 Congratulations Junaid for securing all India third rank that is really the dream for most of the aspirants and this year in exams in 2018 you have got this prestigious rank and going to the most coveted service of the country IES. You already you are in our customs so naturally it is a great escalation for you in your side right. Which attempt is this one? Mine was fifth attempt last year was my fourth attempt I got 352 rank so I got Indian Revenue Service. So this is definitely going to be interesting for all those who are watching you. What all happened in your first second and third attempts? In the first two attempts I was not able to clear maze. In all the five attempts I cleared prelims but due to lack of answer writing practice and some other things I was not able to clear maze. In the third attempt I cleared maze but was not in the final list so I was sad after that but in the fourth attempt I got Indian Revenue Service and in this fifth attempt I got third rank. So since you have shown a lot of perseverance actually it is going to be motivating for most of the first timers and those who are strugglers like you. It is very important patience is something that is very much required in this exam. See the competition is very much if you see 10 lakh aspirants they fill up the forms 5 lakh they attempt the exam and only 1000 get selected. So the success ratio is 0.1% so you have to be patient anyhow in this exam. Some students are there who clear it in the first attempt second attempt some are there who take it to fourth fifth attempt. So it is important that if you are failing you have to keep your patience you need to become composed if you want to clear this. Now the point is what exactly you could see from your side that you missed in the first second and third attempt although you are qualifying in the pre but you could not qualify in the mains. So what you improved and how did you excel through? First there are few things which I want to share here the first thing is the preparation of this exam it is an integrated study. So in the starting what I did was I focused most of my time on Prelims. So I missed out on mains that was a big problem with my preparation. So the person who is coming in the starting they should not do this mistake it is an integrated study they have to. You mean to say that in the first three attempts you had focused all on the pre? No, no I focused on mains but not that much and the second thing is answer writing that is very very important when you are writing mains answers then you need to have content you need to have your own notes you need to have practiced the answers before writing in the actual exam. So these things I missed on in the first two attempts and the third thing which I did wrong was my optional I chose geography as my optional and I did not prepare to that level if you see the kind of questions which are coming they have changed a lot in the past few years those static questions which are there of geography they are not coming up now. It is more dynamic trend is changing it is more dynamic. So let us discuss first about the optional itself because that is one very critical decision for any candidate because if you make a wrong choice then you suffer a lot later on there. So what was your optional in the first thing second and third attempt? See my marks in the last two three attempt four attempt up to fourth attempt were 233 in geography and this year I got 321. So I continued with I continued with the same optional and I got the marks. So coming to this how to select this optional? Yes that is important what should be the factors criteria for selecting an optional subject and what made you select this option? See first I will say that whatever your graduation subject is you have already studied it for three four years. So if possible go for that particular subject if your interest is there if you can do good in that subject go for that subject. But if you think that it is not your cup of tea or your interest is not there in that subject you can go for other subject. But interest is the primary criteria for selecting your optional. If I take my example I had three choices in front of me I saw all the subjects but I shortlisted history, political science and geography. So what I did I read few books of all the three subjects and I realized that geography interest me more so I took geography as an optional. So interest should be the main criteria of selecting your optional and the other things secondary things what marks are coming or not content is available or what is the trend of papers in the past previous years. So these are all secondary things secondary thing of course if your interest is when you are saying interest is the primary thing would you like to elaborate it because of course most of the toppers have spoken to they talk that interest is the main thing even I suggest the same thing to candidate. But maybe many of the people who are watching you they would be interested. What do you mean they say interest? See there are why it is so important. See there are different subjects like history is there. So you have to read a lot about ancient medieval. So when I started reading as I was having an engineering background. So the concepts of geography they were more understandable. I was more able to relate with those. Being a technical. They were more easy to me for me to understand. So it my interest got generated in that particular subject. Similarly some students are there whose background is in sociology history. These things society they interest them more. So this is something which that is very clear now