copy except you. That no one is as invested in evaluating your Mains answers in depth as you are. So, primarily because of that, I thought that I would give a lot of time for self-evaluation. So, it used to take me a lot of time to evaluate. I used to take more four-five hours to evaluate my own copy. And in that, where I made a mistake, and how the answer can be improved. For this, I took help from AI. So, I used to develop model answers from ChatGPT. And those answers, of course, they are not ideal answers, but they used to give a sense of what are the different dimensions which are available, and which dimensions are missing in my answers, and how I can, those dimensions.

When I used to do the evaluation part myself, I used to update this in my topic-wise notes, which I had prepared for Mains. So, when I used to add these things, my notes were also incrementally developing with each round. So, in the first round for Mains preparation, which I did in the initial 45 days, I did not give tests. My primary objective there was to take UPSC PYQs and either search for their solutions on Google, which is available on different websites, or use AI to develop model answers for them and create a basic note. Whatever was topic-wise, or I would directly Google the topic and find notes from many coaching institutions' websites corresponding to it. I would consolidate them and gather them in one place.

So, let me show you mine. So, the reason people say that preparation for Prelims, Mains, and Interview should be integrated, and I also believe that there is an element of integration in preparation, and you always use your knowledge of Prelims in the subsequent stages of the examination. But for me, just because my sole focus was always on clearing the next examination from the beginning, from Prelims 2023, my notes for Prelims, Mains, and Interview are different. So, for Mains, I have made topic-wise notes which are different from the Prelims notes. For Interview, I have focused on different sorts of notes because I understood that the demand for it is slightly different. So, I made a different set of notes for that. So, if I show you the Mains notes, there I have made those notes myself, and you would see that there are very few things on a topic. So, for example, let me show you anything in Economy. So, for example, if there is a topic for Investment Models. So, my primary notes were: What are the different types of investment models? And what are their advantages? What are the different things which could be asked in a Mains answer? What are the advantages of this? What are the challenges? What will be the way forward? What is the primary objective? If there is some initiative like this, then on PPP models, I identified that some questions were asked in previous year questions, like what factors should be there to create a PPP model, to design a concession agreement. So, I identified those factors with the help of AI or online articles and wrote them down in a consolidated form in one place. What are the challenges in PPP? What are the advantages of PPP? And what are the measures which we should take? And if there are any recommendations or any committee, I also added their names in one place. And I made these notes for Mains and Interview in an introduction, body, and conclusion format. So, I had already prepared the introduction for it. For example, if somebody asked me what is a PPP. So, I had that definition: Public-Private Partnership is a collaborative investment model between government and private bodies to build, finance, and operate projects. So, in this way, I made topic-wise notes for every topic. And that helped me to solve the Mains questions. If a PPP question came, what I used to do is that I would use this information to solve that question, mostly. Or if it didn't, then it's okay; I was able to cover many questions through this in Mains. And very often, especially in Science and Technology in the GS paper, we get different types of questions which might not be covered by our static or topic-wise notes. But I thought that this is the most efficient way from my perspective. If I have topic-wise notes, then in Mains, we have a positive of time, a time constraint. So, I won't have to think of points on the spot. I have prepared these points beforehand. So, I will be able to reproduce them quickly. So, these are the notes which I made for. And here I have also taken help from there, but primarily I prepared these notes based on PYQs. The topic-wise PYQs available, I analyzed them to see what is being asked from each topic. For example, any topic, what are the things being asked from that topic, I wrote them down in one place, and what would be their answers, I also collected them in one place. And generally, these notes are so short that if you are making them on an A4 page, you can easily make them there. But I have made them in a digital format. I just maintained that I don't extend them too much. I can keep them very minimalist. Because I have to revise this thing repeatedly. And I had that perspective in mind that I have to revise the entire Mains syllabus in a week before the exam. So, I had that perspective. Therefore, I made very short notes from the Mains point of view.

Yes, yes, I took a lot of help from toppers' copies. What happened was, for writing Mains answers, this is what I understood from toppers' copies: how they are generating answers. So, if I explain how I improved toppers' answer writing, then what I did was, in answer writing, I identified what things constitute a good answer. First, you should be able to understand the demand of the question: what is the demand of the question? Are you able to address it? Second, I identified that there are many presentation techniques which toppers were using, how can I use them? So, for example, let me show you. I have made a specific sheet where I have written how I can improve an answer. So, in this, first, as I was talking to you about, what are the different techniques that go into making an answer. So, what I learned, I added it here. After that, when I saw toppers' copies, I saw their keywords. There is a lot of importance of the directive word, what exactly will be the answer to the question? It can completely change based on what is the directive word. If there is a critical analysis given, then we have to distribute it equally in positive and negative aspects. If the keyword is "evaluate," then we have to check its multiple dimensions: what could be its social implications? What could be its economic implications? So, going through these directive words helps in identifying the exact demand of the question and how you can address it. So, I tried to understand the meaning of these keywords, and based on these keywords, what answer I would write, I used to decide that at that time.

Now, about the toppers' copies you are talking about. So, what I identified from toppers' copies is that the first thing is how they address the demand, how they generate points in different dimensions, how they break down questions. For example, many toppers do this: they bifurcate the answer into different parts from the questions themselves, and their headings, the headings they make in their copy, are reflected in the questions themselves. So, they pick the heading from the question and answer that in a different sub-part. So, this I learned from toppers' copies: how to present this question, how to present the answer to this question. And second, toppers are very innovative in terms of their preparation. What I felt I would learn from them by looking at their copies: how they are using dividing answers into dividing the page into two halves and doing a comparative analysis. Or somewhere, where there is a possibility to add a diagram. So, how people are adding diagrams. So, I understood that by looking at that. And where there was a possibility, I also tried to add that. And what I did was, that thing often doesn't come naturally: at what position will I add a diagram or what will I do? So, I made that part of my notes as well. So, wherever I felt that I should use a diagram or I should add some specific embellishment to my Mains answer, I actually added it within my topic-wise notes. So, for example, if there is a question on IPR. So, I used to make this diagram in my notes, in my answer directly, I would make this to make it more appealing, more presentable. So, what happens is, with multiple revisions, it comes naturally that when you are writing an answer, you don't have to think much about these things. You can directly prepare this, you can directly present it there.

Primarily, I did it between Prelims and Mains. So, my primary source was the solution of PYQs. So, through topic-wise PYQs, I used to identify what are the things which are asked on this topic primarily. And based on that, I used to make notes. And they are broadly about: what are the advantages, disadvantages, what are the challenges in this aspect? What would you recommend? What is the way forward? And if there are recommendations corresponding to it, from any committee, then you just have to mention that recommendation in the way forward: this committee has these recommendations, and it would give a more authentic touch to your answer.

