 Dear friends, today we have Ms. Swathi Shtri, the person who needs no introduction in Tamil Nadu. She secured the Allandia rank for it in the Civilization 2021. She is also a top in Tamil Nadu. Her optional subject is agriculture. She scored a 303 in agriculture optional. That is also highest in the Allandia level. Now we welcome Ms. Swathi Shtri to provide her valuable inputs for the preparation of agriculture optional. Thank you for the wonderful introduction. In this video, I will be sharing my strategy and what I did to score good marks and my book list, the sources that I referred. So the first thing that I did for starting my preparation was I referred to the syllabus. I understood what and all topics were there and what subjects are there and which subjects have more weightage. So that initial glance of the syllabus itself will give a good idea. And the other thing is that we have to analyze the previous questions. So if we analyze the questions, we can see that certain topics are getting repeated year after year. So those are the very important topics and we can also analyze the topics that are more predictable and so we can easily prepare these topics. So first preparation is referring to the syllabus and previous year questions. If possible, we can also segregate the previous year questions syllabus wise. So that will give a very good idea. The second thing that is needed is we have to make notes from the source books or whatever material we are referring to so that it is very easy for consolidating the material and revising. Since this optional is more static in nature, the questions will get repeated. So once we make notes, we can have a very good hold of the subject. The third thing that one needs to do is we have to revise multiple times. So I revised the subject more than 15-20 times. So the entire subject I revised it 20 times. So that will give, that is very, very helpful for answering the paper in very short time. So we will not have more time in the exam. So we can revise many times and give the answer. And the last thing that is needed is answer writing practice. So for that, I joined with Shankar IAS Academy's test series. So that was a very good test series. So we can join one mock and give that mock religiously so that we will analyze the subject in a more in-depth manner. We can analyze how better we can present the answers. And we will also have a hold of how to answer the compulsory questions and the choice-based questions. So we have to make a choice. So it will take at least 5 to 10 minutes. So that idea we can get by giving more number of mocks. At the initial stage of preparation, we can answer one question on a daily basis from previous question and get it corrected for feedback. So this was my basic strategy. And for the most repeated questions, I did some value addition that I will be sharing later in this video. So what I did to score a high mark is that first, I focused on how to select answers based on previous questions. So this will decide how much marks we will be scoring. And this mistake I made in my first attempt, I didn't select proper questions so I ended up getting very low score. So in my second attempt, I corrected that I gave more time for answer selection. I made sure that the question that I am selecting, I have more content to present. It is more of technical in nature rather than it is more GS oriented. So technical answers, we can score good marks. And I also made sure that I can manage all the three questions rather than selecting a question where only one or two sub topics I will be knowing. So that makes a difference. So that will give a very good score at the end. So we have to select topics where all the three questions are at least manageable. So that is also important. And second thing is that with the thing that I learned from the test series that I joined at Shankaray's Academy from Sir is that we have to answer at UG level. We have to give in depth answers. First of all, the definition we have to give standard definitions that is from the book itself. That should contain all the keywords and it's better than writing own definitions or we have to buy hard the definition and give it as such. So that will give a very good impression first. And second thing is that we have to give very specific examples as Sir will always be telling that examples need to be in a manner that we have to show that we are from agriculture background. So the examples, for example, if you are giving intercropping, then we have to give what crop at what ratio and which place this is followed. So this will give a very good impression. And similarly, when we are writing some plant growth regulator, we can give how much concentration it will be sprayed at what stage it will be sprayed. So the specific name of the PGR so that can all will give good impression. So specific examples. The next value addition that needs to be done is wherever diagram is possible to draw, we have to draw the diagram and it should be very neatly labeled. And this will give additional one or two months, wherever possible diagrams must be included. And the other thing is that in plant physiology, there are cycles. So C3 cycle, C4 cycle. So there we have to definitely give the cycles. So that's that gives an edge and other value additions that one can do is we can include recent data wherever example from current affairs. And we can give schemes wherever possible, wherever, especially for paper one and the paper two last part production and consumption trends we can give schemes. And we also need to focus on force for areas which are more scoring in nature that is from paper two. So that is plant breeding cell biology, plant physiology and say technology, these are very predictable in nature and more technical in nature. So once we prepare from the book and we give the answer as such we can score very good marks. And paper one is a bit tricky in nature because the paper is more GS oriented so everyone will be giving content, but it is a difficult area to score. So there we have to identify the questions that are most repeated and we have to try and give value addition. So let's try giving some creative answers that will make our answers look unique from the others. So this was my strategy that I followed to get good marks. And now my book list, I would be sharing my book list. For genetics, I referred to selected topics from BD Singh that is from the syllabus. And for plant breeding, I refer to two books BD Singh and Kundan Singh. So BD Singh is a very good book. Most of the topics that we have from our syllabus is covered and for extra content and for extra topics I refer to Kundan Singh. And for plant physiology, I refer to Tamil Nadu State Board textbooks, the old textbooks of class 11 and 12 bio botany books. So this book has very good content that is very easy to present in the exam itself like the cycles and all are very simple. That can be easily memorized and reproduced. And for horticulture, I refer to introduction to horticulture by N Kumar sir. And for soil science, I refer to introductory soil science by DK Das. And for agronomy, principles of agronomy by Reddy and Reddy. So these are the books that I referred and apart from that I also refer to my UG class notes. And TNA use Agritech portal and e-course materials and IASRI's e-course materials. So these materials are very helpful and apart from that we can refer to any UG material that we are having any book at UG level where content is available. And one book that I would suggest for beginners is the introduction to agriculture by A.K. Vyas. I found that book is very simple and most of the topics that we cannot find anywhere else is also covered in this book. So that's also a very good book. And this is how I, this is the book list that I used. I did not read the entire book. I referred only selected topics from all the books and I made notes out of these books. I didn't refer the book till the end. I made twist notes that is used, that can be used for the exams. And I consolidated the value addition wherever I get into this notes itself. And for certain topics we can also do Google search and find answers like agroecology and production and consumption trends. These can be, this is from Google itself. And there are also ministry websites like ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, ministry of commerce and industries. So these websites will give authentic data that we can use for value addition. So this is my strategy. Swati. So this is the list that I used. Okay. Okay, Swati. Very thank you. Thank you so much for your valuable time. Students, I will mention the list of books that are referred by Swati in the description. You can refer it. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Swati. Thank you so much. Dear friends, these are the list of reference books by, mentioned by Swati. In these books, you should not read the entire book. You have to read selected topics in these books based on the syllabus. So one challenge in agriculture is you have to refer more than 7-8 books for agriculture. There is no single reference material for agriculture. So that's why I have prepared a comprehensive material for agriculture. So for the entire paper one, paper two. So paper one also I have prepared a comprehensive material for the entire topics. So the entire content is actually prepared from the selected topics from these books.