 Hello, I good good evening. Hello. I'm Richard. I'm the assistant collector of the last year I've got only 23 in UPSC 2018 examination. So this is a small session. It's a small session where I'll be sharing some of my strategies and some of my points with respect to the UPSC services examination. I know a lot of you people are very new to this examination. So I'll tell you the general structure of the examination. I'll tell you what I did. I'll tell you this exam, what are the things which you can start if you are in college, what thing you can start by now itself. So we'll go through all of these things one by one. So I hope everyone is comfortable with Tamil. So I'll speak little bit in Tamil and little bit in English so that Purinjikrat is easier. So that's my point of view. I'll start the first point is the general structure of the examination. I hope everyone of you would have seen this examination pattern. If not, I'll tell you the pattern. The pattern is that the exam starts with the preliminary examination. There are two papers in the preliminary examination. The first paper is the general status paper. It will have 100 questions. The correct question will have two marks and a wrong question. If you mark the wrong answer, it will carry minus 0.67 which means 33% of negative penalty marks are put if you mark the wrong answer in your preliminary examination in paper one. So the paper one is the general status paper which consists of 100 questions. Each question will have two marks. If you mark the right answer, you'll get two marks. And the second paper is called a CSAT or active paper which will have 80 questions and each question will carry 2.5 marks and a negative, and if there is a negative, if you are marking a wrong answer, then you will get a negative. That's 0.33% of negative marking is there also. Paper two, that is CSAT is only qualifying in nature that you just need to qualify. You just need to get basic minimum marks in paper two. They are not asking anything else, basic minimum marks, that is 67 marks you have to get out of 200. Out of 200, you have to get 67 marks. The real game is in the paper one because your paper one marks will decide whether you are going into the main stage or you are writing the preliminary examination once again. So that's why paper one, GS paper one is very important. GS paper one is very important because the marks are counted for your main examination. So if you get, there is a cutoff. It's not that you have to get very high marks. It's a cutoff. Usually the cutoff last two years, the cutoff is around 9800. So usually there will be cutoff. It may sometimes go up to 105 or 107 also, over 200. So this is the cutoff mark. So if you get above 55% means you are, you know, you are having good opportunity of writing your main examination. Okay, so that's the pattern of the preliminary examination. Ready paper one, paper one, paper two. Paper one, Mathuna, it will be taken for your, you know, it will be counted for your main examination. Paper two won't be counted. It's just qualifying in nature. After writing your preliminary examination, the next part is you have to go for your main examination. Okay, your main examination will have nine papers. In total, your main examination will have nine papers. The first paper will start with essay. The first paper you will have is your essay paper. After essay, there will be two essays. Each essay will be worth of 125 marks. So totally two essays we have to write for 250 marks. Then there will be four general studies paper, GS1, GS2, GS3, GS4. Meaning you can see the syllabus online of various papers. So then comes from the first paper usually has history, geography, and sociology. The second paper has a political and international relations. The third paper is a bit lengthy paper. It has agriculture, economics, science and technology, disaster management, etc. Paper four is very simple, ethics, integrity, and attitude. Now the GS paper, everyone has to write four GS papers. After these four GS papers, then you have optional paper. One has to choose optional subject. There will be 21 optional subject which is listed in the UPSC. And no one is saying that you should pick this option, that option. UPSC has no mark. Even if you are an engineering student, you can pick up an art subject if that's interesting you. Or if you are an art student, you can pick up an engineering subject. You can even pick up medical subject. No one is going to ask you that why did you pick such subject. You have to get good marks. So whichever subject you are comfortable with, you have to pick up that subject. There are a lot of subjects available. I think so 21 subjects are available. You can pick up any subject apart from literature in all the languages, I mean all the schedule languages. Literature like Tamil literature, Hindi literature, Telugu literature, Malayalam literature. That subject is also available. So it's totally up to you to choose a very good optional. After your optional, you will be having a language paper. There will be two language papers. One will be a language paper of your choice, which is one of the schedule languages of Constitution of India under the 8th schedule. And second will be English paper. So in these two papers, you just have to qualify. Again, these two papers are qualifying in nature. These two, the marks which you get in these two papers will not be added in your final tally. Will not be added in your final tally. So your final tally will be for 1750 marks of your main stage. Your preliminary marks will not also be added for your final marks. Your main mark, there will be seven papers which will be added. That is one essay, four general studies and two optional subjects. You have to choose from those two, knowledge, gs, or any optional subject. But it will have two papers, paper one, paper two. Each paper will have 250 marks. So it goes for 1750 marks. And after that, if you get a good mark, if you cross the cutoff marks, then you qualify for the interview. The interview happens for 275 marks. So for a total of 2025 marks, they will see how many marks you are getting. And depending on the marks, you will be getting a rank. So depending on the final marks, that is your main mark plus your interview mark, depending on the final marks, you will be getting a rank. And based on your rank and your community to which you belong, are seriously allocated. For example, someone belonging to a general category may get an IAS within somewhere around 95 or 96th rank, 95th or 96th rank. Someone belonging to an OBC category, which comes in the Central Reservation, may get an IAS up to 418 or 419th rank, according to this year. And someone belonging to a schedule class or schedule class, they may go up to 440 