So, I am talking about the topics, meaning the syllabus which is laid down, and what sources did you refer to for making that particular syllabus, which is given as GS1, GS2? What were your sources to make the notes for Mains, particularly? So, as I said, first, what I did was that I made the structure of the notes which I was going to have. On one side, I wrote the keywords which are present in the main syllabus, and corresponding to that, I made notes on the other side. Now, there are topic-wise questions available on the internet. So, there are some PDFs where we get questions corresponding to each topic. So, I looked for those questions. When I was preparing notes for a specific topic, I referred to those topic-wise questions. And from that, I identified what I would need to prepare for it. And to prepare that, I did not refer to any standard book or anything. First, I searched. I copied and pasted that question to an AI model, through ChatGPT, and whatever points were generated from there, they gave me a structure. Now, what happened was, then I Googled it, and I found many answers where many examples were added, and I incrementally improved those examples. And what happens is, when you give tests, very often it happens that multiple questions repeat from that topic in Mains. So, whatever content you get in the form of Mains model answers, especially the forum's model answers, there you get many good examples. So, I just used to copy those examples and add them to that specific dimension in my Mains answers, in my topic-wise notes, and through this, I incrementally developed my notes.

Even then, I feel that I enrolled in that course, and it was very economical as well. And the ROI on that course is very much, I would say. So, from that point of view, I understood how to think in a structured way: how, if any answer is asked, and it needs to be evaluated multidimensionally, how you will think about it from different dimensions. And the approaches that are taught there help you in generating points for topics or for questions about which you don't have prior knowledge. So, it helps you to think in a structured way. And it was helpful for me during the interview preparation as well because there, if they asked me some question in the interview. So, just because of the fact that in the back of my mind, I had that structure of Mains preparation, I was able to think about different dimensions while answering it when they asked me some question. For example, they asked me a question: "How would you double the farmers' income?" So, there I applied the structured approach: what will I do on the input side? There is an input-output approach which was taught: on the input side, sir, we can provide quality seeds, fertilizers. On the output side, sir, we should do marketing reforms, improve agricultural infrastructure, provide benefits to farmers, maybe through direct benefit transfer. So, basically, those approaches help you in making a structured argument for your answer as well as when you speak. So, from that perspective, that Right Smart course gave me an initial direction, and after that, I built upon that.

Sir, you enrolled in 2023 Mains when you were preparing for '23? Yes, yes. This year I have not enrolled in any coaching during the Mains period. Thank you very much, sir. Compulsory Hindi plus English, sir. What should be done? So, for English, I have not referred to any sources. For Hindi, there is a small booklet which was available on Amazon. So, I ordered that. Inside it, there were solutions to previous year papers, essay writing, and apart from that, whatever different questions are asked in Hindi, perhaps their different solutions were there. So, I referred to that. Apart from that, I practiced writing Hindi because naturally, if I am making notes online, I have a little bit of a problem with writing, or I should focus on improving my writing speed. And corresponding to writing Hindi, I tried to write in Hindi, essays, through which my speed improved, and I was basically able to finish that paper, the Hindi paper. Apart from that, I did not refer to anything else for the compulsory papers.

They say that somewhere I feel that it takes seven minutes more time. For that, I had that rule that I would do questions within the 7 minutes, which is the dedicated time for a 10-mark question, and for a 15-mark question, within that time. Within 7 minutes, I have to do a 10-mark question, and approximately 11 minutes for a 15-mark question. And in case if I missed that time, then I would try to cover it in the next question. So, I would not carry a backlog or a bulge, such that in the end, a situation arises where I have only 10 minutes left and I have to do three or four questions. So, I used to maintain that from the beginning. And I used to try to start strongly. So, what I used to do is that before the actual Mains exam, I used to do some writing practice. I used to write three-four answers before actually writing the actual Mains exam. So, from that, I developed a sense that it makes me feel that I am not writing the first answer in the Mains exam. If I have written it before. So, there I would be able to approach it from a strong point. And if I start from a strong point, then what I used to do is that I would target that I would start the initial questions, I would start with 15-mark questions. So, in the beginning, I would try to do three questions within half an hour. So, that gave me a strong point that I try to do a little faster initially, and later, as we move forward, perhaps our efficiency in writing answers or our ability to pay attention decreases a bit. So, I used to do this, and the benefit of this is that my papers were completed in 2023 as well, and my papers were also completed in 2024. I have never missed any single question in any Mains paper because of this. And I made it a point that I don't want to miss. If anybody else is writing all the questions, then I should be in a position to write all the questions myself. If I am not able to do it, I think that something is problematic. So, I made sure that I finish all the papers. If it is a case that others cannot do it, then I would think, no, perhaps it is possible, perhaps it would work out. But if anybody else was able to finish all the papers in time, then I should also be in a position to do the same. So, I did this in 2023 when I gave more than 60 mock tests, then I was able to finish all the papers sometimes. And this time also, I have given fewer mocks, but I have given approximately 20 mocks. And in mocks as well, initially, my timing was a bit longer this time, just because when we start, our speed is slow. We spend more time thinking. But at the end of the preparation, my papers were finishing on time. In the exam as well, I maintained that thing: I used to give equal importance to equal questions based on the marks. And initially, I used to try to do a little faster so that I have that comparative advantage towards the end, or if I don't know a question in the middle, then it can take a little bit more time to think about it. So, in that, it helped me to improve, to complete the paper on time.

Sir, how much time did you spend on practicing writing every day? Like for improving writing speed. So, for writing speed, I used to prepare between Prelims and Mains. I focused on writing the mock tests. For writing speed, I did not do any specific single question or two questions. My primary focus was to give full-length tests, for Prelims as well as Mains, because you can write five questions per day, but it would not help you evaluate where your preparation is. Because of the fact that you are not supposed to write five questions in the actual exam. In the actual exam, you have to write 20 questions. And in the actual Mains exam, you have to do four papers back-to-back on two days. So, it requires a sense of discipline as well as the ability to endure such long writing periods. So, I always gave full-length tests. So, for a week, I would study, and then I would give a full-length test, and then I would evaluate. So, thank you, sir.

Sir, for Mains, actually, I had no background in Forest. The options that are offered in Forest, I have opted for Forestry and Geology, and I have prepared for both these optional subjects during those two months period only. And my strategy was that I believe there were some standard sources. Manikandan Prabhu, there is a book for Forestry, I referred to that book, and Apurva Dixit sir's notes.

I used, I believe, for forestry and geology as well. And for geology, I have enrolled in a planet geology crash course, which was, uh, available at that point of time, offered during that point of time. So, through that, I tried to prepare for forest geology in those two months. And as far as the difference is concerned, here there are subjects where, in case even if you don't know an answer, you can make points by structured thinking, thinking from multiple dimensions. And you can, you can come up with something. Even if you don't know anything, ah, maybe you are not going to get excellent marks for it, but you would be able to get something for it. In forestry and geology, what happens is that it is an objective paper, it is a scientific paper, so you must know the answer. If you don't know the answer, then you are not going to get the marks. So, I did not write any tests there. I have not done any tests in those two months. Because I thought that if I am able to complete the mains for civil service, then I would be in a position to complete the forest mains as well on time. I focused primarily on learning what is in the syllabus. So, for that also, I made topic-wise notes for forestry, for geology, and perhaps if I have them, I can show them to you. So, I made notes topic-wise. They are not complete, but you get the idea of what I tried to do at that time. The same strategy for that as well, that I wrote down the syllabus on one side, and whatever notes I could make, I made those notes for forestry and geology within those two months. And the idea was that I couldn't cover many things from the syllabus, so they are not comprehensive at all. And for that, I used Apurva Dixit sir's notes, and those notes are comprehensive from this perspective. So, by reading them, I was able to cover it, but I have not practiced because it is objective; here, you either know it or you don't.