the question is why interest in the subject is so crucial for performing better in that subject. Because when you are preparing only not only the static part like in the graduation which you study those kind of questions don't come in UPSC exam. It is more of dynamic in nature. You have to relate different things in a lot of common sense best common sense based questions are there. If you will not have interest you will not be able to link those things. If I talk about geography my paper in paper one it is purely physical geography. But I have to introduce Indian human geography concept tribes concept. Yes, yes, that's so. So it it will come only when you have interest in that particular subject. Moreover we since the subject is quite lengthy you will not be able to spend that much time to study that if you are not studying with interest it will become burden on you. The second thing is the newspapers and the current events and current things which you are studying. If you don't have interest you will not be able to relate those things with your optional subject that is very important nowadays value addition. So that becomes very important. So what you want to say is that in the optional also you have one has to be very very alert about the newspapers and all the current papers there. In the whole preparation well begun is half done you have gone through five years of grilling efforts there right. So naturally you are the best person to suggest that you come as to come. So what message you would like to give to the beginners how to begin so that they don't have to struggle so much. This is a very important question because most of the people have this doubt when to start how to start as when to start I have already discussed graduation the person should focus on that and then they should start preparing for UPSC. Then how to start that is a question that need to be focused upon. Now the thing is first question which comes in the books which need to be studied. So NCRTs are the basic foundation for UPSC. So thorough reading of those books is very much required. But the point is in the NCRT which is how to make it relevant study is very important question. Of course I think you would like to say about the syllabus if one is going to be for yes so how so please explain something about how relevant is to go through the study of syllabus. Slabours and previous years papers they are these are two things which need to be studied in detail in the starting one two months. If you are not able to understand the demand of the paper it will be very difficult for you to study in a right direction. For example if you are reading newspapers and you don't know what to read what not to read it will be a waste of time. It is important that you can link each and everything which you are reading to the syllabus so that will be helpful in your means as well as your in problems. So you should buy hard the syllabus and you should analyze previous years papers. That will give you an idea. That will give a direction which way and what are the basic core areas where one has to really focus on because otherwise it is going to be very wide and extensive study all there. Now here the reading and going through the NCRT book that also is a very important question in the mind of most of the story. First dilemma is to read old NCRT or new NCRT. Have you also gone through this dilemma in a way? It was there because few old NCRTs are there which are very good like history NCRTs are there ancient medieval modern old NCRTs. I studied from those NCRTs they are really good but in my last attempt I read those new NCRTs also which are theme based. So NCRTs are equally good whether they are old or new it depends on person to person. So it is a motion of making a combination wherever it is required. Wherever it is required. And all depends on the candidate how it is going to take right. You see NCRT book most of the time how many times you read these NCRT books? See in the starting I read them twice I remember after that I have not studied that much NCRTs. But in the starting readings one or two readings you have to be very thorough with those readings. You need to read them to understand those books just not to complete those books. So it becomes very important it makes your base. So those two readings are very important. Then when prelims used to come, maze used to come I used to revise some books like geography, history I used to take up. So that I used to take up. When you say revision it do you mean to say that you read the entire book or you had prepared some brief notes on maybe in the book itself in the margin of the space. What did you do? No no not entire book what we do is when you read something you mark things which are important. So in the next reading you pick up those things. And then in the next reading you further shorten the things. So in the end it becomes very concise. So you can read the whole book in half an hour or so. So you have to concise the things in every next reading. So this becomes very important. So here actually when the preparation begins you have to develop your examination skill. Basically you are preparing for exam. So naturally you have to keep making all severity. Most of the candidates they do the blunder they keep preparing huge notes and they will carry this whole voluminous material even in the examination hall so that in intervals they can revise it which is going to be disastrous for them. So what suggestion would like to give to such candidates who are struggling through years and they are struggling by making huge and huge notes for them? Notes making note out is