or 450 also. So that's the larger picture. So it depends on your rank and depending on your community, you will be getting your service. So this is the general structure of your examination. For back data stock, the next question. I'm an engineering graduate. I graduated in the year 2014. Also graduated in Electronics and Communication Engineering, after which I worked with Infosys for around a year, more than a year, I worked with Infosys. Then I felt that I can do much. I had a much bigger aspirations to say. So for me, the option was to choose UPC Sousa's examination. So I resigned my job and started preparing in 2015 of this. And by 2019 April, in my third attempt, I cleared this examination with a 23rd rank. In my early two attempts, I have cleared preliminary part by putting clear main spot. In my first term, I was shot off three months off my general cutoff. In the second attempt, I was shot off some 17 months off my general cutoff. So I missed both of those. I missed appearing interviewed twice due to some silly mistakes. So which I corrected in my third attempt and that led to a situation of me getting 23rd rank. So that is something up to me. From as it started, I started my coaching in August. Then I worked my first prelims in 2016. Second prelims in 2017. I couldn't clear both main in 2016-2017. But third main I cleared and I got 23rd rank. So anyone can take up this examination. There is no bar that you have to have this degree or that degree. Any degree, even a degree from opening university or correspondence course, even that type of having a degree is fine. You just need to have a basic degree. You need to have a basic degree. And second thing is you need to have, after having a basic degree, you need to be 21 years old. Those are only two conditions. And upper element will be 32 for general, 35 for OBC. And I think so 38 for SC, SC I'm not sure about that category. And the number of attempts is 6 for general, 9 for OBC and unlimited for SC and SC. So this is the general criteria. So two of my questions got over. Third one, how to go about your preparations? How to go about your preparations is you have to start probably, you know, if now is a good time to start. The basic thing you have to start is you have to start reading newspapers on a regular basis. Pick up the newspaper. Most possibly the Hindus are very good newspaper. Pick up the Indian newspaper and start reading. Start understanding what are the various things that is happening in the current affairs. Start understanding the world affairs. Start understanding the political landscape of India, etc. Just for one or two months. Don't, you know, don't pressure yourself in understanding each and every news item that is coming in a newspaper. For the first few weeks, just go with the flow. Understand various parts of the newspaper. Understand where the news of the world comes, where world political news comes. Who writes in the editorial page? Who writes in the column page? What's the opinion that is expressed in editorial column of the newspaper? What's expressed in the sports column of the newspaper? Just go to a good analysis of the airtime newspaper. Then what you should do is that you should pick up the syllabus of mains. You should pick up the UPSC mains syllabus, GS1234, pick up all the four syllabus. And when you are reading your newspaper, keep your syllabus nearby to you. And when you are seeing a news, just see whether this news comes under which topic of our mains examination. That's a very clever way of preparing for this examination. Because you see that half of the newspaper won't even be helpful from the examination point of view. Part of the newspaper examination point of view won't even work. So on the part of the newspaper that I'm a critic of. So if you have the syllabus with you and if you compare the syllabus with the newspaper, then it will be very easy for you to understand what you have to focus and what you should not focus. So usually what I used to do is I used to pick up the newspaper after initial few weeks and knew that what are the news items which are important, what are the news items that are not important. I used to strike out the news items which are not important. So first thing is very important, read the news papers. Read news papers, I'll come to the strategy of the links and mains a little bit later on. News papers are not important. Second, pick up NCRT books. Okay, class 6, class 12 NCRT books pick up another. And you have to read those NCRT books from class 6 to class 12. You have to start reading those books. You have to focus on science. Your focus must be on history, geography, quality and economics. History, geography, quality, economics, high focus. Science, virtue, which come up. But the point is that the general science questions, usually they won't ask either in problems or in events. They won't ask those physics questions or chemistry questions. They may ask those in PNP's examinations. But if it is examinations, they won't ask this type of questions. So you need not read those type of questions for your examination point of view. But for the general point of view, you can read those subjects. So don't go very deep in the science, but go very deep in the history, geography, quality and economics. Because these are the four subjects which are going to help you in the main interview. So pick up class 6 to class 12 NCRTs and start reading this. History, geography, quality and economics. Once you have done one or two readings, then you have to go for certain advanced books. I'll tell you the name of certain books. Please note it down. The first book is Indian Poverty by Lakshmi Khan. Indian Poverty by Lakshmi Khan. This is the first book. Note it down. You can buy this book. It's a very good book about the constitution of India. Second one is Geography of India by Majid Hussain. Geography by Majid Hussain. That's a book of Geography of India by Majid Hussain. You can pick up that book. And then for modern history, history is divided into ancient, medieval and modern history. For modern history, you have to pick up a book called Spectrum. There's a book called Spectrum. Pick up that book for Spectrum. For economics, there's a book called Rameshtra. You can pick up that book. There's a book called Rameshtra. Apart from economics, there is a website called Brunal. In Brunal website, a lot of good lectures on economics are given. You can watch that Brunal website. As well as you can different another website called Arthapedia. A website called Arthapedia. You can refer that website also. These are three sources for economics. And then pick up a good current affairs magazine, which will be very helpful for you. Apart from reading newspapers, pick up a current affairs