Hello sir, sir, managing sleep cycle for best performance. Ah, so you have to have a structure to your day. So, I had that structure of the day during my whole preparation. I used to wake up around 5:00 am, and I used to sleep around 11:00 pm. And that structured routine, I carried on for most of the time, except on certain days where there was more. Like how I used to plan for preparation is that I used to make a big plan for the exam. Like for prelims, I made a 170-day plan, in which in the first 75 days, a 150-day plan, in which in the first 75 days, what will I do? In the next 75 days, what will I do? I also bifurcated that 75 days into: what will I do in the first one month? Or in 45 days? What will I do in the next 30 days? And then I divided it into weekly targets, and weekly targets into daily targets, that on this day, what targets will I achieve? Now, those daily targets can sometimes be overshot, and we are not able to achieve those targets. So, I carry them forward a little, and if some backlog is created, then I take an extra day in between, with a little buffer, and try to clear all the old backlogs of topics on that one day. So, that's how my structure was.

And sir, when we do mains answer writing, sir, should the words we use be simple or a bit difficult? It happens that sir, if we just write simply, it feels like it's a casual language, and if we write a bit difficult. Means, in mains answer writing, you have to address the demand, and simple language. I, this is what I did, that I focused on answering what is being asked, and in very simple and understandable language. Because my handwriting is also bad. If I write more difficult words, maybe they won't even read it. So, okay. I tried to present my answer in very easy, straightforward language. Okay, thank you so much, sir. When we, sir, I am asking about the 2025 mains, when, when you have, uh, got through this examination. Sir, how many questions do you feel that I have beaten around the bush? Have you felt that I have not, you just have a clue about the question, that this question belongs to this particular topic, you have not whole information to write it down. So, have you felt that I have beaten the bush around it? Maybe I am not sure that in how many questions I didn't have the clear idea or understanding. I had that understanding that I don't know the answer, but I am not going to leave it anyway. I am, I am going to write something about it. It may not be ideal, but I would at least finish the question, just because if I leave it empty, then I am not going to get any marks. So, I don't have the exact idea, but the approach I told, especially in GS papers, especially in humanity subjects, you can come up with some points which are partly relevant, not completely relevant. And I feel that the person who is reading the answer, because the fact that I did self-evaluation in 2024, the person who is evaluating your answer would get an idea that you don't know the answer by reading your answer. But the fact that you have made an effort to make some points could be marked, could be awarded some marks at least. I feel so. I don't know how it works out, how it actually gets evaluated, but I didn't leave any question. I made some points and I tried to make relevant points. I did not write anything out of the blue, which is absolutely irrelevant from that topic. I made some, if I have written something, I tried to write it relevant. In case if I didn't find anything relevant, then I probably tried to finish it a bit shorter, rather than filling the copy. I finished it in one and a half pages or one page. Because I didn't want the examiner to get the impression that I am writing absolutely irrelevant, because it does not reflect good on me, it does not reflect good on my intellectual integrity that if I don't write, then I am making absolutely wild guess work. So, like that.

Sir, there were questions in GS 1 like demographic winter and about, uh, some tornado which we call twister. The word was twister there? Uh, then how did you react to these questions? Do you know, have you read before the mains, this demographic winter and the twisters? These things? So, demographic winter, I was able to understand that it means declining. Have, sir, have you read before appearing for mains? No, no, I have not. I, I may have understood the meaning of the word demographic winter through reading the newspaper or somewhere, reading it somewhere, but I had never prepared the answer for it before. I just, I just knew what demographic winter means, and based on that, what are its reasons? Improvement in education, people preferring or prioritizing their careers over family, and things like that. So, I tried to think of those points and make them there. And what would be the way forward to tackle this, I also tried to make that there. One question, I believe, was on twisters. So, I had no idea what was twister, what were twisters. So, what I did was that I maybe understood that it is something to do with water, something activity which could happen in water or around water body. There was written Mexico Gulf. Yes, yes. After the mains, I thought, what is twister? Let me figure out. So, I have done a small Google search about that. So, I have just written from that perspective that if there is something going to be associated with water, then what are the relevant points that are coming to my mind, and I tried to write only that.

Sir, it means that when we are, there are some questions, we have to think instantly, and of course, we have to think for all the questions. It is just that for some questions, you can expedite the process of thinking through making and through preparation and making topic-wise notes. Because all the questions in the exam are not out of the blue. There are going to be questions which are directly associated with the topic which is written in the mains. For example, there could be a question on what is land reforms? And how it is impacting India. So, it is directly written in the mains syllabus. So, if you had previously made notes, what you can do is that you can finish this answer very quickly, and you can write a very good answer for this topic. And people who have made topic-wise notes, you expect them to write a good answer on this as well. So, if you do not write a good answer, you are at a comparative disadvantage compared to them. On these questions which are absolutely out of the blue, and there could be some questions which could test your resolve to think on the spot in the mains under that situation of pressure. Especially, I figured out that the first question or the 11th questions, which generally aspirants prefer to write first, are questions which are comparatively very unfamiliar. And to do those questions, you have to think on the spot a little bit, and make some amount of, and your understanding of all your understanding of what you have read across all the journey of UPSC is going to be important at that point of time to understand what is the demand of the question. And if you understand the demand of the question, you can come up with something relevant even if you have not read it before. But in case if you do not understand the demand of the question at all, then it is very difficult to write a relevant answer. So, your objective should be to understand what is the demand for the maximum number of questions. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. Any other question?

