‘Arise, awake, and don’t stop until the goal is reached.’ This fits best on all those who aspire to become a civil servant. As the journey is tough, only consistency and willpower can help reach the goal.
Today, Indian Masterminds presents the story of Amrit Jain who cracked the UPSC CSE exam in three consecutive attempts, and finally got his dream job of IAS officer in 2020, after securing AIR 96.
IAS IN THIRD ATTEMPT
Amrit Jain is from Azad Nagar, Bhilwara, Rajasthan, and did his early education from Bhilwara itself and went to IIT Warangal for B.Tech. After that, he took up a job for a year, but his instincts were pushing him to do something else. He wanted to serve society, and so decided to go for civil services. He started preparing for CSE. It was his hard work that made him clear all the three attempts at the exam. His first attempt was in 2018 where he got AIR 400, in 2019, he got AIR 321, and in 2020, he secured AIR 96. As he wanted IAS, he kept on trying for it and finally succeeded in his third and last attempt with the rank of 96, that made him eligible for the prestigious service.
STRATEGY FOR EXAM
Mr. Jain didn’t take up ay coaching, and instead preferred to study on his own. While talking about his Prelims strategy, he had remarked to media: “By observing the pattern of questions of the last 5 to 6 years and comparing it to recent years papers, I can say that the questions are of more evolving nature now. As the static part is becoming less and factual type random questions are increasing the level of difficulty of the exam, one should be more habitual of solving more random questions, to be prepared to face such type of questions on exam day.”
He advises to process your mind in such a way so that you don’t have to memories the answers. By memorizing answers, your brain starts to process in a very monotonous way, which, he says, is not good for this exam.
ANALYSIS IS THE KEY
According to him, his key to success was his keen analysis. “The analysis should be done on two levels. Firstly, you need to see how many questions you attempt correctly and how many went wrong. Secondly, how many got right based on guesswork and how many were surely right. Over time, this technique helps to develop a kind of intuition. Also, whatever you are reading, read that content in a way so that it can be used in option elimination.”
TRICK TO MAKE NOTES
He further says that most aspirants start to make notes without proper understanding of the topics and content and so they get stuck somewhere. The strategy should be to prepare in layers. “Do not make notes in the first reading. Give your time to understand the subject, and in your second reading, you can highlight and note down whatever you feel is important.”
Another important aspect of preparation that he highlights is the practice of answer writing. He advises to start the practice after 3 to 4 months of preparation, while stressing on the importance of inserting necessary components in answers, like relevant data, diagrams, etc.
Last, but not the least, he emphasizes on the importance of conceptual clarity and consistency, which, according to him, are the main keys to cracking the UPSC CSE exam.