magazine so that you can revise things very easily. This is a basic book list for 11 examination. Coming for your main examination, in paper one, you need to read sociology related books, not with respect to optional sociology, but very G.S. sociology. In 11, 12, there will be a book on sociology. Those books itself will be enough. And a good current affairs reading will be enough for that part. You just need to pick up a book for world history. So you have to pick up a book for world history. For world history, I will say two books. One is Arjun Dev and another one is Norman Love. One book is by Arjun Dev. And second book is by Norman Love. N-O-R-M-A-N-L-O-W-A. Mastering world history by Norman Love. Pick up these two books. These two books will be helpful for you. For paper two, that is quality. Lakshmikanth will build the base. But most of the questions will be current affairs. In your paper two main examination, most of the questions will be on the basis of current affairs. So you need to have a very sound knowledge about general studies. That is newspaper reading. You can write those examinations only by a very keen interest in general studies on newspaper reading. So that is the most important part. For international relations also, your newspaper will almost cover many things. And if not, a good current affairs magazine will do. For paper three, for economics, again, largely your newspaper, apart from that, there will be something called an economic survey. There is something called an economic survey which is released by the government of India one day before the budget starts. So you have to pick up the economic survey and you have to read the budget document. And after budget document, you have to read the current affairs, newspapers. This will be enough for economics. As of now, I think for disaster management, you have to go to the Indian National Disaster Management Agency. Indian may website. There will be a lot of information to be given on disaster. You have to learn all those points. And for internal security, largely your current affairs is enough. Stick to the syllabus. For agriculture and other parts for economic development something, there will be certain NITI IO reports. So you can pick up those NITI IO reports and you can read them. And finally, for paper four, that is ethics, integrity and aptitude, there is two books. One is Lexicon for Ethics and another one is Subara. You can do both. You can pick up whichever book you are feeling comfortable with. So this is the basic reading list about for examination. How to go about preparation? So how you should prepare for preliminary examination and how you should prepare for main examination. I hope so. I am not going very fast. So you can have your questions and I will take all those questions in there. How you should go for preliminary examination and how you should go for main examination. That is the two questions. Preliminary examination, as you see, it is totally MCQs, multiple choice questions. So in the first you buy a book of previous year preliminary question papers. These are publications or publications that they are having in the last 20-30 years preliminary question papers. So you buy that book and they will solve all the questions in the preliminary examination for the last 30 years. Understand that why such question is coming, why such options are being framed. As I said, there are negative markings and then options will be very close. You pay these exams, so options will be very close and I have seen even I myself got struck in two options. I am unable to decide which option is correct and which option is wrong. So as a matter of situation, for example, one such strategy is solving a lot and a lot of question papers. In the Nareya coefficient of solve panel, which should be framed and done. These are certain basic things. So the first thing you have to start is solving previous year UPSC preliminary question papers. You can buy that book Disha publications, last 25 years book if you Google, you will get it definitely. By that book those book has a lot of questions, previous questions, they will be put into quality economics like that into different parts. So pick up those book and keep on revising. That is for your preliminary examination. After revising, study your subjects. After reading any chapter, think about what are the questions it can come. Suppose you will say, you can pick up the previous question book and solve all the questions which have come in that subject or that chapter. You can again do. Before learning a chapter or after learning a chapter, you can solve the question papers of previous year to get you acquainted with how the questions are coming. Once you got acquainted, you have to read it again. This is not like college examination or school examination where we study one day or two days before the examination and clear this examination. This is a very long process. You need to keep on solving a lot of question papers from day one till the day you are entering your preliminary examination. So that you are very well prepared to handle the stress of this examination. This is about problems and about means. Sorry. About means, it is largely about answer writing practice. So you need to do a lot of answer writing. You need to do a lot of answer writing for this means examination. That is very important. So means examination do the same strategy. Pick up the previous situation papers and answer any answers. Pick up the previous situation papers and think that why this question is being asked. Start writing framing answers. To give you an idea for the 2018 main examination I have written over 40 full-length test of all the 4 GSM checks. I have written 40 full-length test. Each test will come for 3 hours. 