You had a jump of 91 marks from your first attempt, how did this happen? How did you analyze yourself? Which were the weak areas? And you said essay was your weak area, so how specifically did you tackle essay? Yes. So, let me share this now, how I improved those 91 marks. So, I analyzed my marksheet of 2023. I scored 96 marks in essay and I scored 230 marks in PSIR. So, I could see that there is scope for improvement in PSIR and essay. So, this was my first idea, that if I have to improve marks, then I have to focus on essay, and I have to focus on PSIR. So, when I was giving mains the second time, I primarily focused my energies on improving whatever weak spots I had in the first attempt. And second, I wanted to retain my strong spots or my strong areas from that mains. Because if I don't make efforts, then it is possible that I could see a drop in my marks in the topics where I scored good in the last attempt. So, I tried that if I scored good in GS4, then I should put in equal amount of effort so that I do not see a drop in my marks in GS4, and at the same point of time, I want to improve marks on topics where previously I could see room for improvement. So, for essay, my strategy for improvement was that I have to improve in essay, I have to improve in PSIR, and I also have to improve in GS. But I also kept in mind that where I have a good score, I have to maintain that score as well. So, what was my preparation strategy for essay? Last year, I didn't know how to tackle philosophical essays, how to tackle them, as I am coming from a science background. I have no idea how to write answers on essays which are hard to decode, what is the meaning of the sentence that is given. And second, even if you decode the meaning of the sentence, then presenting the argument to convince the examiner that how to convince the examiner that this is the actual reality or this is how you can justify this prompt which has been given to you to write an essay on. So, developing arguments for that, developing counter-arguments. And it is not about GS, where there are multiple ways to approach an essay. But for philosophical essays, I feel that the approach we use for preparing GS answers is not very relevant. There, we have to prepare our arguments for that specific topic. For example, this time in the examination, there was an essay topic about leadership, that do, I don't know what is the exact topic, but its primary premise was that, uh, uh, the quality of leadership is tested when, uh, let me see if I had that topic, but the argument basically, the idea is that if I get any prompt, then I have to, what does that prompt mean, and how do I develop arguments for it, why is it so, and how will I substantiate those arguments with examples? So, this strategy I thought for improving the marks in essay. Now, within essay, from the classes I took, I got the idea that if there is an essay on health, education, things like that, then I can easily generate arguments for it. But if it is a philosophical essay, then arguments will not be generated through these dimensions. For that, I will have to practice to make arguments for philosophical essays. So, for that, I will need content. It is, you absolutely need content for GS papers. And for that, I thought about what things would help me substantiate the arguments. If I develop some arguments, then I thought about important personalities from different fields, in politics and leadership, in sports, in music, and in the social sector. The main personalities, what have been their stories? Like, for example, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Sachin Tendulkar, Usain Bolt, and things like that. In science, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison. What have been their stories? First, I identified who are the personalities. And how I can use their stories to substantiate my arguments. Second is that there are mythological stories. There are many good anecdotes there too. In Mahabharata and Ramayana, which I got the idea from former AIR 2, Mrs. Garima Lohia ma'am. So, I got this idea from there. Third, whatever historical events have happened in the history of the world and the history of India, they also work at a philosophical level in argument formulation for philosophical essays. The story of the Renaissance, the story of the Age of Enlightenment, what are the ideas and what are the inspirations of that time which inspired people to develop theories on democracy, develop theories on revolution, and things like that. So, all these things, besides this, when we write philosophical essays, we have to use some embellishment words, idiomatic expressions, and we have to use connective words to improve our language and to improve the fluency of the essay. So that the person who is reading the essay can go through the essay without breaking the continuity of the essay. So, I specially prepared notes corresponding to these things this time, and I used these things as fodder material to write philosophical essays. So, for example, if I show, so I have collected these anecdotes. And along with these anecdotes, I tried to think that even if I have these anecdotes, but apart from those anecdotes, I should be in a position to create anecdotes on the go, on the instance, that whatever stories I have read or whatever stories I have thought of trying to recall, if they are relevant to that prompt, then at that point of time, I can develop an anecdote. And even if I am not able to develop an anecdote, I can start with a very basic introduction where I introduce the topic and give a brief description about the topic, and then I would go into the body part. So, I had this, first, if I am able to generate an anecdote, it is an ideal case. But there were instances where I was not able to think of an anecdote, then I had the fallback position where I was using a simple basic introduction, where I was elaborating a little on the prompt or the essay topic, what I understood from it, and then going into its body. Second, the thing which I was talking about, how from different personalities. So, I basically collected the names, connected. I also collected what are the contemporary issues which could be used as an example to substantiate arguments at different points. And all these things were basically in content material or fodder material to write in a philosophical essay from my perspective. Old connective words and things like that. So, old essay topics also play an important role. Because sometimes, what happens is that we can use those essay topics in our actual essay as an argument and as an example. And it is a good embellishment. Besides this, I had collected quotes from different thinkers, which I could never use, but I had collected quite a lot of quotes. So, those things are basically useful in essay preparation. Besides that, once I had developed this content for essay, I practiced writing essays and I tried to evaluate myself. But there is always that subjective bias of evaluating your own answer. In this, this is the biggest problem in preparation of the essay that you can never get a good evaluation if you are trying to either evaluate yourself or you are trying to get evaluation elsewhere, unless somebody is equally invested or you find a very good peer group where you can evaluate together. So, I tried my best to do some amount of self-evaluation by having a sense of emotional detachment from my own essay and critically analyzing it, by reading the essay, by trying to read it aloud, so that I can understand if there is a sense of continuity or not. And through this, I made my best effort to self-evaluate it.

And through that, to improve, that the basic things, like, am I able to present the relevant arguments? Is there a sense of continuity within my essays? And whether I am addressing the demand of the essay paper or not. So, through this, I tried to improve my essays. These are the things which I did this time, which I haven't done last year. Last year, I solely relied on notes from some previous toppers, as well as developing dimensions in the way we write answers for the Mains. And perhaps that could be one of the reasons because of which I didn't score very good in essays. I don't know how much I scored in essays, but this is what I did this time around.

For GS One, One, One, One, One, One, One, One, One, One, Two, GS Three, I think we have already discussed this strategy that I made topic-wise notes, did questions corresponding to them, and made incremental improvements. A continuous feedback, continuous improvement kind of loop.

For GS Four, there are two sections. So, in GS Four, like I had good marks the first time, and this time I tried to retain that. So, in GS Four, my strategy was basically different for Part One. Different for Part Two. For Part One, I made topic-wise notes from Vision Classroom material, and I continuously improved those topic-wise notes by solving questions from different mocks. So, for example, if I took a mock and if I found some relevant content in that section or corresponding to that topic, I added it to my notes. Then I tried to reproduce it again in a test, and then if I took a new test, and if I found any extra new content there that was adding value, I tried to add it to the notes again.

For Part Two, I used to solve PYQs of case studies using AI ChatGPT, and also do Google search for any available solutions on the internet. And I solved those case studies multiple times, UPSC case studies, so that if you solve more than 50-70 case studies, you are in a good position to understand what are the different ethical dilemmas, because there is a list of ethical dilemmas, there is a fixed list of ethical dilemmas. So, you can preempt, as soon as you start reading, you can preempt the fact that these are going to be the ethical dilemmas in this case study, and these are going to be the merits, these are going to be the demerits, and this is going to be the way forward. So, as much practice you do for case studies, as much dexterity you start to get in solving the case study part, and it also improves. In GS Four, the problem is that the paper is so lengthy at times, we face difficulty in completing the paper. Here also, I focused that I solve the case study within 15 minutes, and especially when I am starting, I used to solve the case study fast so that I don't take on that bulk towards the end where I am left with two or three questions and I have to finish them in 10 minutes or something like that. So, I used to have fixed time for each question, and I tried to solve it that way. So, multiple times, multiple practices. I think for GS Four, for Paper One, you need to have basic fodder content that you will use in your GS Four answers. And second, you need to have, you need to do a lot of practice to continuously improve for GS Four. So, this has been my strategy for GS Four.

Now, coming to PSIR. So, in PSIR, last year what was my strategy was that I was trying to generate answers by reading Sir's notes, Utkarsh Sir's notes. But I lacked that understanding, especially of the theoretical aspects of PSIR Paper One, Section A, which I identified this time. And this time, I specifically emphasized understanding the concepts well. For that, I basically analyzed PYQs and tried to understand what questions were asked in PYQs and what they meant. Along with that, I took the help of whatever solutions were available online. I read Sir's notes thoroughly and tried to understand them by doing Google searches corresponding to them. I didn't attend any class because I think that between Prelims and Mains, it wasn't a realistic possibility. But I had that thing that I have to focus. I have to make most efforts in Paper One, Section A, where I feel that last year I had a problem. GS, and I have to sustain marks and perhaps improve marks in Paper Two, Section, Paper Two as well, where I scored 33 last time. But how can I further improve my marks in that paper as well? So, in this too, my strategy has been that whatever weak spots were in the syllabus, where my understanding was less, or where I didn't have notes, or where I have made notes on top of Utkarsh Sir's notes. So, where Utkarsh Sir's notes were not sufficient, or where I felt I needed to add something myself. So, his notes prepared a basic structure for me, and after that, as I solved PSIR questions, I kept adding content from there.

