Tina Dabi, topped of the UPSC exam by securing All India Rank 1 in 2015 UPSC CSE exam though she secured just 42.4 per cent marks in general studies. Her mark sheet from UPSC exam went viral on the internet.
She is also the first SC women candidate who passed the exam with flying colors and interestingly in her first attempt. She got a total of 1063 marks and proceeded to secure AIR 1.
To get a brief analysis of her marksheet and how one should prepare for the papers, Indian Masterminds spoke with former IAS officer Arun Kumar who himself teaches UPSC CSE aspirants at the Ganga Ghat, Bihar.
GENERAL STUDIES
Ms Dabi’s marksheet shows that she got 424 marks out of 1000 in General studies subject, which is just 42.4%. However, she not only qualified the exam but also topped the batch. “If a candidate brings 400 marks out of 1000 in the general studies paper, it is a good mark. There are four GS papers and it is not a much scoring subject,” Mr. Kumar said.
To prepare for general studies, aspirants should do proper analysis of news, short notes should be the utmost priority. Analyzing the newspaper and then linking it with the subjects can help the aspirants a lot to prepare for GS papers.
APPRAOCH TO PREPARE GS PAPERS
According to Ms. Kumar, there is nothing much in the GS papers, and aspirants do not have to read a lot for it. He says that aspirants should always read original books and try to avoid making notes from guides they get from the coaching institutes. “Revise as much as possible from your short notes. Read newspaper properly. For GS, Essay, Ethics and Interview, reading newspaper is the best way to score good marks,” Mr. Kumar added.
CHOOSING ELECTIVE SUBJECTS
There are many myths surrounded to preparation for UPSC CSE. Out of those, one of the myths related to the selection of elective subject is that candidates should choose the subject which is helping them in General studies paper. “This is a myth, and aspirants should never follow this. The correct approach to selecting the elective subject is according to your interest,” Mr. Kumar informed.
He further added that although the highest scoring subject is Mathematic but aspirants should always select the elective subject according to their interest and which can be revised in a short time span. Subjects like Civil Engineering and History has lengthy subjects, so one should always keep time management in their mind as well.
While preparing for the elective subject, aspirants should always go through previous years question paper chapter wise and start making handwritten notes simultaneously.
INTERVIEW ROUND
Mr. Kumar focused mostly on reading the newspaper properly. He says that newspaper itself is a book that helps the aspirants the most during their preparation. For the interview preparation, he advices aspirants to be updated with the newspaper, practice on dealing with verbal and non-verbal gestures.
“If a candidate gets good marks in the Interview round, it helps a lot to overall improve their rank,” he added.
Ms. Dabi scored 299 marks in Political science which was her elective subject, 195 marks in the interview round and 145 in her essay paper. Analyzing all her marks, Mr. Kumar shared that Ms. Dabi managed to balance her marks in all the exams, which helped her in securing rank 1.