very very important because when you are writing means your notes will be there which will help you. So how to make notes that is another important question. Note should be concise as much as possible and they should be in bullet points. You should not have notes which are in paragraph because they they are not easy to read after one or two times. So you should write the notes in bullet points concise so that it is easier to revise and easier to recall when you are writing the exam. So suppose I used to make notes on an A4 sheet paper. In the starting it was difficult for me to cover a particular issue on one A4 sheet paper. But as we move further I tried to concise them and in the end I was able to make one particular issue note on one-third of A4 sheet paper. So you have to concise it with every passing day and you have to put the bullet points only the bullet heads that should be there in your mind and you can reproduce them. So all precision is the crux of this exam which are now precise in a great brief and clear you can be in the whole process there. Now the point here is the relevance of newspaper and current affairs as you are also talking about that most of the time students are not very clear about how to make a relevant study of the newspaper. What would you like to suggest for that? How much time one should spend on that and what is the correct approach to get through this newspaper? In the starting when a student is coming into preparation I will suggest they should avoid much time in newspapers because at the time they do not know what to read what not to read and unnecessary time gets wasted. I have made a video in that I have shown all these things up to what time they should start newspaper. So when they are done with this GS preparation when they have some idea of their optional then they should focus more on newspaper say 3-4 months when they have passed then they start they should start focusing on. Do you suggest that in the beginning a percent can read the newspaper as a general reader but once you have become thought about the syllabus and relevance of that then you can start being more and more technical. Yes for the sake of reading you can read it to understand what is happening in the world headlines you can read it some editorials you can read it but you should not spend unnecessary time in that 20-25 minutes it is more than okay. But when 3-4 months have passed then your sole focus should be on newspaper when you have understood what is the demand of exam then your focus should be on newspaper because every particular issue which is being asked is mains as well as prelims it is from the current affairs. So newspapers they play an important role. We have to keep correlating the things correlating. What I used to do was when I started making notes from newspaper I used to wait for the whole issue to get covered suppose an issue has come and then you start making notes what happens the other side of that particular issue comes next day so your notes are incomplete. So what I used to do when 7-8 days I used to wait for that particular issue to get completed and then I used to make thorough notes of that particular. So this thing need to be there you need to have thorough concise notes of each and every issue which is coming in. Hello all I am Rishita Gupta I have secured rank 18 in my first attempt in the UPSC-CSE 2018. I was a student of a classroom coaching of Chanakya IS Academy situated at Autumn Lames in Mukherjee Nagar. I extend my thanks to all the teachers and staff who have helped me through my entire journey. Thank you. You know the starting point when the students that they have also this thing how many hours to read how much to read you might have also heard in the beginning and there are a lot of myths that one has to read for 15-16 hours every day maybe for quite a few years then one can get selected. Now you have been a good student from the beginning and especially in the problem so all through you have qualified. So what you have to comment on these working hours? We no doubt hard work is required to clear this exam and in the starting when a student comes in he has to develop a base for that some hours are required. If I talk about myself in the starting I used to study for say 10-12 hours but after that it started getting reduced when the slave was got tested in the starting. So it depends on individual to individual. Say if you are sitting for 4 hours and you are doing productive study that is more than sufficient. So the main focus instead of hours should be your targets. I used to fix a particular target I have to cover this NCRT or this part of NCRT in this particular day. So this can be completed in 4 hours also this can be completed in 8 hours also. So these targets depends on the efficiency and the reading ability of a candidate but at the same time if it is going with effective mind cool mind. So long as hour you can read that is the hours. In last attempt though I hardly studied for 2-3 hours that in the training I did not used to get much time. So that was a very productive study which I used to do. This is very interesting and very meaningful for the audience who are watching you they should understand that in the beginning it might take more hours. But if you are doing with a very systematic way and proper way then your working hours may reduce and you will be more effects effective on that way. Now here since the preliminary examination is important for most of the candidates what valuable inputs you would like to give to them they should be taking care of. Prelims 2020 days are left for prelims. So for students