The challenge which I faced in PSIR primarily was answer writing, because coming from a technical background, writing answers for PSIR was very difficult in the initial period, because there is a way of writing answers in humanities questions. And you need to figure out how to write an answer, how to formulate an answer, how to introduce an answer, how to address the demand, and how to provide a critical analysis, and how to conclude it on a constructive note, on a positive note, or on something which catches the attention of the examiner while awarding your marks. So, for that, I primarily referred to Utkarsh Sir's test copies, because of the fact that first I referred to his notes. So, I could understand where his notes were coming from, where his answers were coming from, and I could gauge how he might be thinking while writing his answers. And how I could replicate that. And second, I referred to Swati Sharma Ma'am's copies, and tried to understand from those copies how good answers can be written. And I have referred to them more than 10-15 times so that I can understand the nuances of answer writing. So, I have collected copies of various toppers last year, and I have gone through them once. And that didn't help me in understanding how they think and write a good answer. This time, I only focused on the two toppers' copies, Shri Swati Ma'am and Utkarsh Sir, and I referred to their copies repeatedly. I believe more than 10 times I have gone through their copies and understood how they might be thinking while trying to write answers. And I tried to replicate that as well in my answer.

And secondly, I focused on self-evaluation. This time around, I didn't join a test series for PSIR as well. When I gave the answer, I have written the answer. Sir, I used to evaluate it myself, that what was the demand of the question, and whether I have fulfilled this demand or not. If within that question, I definitely have to write in paragraph format, but if I have missed some dimension there, then I thought how I would try to incorporate it next time and how I would improve it next time. So, I think this self-evaluation from an emotionally detached perspective, where you are putting a lot of energy into evaluating your copies to understand where you can make incremental improvements, that is going to be helpful. And that helped me, I believe, this time around, that I understood my shortcomings, because I am the person who is most invested in improving my answers. So, I should have the ability to objectively evaluate myself in this examination. I think in UPSC examination, the depth of self-awareness plays a very important role at any stage, in all the stages of the examination. If you have that depth of awareness about where you are standing and what is the level of preparation you are having, then I think it would help you in incremental improvement at subsequent stages in the exam. So, through that, I tried to evaluate my PSIR answers.

Yes. I cannot hear you. Sir, like how would you have prepared for International Relations? How much weightage would you have given to current affairs? Like, the Russia-Ukraine war was going on during 2022. The Azerbaijan and Armenia war was going on. India and Nepal had a situation around Uttarakhand. So, how did you inculcate International Relations in your PSIR optional?

So, primarily for this, my strategy was that whatever major events of International Relations were there, I would add them to the corresponding sections within the topic-wise notes. So, for example, there is a section called Contemporary Global Issues in Part Two, Section A. Apart from that, in whichever relevant section of the syllabus that issue would be most likely applicable, I would add it there. If not, I would add it at the end of any file, Paper One or Paper Two file, and make notes corresponding to it. And I used to think from the perspective that if a question is going to be asked on this, then what are the things which could be asked, and what are the things which I should be able to add in my answer so that my answer becomes a good answer from this perspective. And of course, you follow current affairs, you regularly read newspapers, so you develop a sense of perspective on issues, and that sense of perspective helps you in writing Mains answers 100%.

Sir, like in PSIR, in Political Science, there is also a theory portion. So, being from a non-science background, how did you prepare for that?

So, that was the most difficult part. That was also what I found most challenging, because there needs to be a sense of understanding. And so, the preparation strategy for that was that if any question was asked on any theoretical aspect, like, for example, if somebody has asked questions on Rawls' Theory of Justice. So, I think that in UPSC, especially in PSIR, you can get topic-wise questions for more than 30 years. So, what I did was, I tried to prepare answers for those questions asked, taking reference from ChatGPT, internet solutions available on the internet. And what happened was that I basically understood. ChatGPT explains answers to provide you an answer in a point-wise format. But it helps you in understanding the concept very well. So, if you ask ChatGPT for an answer there, it will not give you an answer that you can directly write in your PSIR copy, but you will be able to understand the topic very well. If you understood that answer, then from there, I tried to incrementally improve my understanding. And I did this for all things. So, if you look at my PSIR notes, so what I did was, I added relevant questions for every topic. Like, if it is Comparative Politics, then here I have, perhaps from 2020, so here I added those questions on that topic itself. And I used to always evaluate that if this, and in PSIR, questions repeat, as we know all. So, I always looked from the perspective that if this question comes, will my notes have enough content to answer it well? And if not, then I would figure out its answer and add that to my notes. So, this I did, and I think that the positive aspect of time, this is all I could be able to do, especially in Section One. And I think this helped me basically understand the concept and maybe write a better answer on that. As far as I understood better, I was able to write better answers. And from this, Utkarsh Sir's notes, I already had that basic content which goes into the name of thinkers, what they said, and what are the arguments which they made. That content was already present with me because of the base material which I have taken from his notes. And my understanding on top of that, when I solved questions, improved incrementally through that.

Thank you, sir. Any more questions on PSIR? And any questions on GS Four as well, if you feel like asking any question on any part?

Going to them, like from the past one and two months. So, what I found was Utkarsh's notes are one-liners, like it cannot suffice the understanding. So, what did you do for that understanding purpose? Did you read the notes which are available from Shubham Sir from outside, or did you do some course from Shubhranjan Ma'am?

No, I did not have the time or bandwidth to do either of those things. If I had the time, I could have considered that option as well. So, I understand the perspective that, and this is the problem which I faced, that Utkarsh Sir's notes are made from his understanding of the syllabus. And we cannot replicate his understanding. We can use his notes. So, what I did to improve my understanding is to solve the PYQs. And when I was able to solve the PYQs, I used to basically discuss it. Let me show you. I used to discuss it. I have created, so for example, I have created different files in ChatGPT. So, for example, if you can see, this is, this is Section 2A of PSIR. So, here, what I used to do was, I used to write the question, and I would get many dimensions from it. And based on that, my understanding has incrementally improved, that what was the meaning of this question. And if any question is asked, then it used to give me an answer which I cannot exactly replicate in Mains, but it helps me in improving my understanding. And through this, I incrementally improved the content in the notes I had made, wherever I found a gap in understanding. So, this is on this basis that I have improved.

Sir, then how did you handle the IGP part? Like, for example, in the current scenario, if we are asked a question about the Pocket Veto, for example, at this time, so sir, if something whose answer is not properly derived comes in the question, how to handle that part? IGP means Indian Government and Politics part, Paper One, Part B.