20 questions in each test. I have written some 40 to 3 I have had a writing practice of 120 hours in my third attempt. My first and second attempt I have did considerable writing practice also. So if I put all together I would have done over 200 hours of writing practice. I have put over 200 years of 200 hours of writing practice over 200. I can say in 250 hours of writing practice over the last 3 main examinations to get a good rank. And with the discipline of prelims I would have solved every year I solved around every attempt. I used to solve it 50 to 60 prelims question papers. You know, Goattingen State Worship papers Yes, serious question papers etc. So you will have question papers solved and removed. We have chances to clear this examination and that's what I want to say both in prelims as well as in main. Sorry, I am sorry. Hello Hello, Priya Sorry, I am sorry. Sorry, I am sorry. So this is how you should go about your prelims preparation as well as in main's preparation. How you should study? See, you need to have a lot of curiosity. Hello I will tell you. I can't unmute the video. Recepts are no problem. Please continue sir, no problem. So the next thing is so you need to have a lot of curiosity particularly in the the you need to have a lot of curiosity why you are preparing for this examination. So you need to have the curiosity to learn a lot of new things whatever we can learn new whatever we can learn that's refreshing whatever how the different angle we can think group study we can do we have to do a lot of these things we have to keep on do a lot of these things so that we can study properly. And a few people said that I used to study for 12 hours 14 hours or 16 hours. That is not at all enough. I mean I am not saying not at all. It is not needed. A general person will read up to 6 hours. I used to go for coaching. First my general status coaching and then my optional coaching and after doing all these coachings I used to come back and I used to sit and study. The coaching sir would take 6 to 7 hours of a day. I would sit for more 4-5 hours on a daily basis. Or we can ask you to do for 8 hours. So this is how I used to study. But what is important is your consistency is very important. Your consistency is very very important. You need to keep on preparing. You need to keep on studying. It's not that one day you study for 14 hours and the next day you don't study at all. You have to keep on studying and you have to keep on studying for 5 hours, 6 hours, 7 hours on a daily basis. What more important is your consistency. How consistent you are. That's how you will be able to prepare. How to choose an optional subject is very important. So there are 21 optional subjects and you may get, for example, if you are an electronics and communication engineering you don't have such an optional subject in UPSC. In engineering only 3 subjects are available. Civil, mechanical and electrical. Only 3 engineering subjects are available. So it's very important that you pick up a very good option subject. Now you should choose an option subject that is another very important question. So you have to take the syllabus. There will be few suggestions that you are familiar. For example, history and geography are largely taken subjects because we have read in our school. Till 10 standard we would have read both history and geography. So people feel familiar with those 2 subjects. My option was geography because I was very familiar with that subject. I have taken geography option. Then you have to pick up the syllabus and see what was the syllabus. What are the various chapters that is back in the syllabus? After going to the syllabus you have to go through the previous question because last 20 years there was no question paper book. Pick up those books and see how the questions are being asked in your optional examination. So you will be coming to a very good understanding that this is an optional subject. Why I am saying is because I have seen a lot of people they have picked up an optional subject 20 more times than they did. They are not getting good marks in the brains. So from that they went to another optional subject. So you have to pick a very your optional subject must suit you and you have to keep on preparing that option for the next 2-3 years. So as it doesn't matter you have to pick up the previous question papers. You have to pick up the syllabus of the optional subject. You have to check the syllabus. You have to see various topics of the syllabus. You have to see and understand those topics. If possible go and meet teachers who take those classes. They will give you an idea of how this subject can be handled. If you feel it is a good subject for you can handle it. For example few people are very comfortable with mathematics. People who are good at mathematics they take max as the subject. Few people not good in mathematics they take subjects like sociology or history which is more of writing and descriptive based. If it is totally up to you you can take chemistry physics engineering subjects medical subjects. There is a lot of subject that is available. You can pick up any subject that you want. It is totally up to your interest. But please do a thorough analysis before taking a subject. Because after taking a subject you should not regret that I am unable to understand the subject. That is very important. Optional we do a lot of self-study. We do a lot of self-study in our optional subject. We do not want to prepare the options for the next one or two years. So you have to choose an option which is very easy for you to understand and you have an interest. What subject is easier to understand and what subject you are interested in please pick up that option subject. So can the exam be cleared in the first attempt? There are many doubts about the first attempt. So very easily anyone can get into the first attempt. I have done a lot of mistakes so you know you don't do those mistakes. Smart people learn from other mistakes. So don't do gross mistakes. Have a very good strategy. Your strategy is very clear. You have to clear the first attempt. For example this year a lot of people have cleared in the first attempt. 5th rank, 50 Deshmukh or Himanshu Nagpala. A lot of my friends have got amazing ranks. Top 10 were 2, 3, 4 people who cleared in their first attempt. So clearing the exam in the first attempt is not a very hard thing. Easily anyone can clear this examination in the first attempt. You just need to have a strategy. I have already discussed you with my brilliant strategy that is solving a lot of questions. Mainstay I did a lot of mistakes which includes I couldn't complete the paper on time. Mainstay on the order into question that is one big mistake which I did. So paper completion is very important. Paper completion. Whatever happens within the 3 house you have to complete some you know the booklet has some 40 pages 36 or 40 pages. I am really not sure. 15 miles per 10, 15 miles per 15 will have 3 pages. So 55 pages I am sorry. You have to finish 55 pages within 3 house. That is your target and other than that first 2 attempts I left a lot of questions and that led to a situation whereby I couldn't clear the mainstay. I felt short. So first thing is your answer writing must be very fast. Second is that understanding of the question must be very good. What questions are asked we don't know. What questions are asked we don't know. That shouldn't not happen. You should be very clear that what the question is being asked should only limit. In college exam what we do is writing and we do the story writing. We write whatever we know that won't work in UK6 animation. You need to write what is being asked. You should not write what you know. You should only