my suggestion would be that in these days they should attempt questions more and more test series they should do because that gives an idea what kind of question will come in the exam. Then there are certain things which they need to remember during the exam. One thing is while they are solving hardly 40-45 questions they will be able to solve. After that no one knows anything it is the applied knowledge and logic which we have. More of common sense more of the best sense. More of common sense and everything. So there the elimination technique is very much required. So analyze previous year's papers from there you will get an idea what kind of questions they set in how they set the options how they set the statement. So you can use the elimination technique to get to the right answer that will be very effective while solving the questions which you do not know. So this is very important. Then one thing which I always say that there will be many questions where you will be able to eliminate two options two will be left. So 50-50 dilemma is there. Yes. To attempt or not. So I suggest that you should go for it. The risk is less and the chances of getting marks is high. So every question where you are able to eliminate two options you need to attempt that question that is very important. And the next thing is that in these days you should not put anything which makes you panic or which burdens you. Increases the stress level. Increases the stress level. So you should not go for any new thing new test series which may demotivate you. So whatever you have studied revise it properly and close it to exam better to take rest. And the next thing the most important is the day of examination. Yes that is very important. What is skill that is the examination skill you have to. See four or five days from the last four or five days they should make this habit of having a proper sleep. It is very very important when you are writing the exam. And when you go into the exam hall at least you should be there half an hour before. If you are in a hurry that itself takes a toll on you. So you should sit there half an hour before. And two hours how you are spending there in the exam that those two hours are very important. I have seen people who have done very good in test series but they flunged prelims because they were not able to handle the pressure in those two hours. So be calm, be composed, do not think of unnecessary things. Just spend your time in solving the questions. This will be helpful for you. See one very crucial question is how to remain motivated and manage your stress all through your preparation especially when you are close to the exam. Based on your experience what would you like to suggest to this student? See for motivation the best thing is the opportunities which this service provide. If you have this goal in mind you will be motivated. Whenever I failed I used to think of the time when I will get into the list when I will be in the service what all opportunities I will have to work for the people or to work for the society. These things motivate you a lot. And second thing is whenever you fail or whenever you are low you should take a break that is also very important. Unnecessary if you keep on studying and that is not productive it is not useful. So you can take a break of day or two or some hours. You can go for a movie, you can go for a walk that refreshes you. And the last thing is targets. What you should do is a time comes in when you feel that what will happen if I do not clear. Suppose I failed in maze, I failed in prelims. So I used to think that next cycle is very long next year when it will come. So I used to move my mind away from this and used to fix small targets, daily targets, weekly targets. I used to think in that manner only. I will not think what will happen six months after or one year after. I just need to cover this thing. To remain in now that is more important. In the present. Remain in. So these two three things one should follow they will remain motivated and also they will not. Most of the one most crucial thing you said because every walk when you are trying something big in your life you may have to go through a lot of drilling situations there. But more important is what is the goal and what you are going to achieve. So when you think frequently on that or at least when you feel you are demotivated. So what you are trying for that will keep the things ready and motivated for you. If I have to ask you if I ask you to give three crucial things to that the candidates would practice to be a success oriented candidate what will you like to say? I will say hard work, patience, perseverance. These three things are required to clear this exam. If you do not have these things nothing will work. Hard work only cannot clear this exam. Smart strategy is required for clearing this exam and then the patience and perseverance. These are important things which you require and not only for this exam I think. Anywhere is success. Anywhere if you want to be successful these three traits you need to have. So Junaid of course our discussion will continue with other modules also but thank you very much for sharing this valuable tips especially for the beginners I think they will be benefited and of course we will look forward for more and more discussion show all the best. Would you like to say something? I wish all the aspirants who are giving this exam or who are thinking of preparing this exam all the best and give your 100% and you will definitely be successful. Subscribe to our channel and click on the bell icon to get latest updates on upcoming videos.