According to Thomas J. Watson, the former chairman and CEO of the iconic IBM, one who has never faced failure can never taste success. When one falls multiple times, only then does he realize the sweet victory of being able to stand and walk again.
These words can hold the utmost importance, especially in the lives of UPSC aspirants. And who better to explain this than IIT alumnus Abhijeet Yadav, who had cracked UPSC CSE twice and is currently mentoring aspirants through his website.
He first cleared UPSC in 2017 when he scored AIR-653 and next in 2018 when his name appeared in the Reserved List of UPSC. In his six UPSC attempts, he was able to clear the prelims phase of the examination four times. He agrees that while he didn’t really prepare and just hoped for some miracle during the first two times, he prepared seriously the last four times and was able to sail through the prelims.
He is an active user on Twitter and has around 95,000 followers, most of whom are UPSC aspirants. Recently, he tweeted a thread of the lessons he learned while preparing for the Prelims.
FOCUS ON WHAT’S IMPORTANT
The number one thing that he learned while studying for the Prelims is to focus on topics that possess the highest value, which, according to him, are Polity, Environment, Sci-Tech, History, Art and Culture, and Maps.
He tweeted: “Focus on high-value topics
High-value topics:
- Polity
- Environment
- Sci-tech
- History
- Art & Culture (Buddhism/Jainism/Lit/Paintings)
- Maps
High-effort areas: personal to you.
Focus on the high-value areas first and ONLY THEN move on to the next.”
COVER ONLY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
Moving on, he wished to make the aspirants realize that one can’t cover the entire syllabus, even if one wants to. Quality should matter over quantity and one must understand that covering most of the syllabus in a properly organized manner is anytime better than covering everything in a haphazard manner.
He tweeted: “You can’t cover everything.
If you’ve covered 85-90% of the syllabus you’re doing well.
You can either beat yourself up over trying to cover the remaining 10-15% or you can INTELLIGENTLY CHOOSE the areas you want to skim/skip.
This should be based on the analysis in (point) 1.”
MINIMIZE AND REVISE
In his next tweet, he lays further emphasis on his previous point by trying to make the aspirants understand that they get more value by repeating the same sources multiple times than by reading multiple sources.
He tweeted: “Minimize sources + Revise
You get more value by repeating the same sources multiple times than by reading multiple sources.
Steps:
- Consult UPSC topper’s blogs.
- Choose sources (personal preference).
- Don’t deviate, it can cost you a year or more.
- Revise 3-5 times.”
GIVE TESTS AND REVIEW YOURSELVES
Only giving mock tests can’t be considered enough preparation. One needs to give tests and then review them to understand where they went wrong and what they should work on to improve their mistakes.
He said: “Test + review
Just giving mock UPSC tests is not going to help.
- Analyse your mistakes: knowledge gap? didn’t read the question? guesswork?
- Learn from them.
- Don’t repeat the same mistakes twice.
If you can systematically do this, you will be unstoppable.”
INTELLIGENCE IS THE KEY
Yes, you read that right. Intelligence is indeed the key to making the right guesswork and bringing out the best in you. According to Mr Yadav, not even the top rankers know all the answers. Then what do they do? Guesswork, of course.
“Make intelligent guesses.
No one knows all the answers in UPSC Prelims, not even the person getting Rank 1.
Learn to eliminate options and figure out your style:
• Do attempt more questions?
• Do you focus on high accuracy?
Devise a method and improve it with practice.
WORK FOR YOURSELF
In the end, he tries to make the aspirants understand that at the end of the day, only you are there for yourself and it’s only you who will be able to help yourselves
to achieve success.
“You are on your own.
No one can tell you the EXACT WAY to clear UPSC CSE. Many will claim this, and they will be lying.
Take guidance from what worked for others, but figure out the path for yourself.
If you’re not willing to make this effort, you won’t clear this exam.”
(Abhijeet Yadav gave five years of his life to the UPSC CSE journey. He made 6 attempts, which covered 4 Mains, 2 interviews, and 2 selections, and got AIR 653 in CSE 2017 and R-List in CSE 2018. He is now a UPSC mentor and the founder of UPSCprep.com. An alumnus of IIT Delhi, he also has a YouTube channel with over 136,000 subscribers, where he helps aspirants to prepare better for UPSC exams.)