So, I think my strategy in this has been that I focused on Paper One, Section, and Paper Two, Section B. If something like that, and Paper One, Section A, that whatever PYQs were there, my strategy remained the same: to solve them. Questions, whatever PYQs were there, I tried to solve them very well, because I wanted to have that understanding and be in a position that if PYQs repeat, then I am going to write an excellent answer on them. And if they don't repeat, then if any question is repeated on certain similar themes, I should be able to leverage the content which I developed from solving the PYQs and use it in that answer. Up to this point, if something eccentric comes, then most likely I would not be able to write a very excellent answer on that. And perhaps I would not be able to think very well at that point of time. But I would try to write some rational arguments, some relevant points which I could think of at that point of time. And that would at least help me fetch average marks on those topics or those questions. While I used to focus on the fact that if there are any questions that I have solved before, or if questions come where my understanding is good, then I would try to write the best possible answer.

Sir, if there are constitutional themes, do we need to explore both positive and negative aspects, or if the demand only mentions positive aspects, do we have to answer only in a positive way, or explore the negative dimension as well?

It depends on the directive words. So, if there is a directive word like "critically analyze," then you have to, you have to basically give positive dimensions, negative dimensions, and on a conclusive note, where you add how the negative dimensions can be rectified. You have to give a way forward at the end. If evaluation is asked, then you are primarily going to focus on the evaluation part, and you are going to give, a little proportion of your answer sheet or the page of your answer sheet is not going to be equal in that. If a question of critical analysis comes, and I have to write a two-page answer, then I will give one page to positive aspects, one page to negative aspects. If an evaluation question comes, then I will give one and a half pages to its evaluation, and the last half page I would give to critical evaluation, that what are the critical implications of this? How can it be seen from a different perspective? And then I will try to conclude it. So, it depends on the directive words, what is being asked. If "discuss" is written, then I would discuss all the dimensions, whatever the dimensions of that question are. For example, if in Paper Two, Section B, they ask about the role of religion in politics, role of caste in politics, role of ethnicity in politics. So, what is the role? If it is asked to discuss, then what is the role? How do political parties work in this? How do pressure groups work in this? How does this impact voter electoral behavior? So, I would try to include all these dimensions. What is its impact on society? Whatever dimensions I could think of, or these basically, the dimensions that come in writing PSIR answers also come through the syllabus, that how much you can leverage the syllabus to generate your points, to generate your dimensions. For example, if you are asked a question about comparative analytics, what are the problems in comparative analytics, or what are the different dimensions in comparative analytics, then you can think of it through the syllabus itself, that what would be the answer from a political sociological approach? What would be the answer from a political economy approach? Or you can try to make a comprehensive answer by including all those approaches within it.

So, and sir, like in the IR part, in the IR part, your foundation was on basic relationships, then you added current issues to it, like was that your approach?

Yes. So, the basic, the base layer of my notes for IR was Utkarsh Sir's notes. On top of that, the questions, PYQs.