write what they are asking you to write. That is important. Second thing is understanding the question. Third thing is your presentation. How need your presentation is how well you are able to convey an idea. The opposite person has no idea that you had a PhD in geography or you have written 6 names. The opposite person has no idea that the examiner has no idea. He is going to judge you by how well you have written and how well you have presented and how well you are able to convey your idea to him. That is very important. The opposite examiner is only going to see your exam your answer script and answer script based on what Mark would have done. He has no idea who you are or who your father are or from where you are coming. He knows only your answers scripts. If he knows only your answers scripts then it is very important that you convey an idea in a very easy and legible manner. You have to keep it very simple. Your ideas must be very simple and your ideas must be conveyed to him in a very legible manner so that he will be able to read it and he will be able to note it down and he will be able to give you appropriate marks. That is very important. I did twice and one more mistake which I did was not focusing on one subject. The first attempt I focused excessively on GS and I did not study geography properly. I got 412 or 415 in my GS and geography I could get only 245. Second attempt the reverse happened. I focused more on geography. I got 271 in geography but my GS mark came down to 396. Third attempt again I had to focus at a balanced world. Third attempt I got 446 one of the highest marks in general studies and 288 in geography one of the highest marks in geography also. So you have to balance between all the subjects. You should not say that I will only read GS, I won't read optional or giving more type of option and not giving any time to GS. That should not happen. You have to balance between all the subjects. That is important. Once you start preparing you will come to understand all the things. I am just giving you an overall idea of the type of environment. So this was my strategy which I followed and I am ready to take your questions. So if you have any questions then I am ready to answer your questions. No to you sir. Yes Prem sir you can start asking the questions to the results sir. Yes sure. So the first question will be choosing optional you have already answered about it. The question is from what kind of magazines we should refer apart from newspapers for current affairs preparation sir. See there are two magazines that is Yojana and Kurukshetra. There are two magazines Yojana and Kurukshetra which is issued by the government of India. These two magazines they pick up on a particular subject. Yojana is largely about various government schemes and Kurukshetra is largely about rural development, economics and rural development etc. So these were in the Rendez topic and they come on a particular they issued on a monthly basis and each of these magazines they come on a particular subject. For example if you take a particular edition of Kurukshetra it will come as watershed management. In the detailed all the skills of watershed management there will be some case studies that that watershed manager has been successful. So that is important in the Rendez magazine follow up on that. No on the down to earthen or magazine which focuses on environment, ecology climate change. So these three magazines a person can follow. These three are very good magazines a person can easily follow on a monthly basis. So the next question will be like notes making for current affairs. So start with the notes making for current affairs from the newspaper. See how I made notes first. My notes were totally digital notes. Now first of all I started with writing paper notes, but that didn't work because I had to keep a lot or I have to keep on writing a lot and writing a lot, striking off the page adding something. So it did not work. So what I did was I installed one note software in my mobile phone and in that software I have divided four sections GS1, GS2, GS3, GS4 up to other sub sections based on those topics. And I did you know sub sections based on the micro topics and then in the syllabus so on the syllabus update I have created in my one note I have created the entire syllabus on one note and then whenever I was reading something and I used to have my syllabus next to me if I am reading newspaper, syllabus part if I am thinking this is important and I used to take out my mobile phone and I used to put it. Best part about one note is you can synchronize one note between your computer your mobile phone, your tablet etc. and with your microsoft token you can watch it anywhere. Suppose on the phone you don't have your laptop you can use the one note to update or read from your laptop when you are traveling you can take out your phone and you can reverse all your current numbers. So that's a very efficient way of notes making for current numbers is what I would say. Great sir. The next question is from a student called Darren. He is asking about time management. He is in the final year of the college. How to start the preparation and how to manage the time in the colleges between the curriculum and the preparation. As I said college final year person cannot give full time. I was unable to give full time during my job. Working in forces. That's why I resigned my job. As I am saying start reading news papers that are happening around you. Start reading NCRT. They are very basic simple books NCRT. So your news papers and your NCRT are just give 2-3 hours on a daily basis. Once you complete finish your college you will have a lot of time. That's why you have to sit and study as a full time. If it's possible. If you are working then study on weekend basis. But doing this time management I would say every day give 2-3 hours for a newspaper as well as NCRT. And on weekends you can pick up much more time and you can read a lot. You can read the regular books. So this is how it may work. The next question is from other student. He is asking about writing the examination in Tamil. How it works and whether it will have any repercussions on our mark or in the interview. Okay, see I have seen a lot of people writing the optional Tamil. They have taken Tamil literature. They have written it on Tamil literature. But people who have written mains, GS and Tamil are very very few. I may say very few. I may even count with my fingers. That's how people write. The point is that you can write. The disadvantage is that you don't have books on those subjects. For example, for quality you will get a book on Tamil. For history you will get a book in Tamil. For social you will get a book in Tamil. But for internal security