IAS Prelims, Mains & Interview Strategy for UPSC 2024

The Main examination is the major scoring part accounting for 1750 marks out of the total 2025 on which your rank will be determined. It consists of seven papers besides, English and anyone Indian language and Essay and four each in General Studies and one optional – are to be attempted. It is definitely a daunting task. The UPSC has made its paper very dynamic in last few years. Now the ‘bookish’ questions have reduced greatly and analyse types have increased. No longer are they asking questions where information is the key determinant (even in the prelims). What matters is one’s opinion and analysis. This cannot be found in any one place or book therefore, internet should be consulted.

WRITING PRACTICE

Scoring depends on the perfection of your answers. You may know everything covering the full syllabus, but answering the papers in time with precision is the art to be cultivated. Hence, do practice, set a full paper for three hours and write. If you are not able to complete in time, write again. Along with perfection of answers go time management. You may require lot of practice to achieve this.

A rough estimate of the word count per page makes it easy to check the word limits while writing the exam in real. Any shortcomings in these areas need to be corrected. Writing holds the key. How precise you write matters a lot.

HOW TO WRITE ANSWER?

Introduction: Catchy introduction which addresses the question head-on. It should reflect whatever you are going to write in the main body. The main body should be interlinked with introduction.

Background: Though it is not required in all types of questions, wherever it is applicable write to make your answer effective.

Main body: There is always apprehension in the mind of students either to write answer in points or paragraphs. I would suggest you to write brief paragraph and then link it with points.

Conclusion: It should be suggestive, futuristic, positive, innovative, creative and solution oriented. Do not write negative aspect in the conclusion.

QUESTION WITH DIFFERENT TAGS

Comment: Here you have to discuss the pros and cons of the matter and conclude

Evaluate: Here you have to analyse and find the implication.

Illustrate: write answer with contemporary relevant examples.

Explain/Describe: here you have to list out all the features of the matter

Critically assess/Examine: one has to combine the effects of comment and evaluate here.

OTHER ASPECTS SHOULD BE KEPT IN MIND

• Catching the nerve of the question and answering makes the difference. For this, you need to be cool and composed. Read the question carefully once and understand/underline the key words on which it is to be answered.
• Do not lie to the examiner. Save time and energy by not trying to fool the examiner and writing just any nonsense. Mostly in such cases we keep writing the same thing again and again it just irritates the examiner therefore, avoid it.
• Answer should be balanced because extremes in public life are mostly bad and one has to be avoided.
• Short, to the point, covering as many dimensions and aspects as possible.
• Do not only fill pages with irrelevant aspects.
• Diagrams if possible or needed. Not always possible or needed.
• Contemporary touch and applicability -use current affairs to strengthen your argument
• Maps- draw India or world maps in geography/history papers
• Interlinking of topics
• Underline important points
• Graphs- to better represent data.
• Flow charts

COMMON MISTAKES TO BE AVOIDED WHILE WRITING ANSWER

• Try to address the question in the introduction rather than giving irrelevant answers
• A balanced approach in answers are usually missing, either it will be very critical or totally out of context.
• Most of the times, aspirants was unable to fully understand the requirement of the question
• Most of the times, only few of required aspects/dimensions were covered in answers
• Write in points so that you can more marks rather than writing same point in big paragraph.

PREPARE NOTES

• The UPSC has penchant for at times stunning the candidates with out of the box questions, ignore it because very limited people in the country know these answers well, so focus and prepare the conventional portions first before venturing into these unconventional areas.
• Make notes as you read. It's impossible to come back to the text books during revision. Notes should be so comprehensive that once you are done, you would not have to take the text-book again.
• The basic approach should be study, revise and improvise.
• Do not use guides, standard preparatory material or NCERT text books
• Keep on referring to previous years question papers to check if you have missed any topics.
• Prepare for the subjective papers for the main examination. Note down extra facts for the prelims as you make descriptive notes.
• More time should be spent on thinking about the topic and making innovations, rather than on reading too many study materials available in market.
• The previous papers should be thoroughly analysed to understand the trends and the expectations of the examiner.
• The preparation should be focused and all the hard work should be channelized in the right direction.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Previous pattern of UPSC had little to do with time management as most of the questions were 30 and 20 marks. Now the pattern tests your clarity of thought, ability to express and the quickness in response times thus the Mains in itself is a Personality Test.

• So you are basically selling yourself by what you write in those three hours. This constraint in time reflects your spontaneity and originality in answering because limited response time makes your answer flow from your subconscious.
• Focus on maximising the marks in entire paper, instead of answering some questions in effective way.
• In case you do not know some questions then how you can follow this approach. Give the first two hours for all the questions that you knew very well. Say you give those extra one to two minutes each question maximum. Rest of the questions you can grade the time limit according to your comfortability in answering.
• Like sometimes you might not have any clue about questions in Science and technology or art and culture. So in those cases you can write what you know and leave those questions.
• Also paper checking is a tiresome process so you have to make answer reading effortless which will come only if you have clarity in what you know and your handwriting should be legible.

ESSAY WRITING

Essay writing is an art. It requires your creativity, imagination, innovation, analysis and opinion thereby examiner can easily judge your personality, traits and attitude. It is not much about knowledge test but your creativity, imagination and innovation. The major difference between essay and others papers is: While the other papers are based on knowledge and logic, essay is based on imagination therefore essay question never seeks factual answers.

Following points should be kept in mind while writing essay:

• Prepare synopsis of the topic you selected on the last page of the answer Booklet.
• Introduction, try to write a quote, story, poem etc. so that it catches the eye of examiner but at the same time main body should be interlinked with introduction.
• Arrange essay properly and ensure logical connectivity and coherency
• Try to link the topic with history, present status and statistics, impact-social, economic, biological, ethnological, political, psychological, cultural, religious, historical, geographical, etc.
• Merits and demerits
• Relate the topic to present day social conditions prevailing.
• Conclusion should be suggestive, futuristic, positive and solution oriented.
• Your approach should be balanced knowing one part of the topic too much and not enough of the other part is not considered good.
• Language skill matters in the essay so write a nice grammatically correct one but do not use too complicated words…just to keep it easy to read for the examiner.
• Use headings and sub headings if possible.
• Give emphasis on analysis and substantiate it with suitable illustrations.

FIRST PAPER

• History – Bipin Chandra: Struggle for Independence and India after Independence, Spectrum
• World History – Norman Lowe or Jain and Mathur only selected chapters
• Art and Culture – Spectrum and NCERT
• Geography – NCERT (6th to 12th), G C Leong, Atlas
• Environment – IGNOU materials, ICSE Text book, Online/Wiki for all the various protocols, committees, etc.
• Magazines : Yojana , Kurukshetra

SECOND PAPER

• Polity – M. Lakshmikanth or D.D Basu
• Indian political system – A.S Narang
• International relations: Peu Ghosh
• Rajiv Sikri : Challenge and Strategy , Lok sabha and Rajya sabha TV debates
• Magazine: World focus, Front line
• Wikipedia on related topics

THIRD PAPER

• Economy – Mishra and Puri only selected chapters, Frank ISC Economics (11th and 12th), Economic Survey only relevant aspects
• Science and Technology: 9th and 10th , Lakhbir Singh and Manjit Kaur ,TMH and Spectrum
• Newspapers – The Hindu
• Magazines – Science Reporter, Yojana , Kurukshetra

FOURTH PAPER:

• Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude: G. Subba Rao,
• ARC Reports and Internet