Questions were asked, and content was created based on them. And as we were discussing earlier, whatever is in current affairs is very dynamic IR part. So wherever I felt that this, and it is always about incremental improvement. So, for example, if we talk about India-US, if it comes to India and global powers, the India-US relationship, my structure will remain the same: What are the areas of cooperation? What are the areas of challenge? And what is going to be the conclusion, what is going to be the introduction, what is going to be the way forward of the India-US relationship? So, if we talk about cooperation, the dimensions will remain very static: What are we doing in the economy? What are we doing in technology? What are we doing within culture? How are the people-to-people relationships? The content is going to change. For example, if technology is coming, then three new initiatives have come. Trust has happened, Asia has happened, Catalyst or Compact has happened. So, in these initiatives, I will replace the old initiatives with this new, new information. And what happens is that when I revise it, my answer will absolutely include the current news. So it is like a fusion of current affairs with the static part. Similar happens with Afghanistan. So, for example, when I was reading Utkarsh sir's notes, or for example, Utkarsh sir's notes do not mention the political developments that happened in Bangladesh. So what will happen is that I will have to update it. So what I used to do is that if there was any improvement happening, or if so, I used to do the updation on that specific part only, that now the facts have changed, facts from the ground have changed. What are the questions which could be asked? And questions could be asked on the implications side of it. If this has happened, then what are the implications? Why did this happen? What are the implications? What are India's interests which are going to be affected through it? And there could be questions on its analysis. So how will I do that analysis? And what information will I need for it? I used to add all that to my notes. And whatever facts there were, like which political parties are active there, who are their leaders, or what were the main events, on which day did such an event happen, why did it happen, what were the grievances of the people, what do people want, what are the aspirations of the people? I would try to add all these aspects to my note. And if India and Bangladesh are discussed, then how was cooperation happening before? What things in cooperation have stopped now? And what are the new things where we can work? So in such a case, I would update the same note. Because of the fact that I have digital notes, I have this luxury to delete anything which is not relevant and add anything which is increasingly becoming relevant at this point of time. So, I used to improve it incrementally like this. And if an absolutely new topic came, then I used to append it at the end of, for example, any international institution or organizations, like G20, or for climate change. Climate change is actually in the subject, I believe in the environment paper, section two, under contemporary global issues, climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, all these topics are there. So I would make improvements there. But if I did not understand which part of the syllabus it would go into, then I used to append it at the end, if it seemed relevant to sir. Sir, is there any change of approach in writing GS 2 answers and PSIR answers? Do we have to dive deeper in writing PSIR answers as compared to GS 2 answers? Because most of the questions, like, two, like, some questions are being repeated? So, do we have to dive deeper while writing PSIR answers? Or the depth has to be the same? Like, in GS 2 and as well as, PSIR paper? Or do we have to change the approach of writing while we are writing PSIR answers? I think the approach is very different for writing GS 2 answers and PSIR answers. Because in GS 2, we are presenting facts, and we are presenting multiple dimensions, and our objective is to give a comprehensive picture about that issue. For example, if there is an issue on tribunals, or if there is an issue on the justice system, then you are going to enumerate the problems in the justice system or enumerate the problems in the tribunal system. If there is an issue about Parliament, then you will talk about many things there, like what problems are currently happening in Parliament? The number of sittings is decreasing. There is a problem in the committee system. Due to the anti-defection law, Members of Parliament are not able to provide constructive criticism. You will talk about such things. You will enumerate many relevant points there. And you won't mention. Nowadays, I see even toppers, maybe sometimes I have also tried to mention, use the citation of PSIR, like P.B. Mehta ji, P.B. Mehta's book, Rethinking India's Institutions, or Indian Parliament, Rudrangshu Shankar and Rudrangshu's book. The information, the pieces of information that we use in writing PSIR answers, people have started using them in GS 2 as well. And it may be useful, but the answer writing approach is different in a way that here we focus more on analysis rather than enumeration. And in GS 2, we focus on enumeration rather than analysis. Sir, could you please be more elaborative in these two lines you have said, elaborative and enumerative? So, enumerative means you are listing out all the points. You are basically providing all the information you have in that two pages or three pages of the answer. So, multiple dimensions, many dimensions. And it is not practically possible to write in PSIR. If you have so many dimensions in a paragraph format, for me, writing was not possible because it is comparatively easier to write in points rather than in paragraphs. So, here in PSIR, what I used to do is that I used to do the analysis. If I am asked a question, and the language plays a very big role here. For example, if you are talking about Indian Parliament, then here I will use some commentaries, like former Vice President Shri Hamid Ansari said that Parliament has become a federation of NRKs, debates are rare, informed debates are rare. So, I will use such things to strengthen my arguments. And my objective here will not be to give eight or ten arguments if a question is asked. My objective will be, if I am giving even five arguments, then I will give them in the language of PSIR and use them. The books, the perspectives of thinkers. For example, if you talk about the role of caste, religion, and ethnicity in politics, then there are many, many thinkers. Atul Kohli ji, many thinkers are there, who, we use thinkers from political economy, political sociology, and thinkers for different aspects. We try to include their perspectives in the answer and what they have said, and how you see it. Along with that, if it is asked in the demand, then otherwise you present your perspective. But the idea is that you are trying to write an answer in the language of PSIR, which is quite different from writing a GS answer. It is like writing an answer which has content, but also is written in some language which reflects that you are a student of PSIR, not a student of GS. If I can, and if you look at the toppers' copies, you will get a good idea of it, how they prepare answers. If I would, I don't have my copies right now. If I show you my copies, then I can explain to you how I thought, how I thought this, and you can compare an answer side by side of GS and PSIR to identify the difference. And sir, Utkarsh sir, sir has mentioned some websites to go through for current affairs. Did you follow all those things or not? My primary sources were The Hindu and Indian Express, and sometimes other news during the interview preparation. I didn't follow much of what sir mentioned for the IR part. No, I didn't follow much of it because I didn't have that bandwidth or time. Due to constraints, I could not follow those things. Thank you, sir. But, but what happened is that I did not follow them regularly. But if I felt that this issue needs to be prepared as notes, because there is a high likelihood that it could be asked. Then I searched that issue on Google and referred to all the n number of resources, n number of websites corresponding to it, and basically tried to collate the information in one place. So, I used to take at least five or six top websites, and within them, I have never read these long pieces, though despite the fact that they are very interesting on websites like ORF and things like that. But through news articles, I tried to develop that perspective, that I get a comprehensive picture of any issue. If something is happening, then what are the different perspectives? And how could I analyze? How could I make my own perspective? And how could I analyze all these perspectives? And if any specific perspective is asked in the answer, or if there is a question to present your perspective, then I can answer them in a way that reflects the depth of reading of PSIR knowledge. Any other questions on PSIR, GS, or anything? So, I think we can skip the interview preparation. And are you interested, guys interested in knowing the interview preparation as well? Yes, sir. So, in interview preparation, last year I appeared for Forest Service Mains, in which I scored 208 marks. This time in Civil Services, interview, I scored 185 marks. So, interview preparation was also primarily focused on understanding what is the demand of the interview. And secondly, fulfilling that specific demand, how can I best fulfill that demand? And similar thing, that for interview preparation, I felt that the demand is different from what is the demand in Mains and what is the demand in preparation. For interview preparation, you need clarity of expression, you need to go in depth of the issue. So, for example, if in GS, a question comes on quantum computing. Then that question will be primarily focused on what are the advantages of quantum computing, what are the disadvantages? What are the applications? Here, the question will be much more detailed: What is India doing in quantum computing? What is China doing in quantum computing? Do a comparative analysis. What are the quantum computers in the world? Which has the highest number of qubits? Which country developed it? So, it goes in depth, which might not be important from a Mains perspective. So, for interview preparation, we have to prepare in a slightly different way. So, to understand what is happening in the interview, I read all the transcripts of 2022, which took me more than 20 days, and I segregated the questions from there. Those questions were based on keywords. If these are the keywords in my DEF, then I segregated those questions to get a basically understanding, a limited understanding of what, how to prepare for the interview. Now, based on this, I prepared a questionnaire in which I made different topics: these are the keywords in my DEF, based on these, what interview questions have already been asked, and what other questions can be asked corresponding to them. Secondly, I identified that there are HR questions. Some specific HR questions can be asked, like, do your SWOT analysis. Tell me why you left your job? Or what was your job role? And basic questions about leadership. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Tell me your five strengths. So, these HR questions you have to prepare from an interview perspective. Third, there is an aspect of philosophical questions which could be asked in an interview, and the board could ask you some questions about what do you understand by some philosophical aspect? A quote can be given. What do you understand by the meaning of life? These types of questions are very broad. And you have to give your own perspective. How to prepare for these types of questions? It is a difficult part. But such questions can be asked. So, how did I prepare for this? First is identifying what are the questions which are asked there. Apart from that, situational questions can be asked, like, what if you are a DM, what if you are an SP, if you are an ambassador or DFO, if such a situation arises with you, then what will you do? And in that case, it is associated with case studies which we do, and those case studies are asked to be explained in the interview. For example, this time I was asked a question in the interview: What if you are an SP of a district where caste-based violence is happening? So, what, how would you deal with such an issue? So, these types of questions are asked. And there could be questions on current affairs. And current affairs questions in the interview are different from current affairs questions which are asked in Mains, where you have to give information in a very consolidated form within two pages. In the interview, the role of the newspaper increases significantly. Because they ask, they are interested in knowing whether you read the newspaper with intelligence or not. And they would ask you questions on very, very small things which could be present in any article in the newspaper. So, for the interview, there should be in-depth preparation and understanding of current affairs. And they can also counter you on the spot. If you are presenting an argument on simultaneous elections, not just presenting an argument, they could directly ask you: What are the constitutional articles which are going to get changed through simultaneous elections? And what are the main recommendations of the Honorable President Kovind Committee's report? Such questions can be asked directly. And how many constitutional amendments will have to be made? How many places will have to be made? Will the consent of the states be needed or not? So, they can inquire on the spot about this and understand how deep your understanding is of that specific topic. They can ask you to make a comparative analysis. Like I mentioned about quantum computing. Questions can be asked on artificial intelligence. Then anything, they can ask questions on anything and ask you to do a comparative analysis. Like, if we are doing this now, or if this is the policy of the government, then why not this? And why are we choosing this at the opportunity cost of that? So, these types of questions are asked, and they ask your perspective on this, for which you need to have an in-depth understanding of specific topics. So, unlike Mains, where we prepare topic-wise notes, here we have to prepare event-wise notes, and they have to be continuously updated. So, what event happened, and corresponding to that, whatever current affairs we have read in the news articles, preparing notes here is very helpful. Critical thinking can be asked. Critical thinking basically means that they could ask you, they could give you an opinion, they could counter you on what is your opinion, and they would like to check whether you can stand on your ground and whether you can present your arguments in a way that is both balanced in judgment and also shows an understanding that despite the fact that we are taking these steps, there are certain downsides which we need to mitigate through aging and things like that. So, for interview preparation, basically, I did this: I segregated the questions and prepared questions specifically. If it is from current affairs, then I took the help of ChatGPT and different AI models. Perplexity was also useful here. For philosophical questions, you need to do introspection and think about what you can answer which is objective, which is rational, and which does not sound fanatical. How can you convince the board? For situational questions, you can also refer to how you have prepared, how you are preparing for case studies. How will you tackle a situation? What are the steps? For example, if somebody is asking you a question, like, there are unfortunate incidents of stampedes in Mahakumbh. What if you are an SP or an SP or a DM? What steps will you take to prevent such instances in the future? What would you have done at the beginning, considering your technological background? Which technological solutions would you implement? So, all these things work in that perspective. So, this is how I prepared for the interview. Broadly dividing topics into these categories and preparing for all these categories. Transcripts are basically the only source to understand what the board is trying to ask. So, apart from that, it acts like a PYQ which we use in Mains. So, I leveraged transcripts to understand how the board frames questions on current affairs, how they ask questions, or if your DEF, if they are asking questions on your DEF, or on someone else's, if you read many transcripts, then you start to get a sense, a little bit of an idea, that how the questions are formed, what are the ways in which questions are formed, and how you can prepare. And if somebody else is sharing the same hobby as you, and questions are asked on that hobby to that person, then you can also get that question and prepare and answer yourself. Apart from the fact that you have to think for yourself and prepare answers for them. As far as question repetition in transcripts is concerned, I think that sometimes there could be instances of questions being repeated, but broadly I have not observed any specific trend as such that questions are being repeated. What was my preference? I have opted for Indian Foreign Service. No, this question was about the interview, so I would give the reasons. The same, I would give the honest reason that why I opted for the Foreign Service because of the fact that I had an exposure to work in a global bank, through which my interest in Foreign Service came, and which kept, and I have read some memoirs of former diplomats, which basically started my initial push for me to aspire for a career in Foreign Service. And apart from that, as much as I read about Foreign Service, I came to know that this is something which I want to do.