or disaster management there are no books in Tamil. So you have to read English content and then you have to translate and you have to write it in Tamil. So there are certain words which comes only in English language. There won't be a Tamil equivalent to those terms. It's very difficult. It's very difficult. You cannot have the Tamil word for them. You have to search for the Tamil vocabulary for them. You don't have any reading written which is available in Tamil. You have to read it in English. Then you have to translate it and write it in Tamil. If you are willing to put that in then it's totally up to you. There is no restriction to you. This is from a student called Hemma Malini. She is asking about how to remember the facts in history. Do you follow any shortcuts or just want to read it again and again? You just have to read again and again. I don't know how short you can do with facts because you have these years and names and all this you have to keep on reading it. You sit with your friends and people discuss with them as a quiz based. You can ask your friend what happened in 1857. We can do some academic works but it's largely by heart. Other question is from Isse Kimmuto. He is asking if the first attempt I didn't qualify in this examination to get inspired and motivated is a very big issue here. Since you are not cleared in the first two mains and you got the top rank in the third attempt and motivated ourselves and how to get inspired. The motivation is first thing is you have to believe in yourself. There is a failure which is definitely there. There are people who have succeeded and there is a failure which is there but I am not saying there is no failure. There is definitely a little bit of failure. But if you are putting a hard work and if your strategy is very right you can clear with your first attempt. So don't think that you will clear out don't think like that. Go with a lot of positivity. First thing is you have to completely believe in yourself. Second thing is my friend circle is very important. My for me the biggest advantage I had was all the three years I had a friend circle who are very consistent. And my friend circle one person cleared UPS examination in her second attempt. She was with me. And I cleared in my third attempt and surrounding my friends they went to few people are cleared in forest services also. If it is a very proper circle they are very sincere then they will also push you to become sincere. That is very important. They will keep on motivated. Third is read some good motivational books. One book I have in my preparation I have read I have designed to APJ Abdul Kalam's Wings of Fire. One very very inspiring book. I have read it and whenever I used to feel I used to listen to the audio book. The audio book of the book is available on YouTube. I used to listen to the audio of that book. That is a very motivating part I used to do. Then I used to write a lot of tests. For the idea I would be clearing this because I used to write a lot of tests. In every test I used to get good marks. I used to easily get 140, 150. So one of the three films I cleared I used to easily clear the four. For example in my first films the cutoff was 116. For the second film the cutoff was 106. I got 116. Third film the cutoff was 98. And I got 108. For all the three films I cleared very easily. 10 marks for the gap and I cleared from the general cutoff. Because I wrote a lot of tests and I was able to take this I know that I will take this. That is why I am saying you have to sweat a lot in your practice but you bleed less in a war. You have to sweat a lot when you are practicing so that you can take this in your war. So this is how I am sweating. I put a lot of sweat in my preparation. This later situation and I for the real influence was very easy. And getting good marks automatically motivated me. The voice is not clear sir. Hello. Hello is it? Now it is clear. So what I was saying is that I used to complete myself. I used to have a target. If I am getting 110 marks then I think the next test I have to get 120 marks. For a target which I used to write my test. I used to write a lot of tests. Both prelims as well as maids. So my point is practice makes a man perfect. And if we practice more we can be positive about clearing this examination. Okay. The next question is from the student called Nitya Priya. She is asking which is the best way to prepare for the UPSA exam. Attending coaching classes or preparing from home? Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Attending coaching classes will lead to a situation where your syllabus will get completed very easily. You will have an idea and you can have a teacher where you can go and consult and the person is going to help you. But the disadvantages are sometimes you have to relocate yourself. For example I had to relocate from home to Chennai. So that was the point. So it is totally up to you. It is a nice situation as its own advantages and disadvantages. So if you are okay with getting a coaching then you can go and get a coaching. But if you are facing certain issues if you want to do self-studying you can also do self-studying. I have seen people clearing with self-studying. I have seen people who have cleared this examination going to coaching. The point is how sincere you are. For coaching you have to be very sincere for the coaching. It is not that you just keep on with the classes. That won't work. So the question is your sincerity. If you are very sincere then anything will help you. Rekha ma'am has a question. Yes. Professor Rekha. Good evening sir. Yes sir. Sir can you hear me? Yes sir. Good evening sir. Welcome to our college webinar sir. We are really excited to have you in this program sir. My next question is it has been raised by a student. What were the different types of questions you had in your interview sir? Okay. I will tell you what are the different type of questions I had. My interview started with Ayya Marshall. I am also a chairman of the board. The first question was mostly on my job. What type of job I was doing and where I was doing and all those things. One week before my interview Pulwama attack happened. So the question was largely on internal security. How did the Pulwama attack happen and how did Saeed was a terrorist when he was hiding in Pakistan. So should we be bombing that office that should we act like what happened with Osama Bin Laden. Like how US came into the Pakistan state and they killed Osama Bin Laden. Should we also venture into Pakistan and kill Hafiz Saeed. Those are certain questions based on internal security. And then there were questions based on income tax. There were questions based on my DAF that is a detailed application form. There were questions