Daily Questions And Answers

  Preliminary preparation Standalone preparation for 2 months prior to the preliminary exam. Earlier, preparation was integrated for pre and mains together. I did Current affairs from insightsonindia.com daily and did not make any notes from that rather revised from their monthly current affairs compilations. Daily, I solved MCQs from this site. I followed the current affairs till upto 3-4 days prior to pre exam. For GS PAPER II (Aptitude Test), No separate preparation, my English was already okay, Maths was already prepared as I had cleared CGL (SSC) exam wherein I had revised different Maths formulae. Test Series- I did pre related  test series from InsightsonIndia.  I revised the questions that I got wrong 3- 4 times. I started doing the test series in the last 2 months before pre.  I did not follow any other test series . I also diligently attempted last  prelims revision plan of Insights. I had prepared an excel wherein I had made separate sheets for variou...

  In all my five attempts at UPSC, I made it to the interview twice— in 2014 and 2018, scoring 204 and 176 marks respectively. Clearly I’m not an authority on the subject. No one really is. The following points and interview tips merely reflect my learnings from those two interviews I had given. So if you feel what I suggest here isn’t right, or that I’m not making sense, ignore the advice. Having said that, I really hope the following suggestions and notes add value to your interview preparation, and you take home something useful. I’d also urge aspirants to watch this  video  by Rishant Reddy (IPS 2016). It has some really good advice. Tips for the Interview The content of what your answers matters more than your looks and demeanor. In mock interviews, panel members put undue importance on attire, colour of your suit, manner of your walking etc. But in reality, they don’t matter much. Just be presentable and let your answers tell the board the kind of a person you are. ...

  Hello everyone! I am Ramya CS, AIR 46 in CSE-2021 with  PSIR as optional.  I was also one among you reading topper’s articles & watching their videos to identify preparation strategy and aiming to crack the examination somehow! Hence, in this write-up let me just focus on certain  Do’s and Don’ts  which has stemmed from my experience.   Do’s A self-analysis activity – identify your strengths (in my case my analytical approach), weaknesses (for me it was data memorization) and mould your preparation around this. This is not a one-time activity, try doing it as your preparation progresses and re-strategize yourself accordingly. Make your own notes (digital or handwritten based on your convenience, for me handwritten worked well) – be it for GS or optional paper – this will help you to refine focus areas, create intuitive memory, prepare for mains too! Handwritten spider notes helped me quite well, as it created a photographic image in my mind and helped...

  In the past one year, thousands of aspirants emailed me with their UPSC exam queries. One topic that constantly featured in majority of them is Current Affairs. Though I tried my best to reply to those emails individually, the volume of mail on current affairs never abated. So I thought a detailed blog post on it would be ideal so that everyone can read and get their doubts clarified. As I mentioned in my posts on  Essay  and  GS , there’s no one best way to prepare for this exam. The rest of the post merely reflect my learnings; you must pick and choose what you feel is right and what you are convinced about. For instance: I read everyday newspaper meticulously, but I never made any hand-written notes from it because I felt it was a colossal waste of precious time. I found a better alternative in making notes online (more on this later). But if you are used to making effective hand-written notes from newspapers in limited time, don’t change it for the sake of it. ...