Clearing UPSC requires a lot or qualities and among that, for me, I believe Perseverance stand at the top. It's an uncertain exam with randomness question increasing every year. With these issues coupled with huge syllabus and unequal Optionals, I would list down following qualities for students to clear UPSC:
-
Goal-oriented: UPSC preparation isn't just a learning experience, it's an exam that needs to be cleared.
-
Strategic thinkers: Bring efficiency in preparation and get more by doing less
-
Know where to hit hard: Focus on Essay, Optional and Ethics that are more marks fetching than others.
-
Innovative at using personal techniques for note making and revision.
-
Family background: that's why we see a lot of 2G and 3G bureaucrats as they've already decided about pursuing UPSC when most of us have not even thought of it or perhaps didn't even know about it.
-
Family Support for those that come from humble backgrounds. Monetary support becomes crucial too due to increasing cost of preparation.
-
Less indulgent who understand the third law of motion. You can't crack the most competitive exam in the country without sacrificing vanity during preparation.
-
Last but not the least, individuals with grit and determination. These people are self-motivated which is the most long lasting kind of motivation available to anyone at all times.
UPSC or Union Public Service Commission conducts the Civil Service Examination or CSE for various posts like IAS, IPS, IFS and other administrativ grade posts. The exam is given by lakhs of aspirants every year and only a few hundred get selected which gives you an idea of the cut throat competition involved in this exam. Clearly with an acceptance ratio of just 0.1-0.2% UPSC CSE is one of the toughest exams in the world.
Let us see the exam pattern for UPSC CSE. There are three stages in UPSC CSE - Preliminary Examination, Main Examination and Interview or Personality Test -
- Preliminary Examination: The UPSC Civil Services Prelims consists of two exams namely General Studies-I and General Studies-II (CSAT).
- Main Examination: The UPSC Main Examination consists of nine papers including Essay Paper, four GS papers, two optional papers &two language papers which are qualifying in nature.
- Personality Test/Interview
Most candidates start preparing for UPSC CSE with high motivation and hard work but UPSC CSE preparation is a long journey in itself and people lose their motivation after some time. This is one of the reasons why candidates are not able to clear this examination. It requires constant hard work and a lot of patience.
Also, you need to be consistent. You can’t have days where you study for 12 hours and days where you don’t study at all. So, consistency is the key. You have to make a time table and even on days where you don’t feel like studying a lot due to some emergencies or you just want a break, you shouldn’t completely leave your studies. You can’t afford to lose the momentum. So, study for 2 hours even on days you don’t feel like studying.
An exam like UPSC requires proper planning and strategy. Because of its vast syllabus, if you start preparing for UPSC without any planning & strategy and think you can clear this exam by starting from one end of the syllabus and going to the other end, clearing each topic, it won’t be that easy for you. You need to make a proper time table. You can always start with an easy subject then go to a hard one and so on. You also need to strategize the number of hours you dedicate for each subject.
One of the main reasons candidates fail to clear the UPSC exam is lack of proper planning. Without proper planning, candidates begin their preparation at a good pace but they get slow after a few months & then before the exam they have a lot of syllabus left to cover, they panic & are not able to clear the examination.
Most aspirants during the beginning of their preparation feel they need to know everything about every topic because with the paper patterns changes every year, anything can be asked in the exam. Although it's true that anything can be asked in UPSC CSE, you have to understand that at any stage of UPSC CSE you don’t need to score 100% marks. UPSC doesn’t expect you to know everything. You have to read the standard books, refer to a few good sources for current affairs and read a few reference materials. Revise them again and again. If you do this properly, you can crack this exam.
If you are serious about cracking the UPSC CSE (Union Public Service Commission Civil Services Exam) and becoming an IAS officer then do check out NCERT books and some famous books like M laxmikant Nitin singhania, previous year solved papers etc. Booksfy offer all books for UPSC exam with best offers and delivery within 4-5 days PAN India that will help you crack the UPSC CSE effortlessly.