on the books I have read and Abdul Kalam question came. There were questions, certain questions on biological water. There were certain questions on water. I don't remember exactly. Total dissolved salts in water. There was a question on total dissolved salts in water. There was a question on Sangam literature and that day prime minister Narendra Modi went to solve Korea. So the chairman asked me why did he go to solve Korea. So questions were from everything. It was from current affairs. It was from my bio data DAF. It was from my work. It was from the subject which I have read. It was from the current affairs largely. Largely current affairs. But they covered every possible they could cover it. It went for 45 minutes. So the next question. What would be the preparation method for both problems and names for the next one year, sir? See, next one year I am not sure when the problems is going to be conducted for the next year. But as I said you start reading your newspapers and don't separate problems and names. Both are very integral part of your preparation. There are many things done by students including I did. I did my main preparation only after clearing the preliminary examination. So I wrote on August 8, 2016 my first preliminary examination and after one month after results came only I started doing the writing practice. So what I thought was first I will read only for problems and then I will read only for means. But that is not going to work. It's not a very good strategy. You have to prepare both simultaneously. Spend 6 if you are spending 8 hours for studying. Spend 4 hours for your prelims and 4 hours for your main preparation. I already said you the strategy for prelims and main. So just divide the time between the prelims and main and start preparing. Put a timetable which suits yourself and start preparing. It's very simple. Sir, can you please explain about the different rankings that was allowed there in the PSE exam, sir? Different rankings. I am unable to understand you. Sir, different rankings like IFS and IAEA's and IPA's. This year's rankings I am not very sure of the exact number. So this year up to 93rd rank general category last IAEA went to 93rd rank and for IFS I think so it went to 130th or 140th rank for Indian Forest Service. For Indian Police Service in general category it went to 150th rank and after that the IRS Customs, IRS, Central Excise for GSB North and IRS IT. A lot of services comes. So usually people focus on top 3-4 services. So this year 2nd or 93rd rank IAEA's got over 4th rank. Sir, what tips you would give for a beginner, sir? Be very curious. Be very sincere. So these are 2 of the tips. If you are taking a subject you have to go to a very place to understand it. I used to refer a lot of books. I used to be very inquisitive and curious about the preparation. I could understand a lot of concepts and be very consistent with the preparation. It's not that you have to prepare one day and the next day you go out to play cricket. Your schedule must be very consistent. You have to definitely take a break once in a week but for 6 days you have to keep on studying. You have to really work very hard. It's a very competitive examination. Around 10 lakh people apply for the examination. 5 lakh to write appear for the problems. Out of 5 lakh only 10,000 appear for the mains. Out of the 10,000, only 2,000 appear for the interview. Out of the 2,000 only 180 get into the IAEA's. So you see the numbers are very competitive and as much as you proceed to the next level the competition gets as tough as it can. So you really need to put a lot of hard work. You need to be very consistent and you have to have a lot of Karnam Dikai. You need to believe in yourself a lot. Those are certain tips for the Dikai. Thank you. Very interestingly, a student have questioned that, have you visited Pandettor and what is the main feature that you like in Pandettor? I have not visited Karnam Dikai unfortunately. I am expecting to visit Karnam Dikai in certain times. I used to visit Karnam Dikai I had a trip but then again due to COVID everything has gone into IAEA but as an official trip I will come to Karnam Dikai and I will be happy to come to your college in time for this. Hello ma'am. Prayam sir I think you can get a new Prayam. Sir over to Prayam sir. There was a question from a student called Uma. She is asking about some tips for essay writing. How to comprehend the things? Because we need to write essays for 1,250 words. It is a lengthy thing actually. How to comprehend things? How to maintain the flow in an essay? What essay is largely about the width of your thought process rather than depth of your thought process. How broad you can think that is what essay is. In a topic you have to think as broad as possible. You have to include all the avenues that we have written in GS. GS if you go to very simple strategies they say but start with your GS paper one. You are going to read ancient history, then medieval history, then modern history and then you read world geography and then you read Indian geography and then you read sociology. Indian sociology and world sociology there are 7 topics in GS one. Likewise you go for all the 4 GS there will be some 20 odd topics. So you pick up a topic then you map them. You write all these 20 topics and you map that in which topic, which point you are able to connect and which point topic you are able to understand. And you draw a mind map based on these topics and then you club it and you write a good essay. So next question is from a student called Nauman. So she is asking how the logical thinking will work in cracking this examination especially in the preliminary stage. The logical thinking will work. It's actually entirely logical thinking only. You go to preliminary examination after 40 questions you will have and you have no idea what the rest 60 questions are. You wouldn't have even read those 60 questions. It's largely your common sense. It's largely your common sense. It's largely that you think for example I will tell you a very simple interesting thing which happened. 