I would do for maybe the next 30-35 years as a long-term career for myself. So this is how I would answer, and I would also include the fact that apart from a deep sense of passion, which I have for foreign service, I also have a sense of purpose that how I can leverage the world or the opportunities presented by the world to accelerate India, to accelerate India's development in a way, be it in terms of technology, be it in terms of trade, be it in terms of talent, tourism, and things like that. It means foreign policy and diplomacy provide you an opportunity to think in that way. And as I would say that if I had been given an opportunity, I would try to do my best to fulfill this role. So, I think that in my life, when I left my job in 2020, September 2022, before that, everything was good, good, and all. When I started preparation, in after the four months in which I left my job, unfortunately, I lost my father due to sudden cardiac arrest, and that was the rock bottom moment of my preparation before Prelims 2023 in January. So I have seen the worst first, and now I am seeing, now I am on the other side of the tunnel. So I can say that back, the return, I have seen the rock bottom. I am now reaching the seventh heaven again. So I feel a sense of detachment right now, and it also comes from this fact that I read the Bhagavad Gita on a daily basis, and that book has such a formative impact on you that you start to develop yourself in a way which you cannot imagine, you cannot even dream of. So, there is a verse in it which says that "Matra Sparshastu Kaunteya Sheet Ushna Sukhada Dukhadha, Agam Apayo Vinashyanti, Tams Titikshasva Bharat." That happiness, sadness, comfort, discomfort, cold, heat, these are temporary, these come and go. You need to have a sense of equanimity, balance in your life. So despite the fact that my family is most happy, everybody is very happy, I am also very happy, but I also have a sense of, I also come from the same fact that life does not move in a linear path. There is a sinusoidal wave to it, and it is going to be that way in the future as well. So rather than focusing solely on this aspect that now life is set, it is even clear. There are going to be challenges, and I am open to those challenges. There are going to be setbacks in life as well, and I would figure out ways to deal with them as well. So life is this constant journey of evolution, evolving yourself, personal growth, as well as growth of contribution, growth of self, growth, contribution, what you can contribute, what you can offer to the world. So these are basically the key takeaways which I would like you to take from this session. If I have to sum up what I have learned in this preparation in a few things, then it would be this: First, a depth of self-awareness is absolutely essential in this exam. If you have that self-awareness to evaluate your preparation at any stage of the exam, be it Prelims, Mains, Interview, then you can improve on your shortcomings very quickly and solve them very efficiently. So that self-awareness, if you develop it in all three stages of the exam, and it is not something which you have to cultivate while in preparation. So, of course, I am more self-aware than I was when I began the preparation. I could be, there is a lot of upside potential as well. So, that depth of self-awareness is absolutely essential in the preparation of this examination. You should have the ability to ask yourself very difficult questions, and the answers could be very uncomfortable temporarily. But you should have that problem-solving mindset that yes, this is the problem. I have identified it through self-awareness, and how will I solve it going forward? And there should be solution orientation as well, apart from identifying the problem through your awareness.

Second, what does this exam test? So there are many perspectives on the UPSC exam. If I want to tell what the exam tests from my perspective, then it is a test of the human spirit. If you are giving the Mains exam, it requires absolute discipline. It requires grit, it requires perseverance. It requires you to have the economy, have the efficiency to use minimum resources in the most effective way. I think that from my journey, many people might not believe that I have not done many things that people essentially do. And I am absolutely honest that I have not done them. It is possible that those who had more time have read those things. I have not had the opportunity to do them. But despite that, I was able to identify where I can score well, where I have shortcomings, and how I can incrementally improve them. So this exam tests your economy as well. How you can improve your efficiency through minimum resources or in minimum time and execute things very efficiently. It is about strategic thinking and execution.

Third, I would like to say that despite the fact that the examination offers one of the best jobs in the world, the process of preparation for this examination is in itself a very formative experience. Means, in what examination can you get to know so many different aspects of the world, to be constantly aware about the current developments and read such diverse subjects? Apart from the fact that if you go through this examination, it develops a sense of character in you. It develops certain qualities in you: discipline, perseverance, which you will carry forward in your life for your whole lifetime. So that is a very important takeaway. I would say that the UPSC examination requires is a game of skill as well as chance. So you need to be skillful, and you need to have some amount of luck which is also involved in the process. So, fortunately, I was lucky that I have seen my name in the list. But even in case if there is a skill involved, and you can constantly hone your skill in the preparation, and when you are going to clear this exam, this examination would mold your complete personality in a way which you cannot have imagined when you started this preparation. So, this examination process teaches you a lot of things. And sincere preparation has many benefits which will be very useful for you at any point in life.

And fourth, which I already told, read the Bhagavad Gita. It is the most formative book. This is something which changed the direction of my life, and it can help you develop, it can help you become a greater person than what you can even dream yourself to be. So it can give you a sense of calmness when you are at an absolute low. It gives you a sense of detachment from the result, which we get very attached to in the examination process, and it plays a big role in our character development. It plays a big role in solving our dilemmas. This is all which I had to say.

Besides this, perhaps I have created a Telegram channel. So if you want to connect, I would be posting all the notes. I don't have anything to hide. I would share everything for notes for Prelims, notes for Mains. I have to do some sterilization because of the language involved. So many things, I would share the plans as well, and I would share anything. I would share my copies. So I would be sharing it there, and maybe if any questions are asked or anything which I could be of use for the aspirant community, I would do that as well. So does anyone have any questions? On the end, yes, yes, I would upload them. I would upload them, but I would request everybody that don't, like, like the way I basically used Utkarsh sir's notes to develop on top of it. I don't want you to make physical notes out of it. Just use OneNote or any other note application which you use, and incrementally develop on my notes. So that would help you in ways to basically do an efficient preparation. So I would upload the digital notes itself, the same Telegram, the same notes which I shared here, which I was using to explain to you. And they are going to be extremely helpful for you in preparation of all three stages of the examination. And build on top of that. This is what I would like to say. Thank you. [Applause] [Music]