2015 preliminary examination there was a question on Amnesty International which was calling Amnesty International. They have given 4 options. Amnesty International was largely in news because they were a part of Syrian, there was Syrian refugee crisis was going on that point of time and Amnesty International was helping them. And while writing 2016 prelims when I was reading newspaper again this particular medicine science frontiers or doctors without borders. This is something which kept on coming in the news paper. I thought that this is something you know, a large chances of the question will come. And it did come in 2016 examination. Very simple question. Again every year a question based on RBA a question from the Reserve Bank of India will come. Definitely influence. If you take the last 2015-20 years there will be a question based on RBA. Backing sector, RBA then there will be a question. When you are reading the news you will think that this question has come last year. So this question may come this year. I will prepare this way. If there will be a question based on Buddhism or Jainism. Every year from Asia there will be a question on Buddhism or Jainism. So your logical everything and preparation is logical thing. You read something, you understand the past patterns you understand the past trends. You predict how the future question will be. So everything is logical thinking. Your entire plans, your entire maze, your entire interview your maze you go to your maze you have no idea which question may ask. You will come to ethics there will be case studies. Case studies has to be answered in a very logical way. So logical thinking is going to help any student in clearing this examination. Can you give some tips for the preparation of ethics paper? Ethics. Ethics are very easy paper. Actually ethics is the most easiest paper in this examination. The syllabus is very limited and the questions are very straightforward. Even there is very easily one can predict the questions in ethics. So basic is read a book understand ethics syllabus take notes. Take each and every word prepare notes. Ethics one thing very important is preparing good examples. So one has to prepare a lot of good examples. So prepare a lot of good examples and do a lot of writing practice. Ethics is something you know if you are giving 20 hours for GS3 and if you are giving 1.5 hours for GS4 still you can get better marks in GS4 rather than GS2. That is very easy. All that you are to need is you have to be very creative and you have to have a lot of examples and you have to do a lot of writing practice. Preparation part in ethics is very less. The practice part in ethics is very high. If we take other papers with GS2 and GS3 the preparation is very high, practice is very low. In ethics the preparation is very less. Within 5 hours you can complete 1 or 2 chapters. And after completing that you have to write, you have to answer it. So that is a small strategy for ethics. So this is the last question. What are all the mistakes a beginner should avoid when he starts the preparation? This will be the last question sir. Okay mistakes. One mistake I will say one what beginner will do is that he will go to a lot of bookstores. He will see history. He will buy 10 books for history. Someone has said that for newspaper. He will buy 3 newspapers. And then for current affairs he will buy 10 different magazines of current affairs. He will buy Yojra, Kurukshetra, this Institute. He will muddle up everything. You go to his room you will find hundreds of books which he would have never read. That is a very bad strategy for anyone to follow especially for a beginner because he will lose what he is going to do. One has to write his table, what newspaper, what current affairs magazine and general magazine 2, 3 which I have said that is enough. I still think that this is enough. That is a mistake which beginners do. Another thing what beginners do is that they think that I will study not tomorrow I will study. Or they are very far the coaching for teacher subject and then they will study. What I used to do is that before coming to coaching I used to read the subject. I was getting the tank table before a week itself. So I used to go to the tank table and see that tomorrow history classes are multi-classes there. So I will know what chapter they are going to. I will just glance at what they are going to read. I will generate certain doubts and when I am going to the class the person will teach me. So that day one of the doubts will get resolved. Another of those I will ask him immediately. So the learning process is complete that I am doing my hard work and then I will be going to coaching. What people will think is that they will go to coaching and they will teach everything and then. Third one mistake is that people largely depend on this ready-made notes which is available on market. But every and any subject they will go to market they will buy ready-made online notes which is available in the market. They will buy those notes and they will read only those notes. UPC does not really request a person who just marks up by hats things from notes. A person has to be really innovative and I think so a beginner should avoid while preparing for this. One more thing is it is a long process. It is not going to happen in 3-6 months. So one good advice is someone is preparing for this examination. His ultimate aim should be IAS. But then in the middle he has to keep on writing a lot of examinations like banking examination or CMP of examination or TNPS examinations. Lot of these examinations follow the same syllabus. For example TNPS in group 1 and UPSC syllabus are almost the same. The person can write CMP of syllabus is exactly the same. The person can write a lot of examinations which will give him that boost and then a backup plan also for that person. So I think this was a certain mistake someone can avoid. Great sir. Thank you sir. In spite of your busy schedule you have answered most of the questions. So thanks a lot sir. Over to Ramesh sir please. Thanks Ramesh sir. You said you will have to leave at 5.40pm and you are still with us. Thank you so much for your time and as usual well prepared speech. You anticipated a few questions from the students and you answered it. I always tell people that you know this person comes for the event. That's a role model for all the students in fact. You are a role model in fact how an aspirant should be and even after becoming an officer you started I mean you still continue with making notes. It's a simple thing but it's a wonderful thing to follow. Thank you so much sir. Over to Rekha ma'am. Thank you sir. Really we had a very useful time and all your answers were crystal clear sir. I wholeheartedly thank our management for this great opportunity. In spite of your busy schedule you have spent much time for us and giving much benefits to our students. I thank our principal and secretary Dr. B.L. Shilkama sir for this wonderful support and I thank Mr. Rishabh, our honorable guest assistant collector of Kanyakumari district. I thank all the organizers last but not least I also thank all these students who are really supported for this program and who have made this program a great success. Thank you. Thank you sir. Thank you so much. Thank you sir. Thank you sir. I will call you. Thank you sir. Please take care of yourself. Thank you. Thanks a lot.