 Can we start up? Hello. Anybody who hasn't received the hand up? So, I'll briefly outline the purpose of the session, right? So, this is a brief idea, right? We basically look at the last six, seven years or top of three, and the intention behind doing this is that, you know, we'll show you what kind of things are happening and how it has changed since, let's say, 2016. I'm taking 2016 as a base here because this is a year I started working with test series, right? So, this is my seventh year with the test series and what kind of changes have I seen? And the intention is for you to see how different it is and how competitive it has become and how relatively more difficult it has become to score in GS, right? If you look at some of the answers which were great answers in 2016 and 2017, no offense, but it was working at that point of time, but things have changed in 18, it has changed in 19, that's changed in 20. And every year it's getting more competitive, the crowd is getting more competitive and the questions are different, right? So, I'll start by showing you, the points were explained extensively. If you see each of the points were taken and expanded and the idea of segmentation, the use of value additions and examples that you see now, which is very common at this point of time, was not something which was very popular at that point of time, right? The number of points covered in an answer would have been as less as 3 and now the standard is 10, right? You are expected to put at least 10 points in a 10 marker. In these answers, it was very verbose, it was very extensively explained and this was a different timeline, right? This person secured rank 50 something. You have, what do you call, if you can closely watch the question, the question does have multiple parts, but the segment now is in two different parts. Can you mute all the participants please? You are audible, but we are not taking questions at this point of time, right? We will take questions towards end, whatever doubts you have, we'll discuss towards it. People who usually have a relatively difficult handwriting, this is a copy that we usually show. The kind of handwriting which was this person secured rank 96. So, it's not that bad handwriting does not work, but it rarely works, right? So, many of you have been consistently writing mains and who have been getting low marks throughout the year and low marks throughout the subjects. Low marks can be seen in terms of pattern. Low marks may be particularly attributed to people who have great marks in SA, low marks in GS, decent marks in optional. But there's a segment of people who have low marks across, you know, their marks in GS is low, SA is low and optional is low and they are 200 away from the cutoff. Their scores are usually below 300 in GS, their scores are below 100 in SA. And when this happens, what we usually see is that, you know, there is some underlying common factor which brings down their marks, right? Which can be probably attributed to something as trivial as handwriting, right? Something as, you know, important as a lack of ability to interpret a question over explanation, debating from the demand of the question. And this is, you know, done across all papers, right? Now, this was also in 2016. This was a little, you know, out of the box for 2016. Now this is a norm, right? People to write, you know, arrows and break questions into parts. And this was done by a guy called Bridget Mayer. He had secured Ryan 60 something, 67 or something if I'm not wrong. And Anuradheep Dureshati next year copied the approach or was adopting the approach from this guy, right? Why I'm saying this is that, you know, because you will see that, you know, every year the subsequent years, toppers are picking up approaches from the previous year of stoppers or good rank holders and adopting that. Divya Mishra's approach will be reflected in this year's a lot of toppers copies, which are the approaches reflected in Divya Mishra's copy and everybody else. I'm taking names because I assume that you know some of these names and you know why I'm taking their names. Divya Mishra had the highest marks in GS last year. Vishaka Yadav had the highest marks in GS in the previous year. In the year before that, I'm not able to immediately recollect, but this is a trend. You are appearing for mains this year. Your primary model of adoption would be based on this year's toppers, their copies, their approaches. Rank 1, rank 6, rank 14, whatever, right? So you should always mod around this because this always gives context on an approach which has already been validated by UPSC, right? This is important and I'll come to this part where, you know, we'll be talking about people who have stagnated holes across the last four years, who have been consistently scoring 350 marks and what needs to be done, right? This was the approach. This is also the guy who first time used a flowchart approach in a case study, right? What will be your course of action? And I think he had beautifully done a flowchart saying that, you know, if I do this, this will happen. And if I do this, this will happen. So people have innovated these things before you also, right? When I move from here to 2017, this is the year this guy secured rank 10, right? His name was Abhishek Durana. Maybe some of you have heard of him, right? Somebody's mic is on. So this was an extension of previous approach. You see that the points are getting smaller, the headings are getting more visible and tables are coming into picture, right? He's also the person who has a beautifully come up with this dimension approach, right? He is the one who came up with a document which is a 10 page document which was exclusively looking into what kind of dimensions can be applied and what type of questions, right? If you are asked benefits of something, short-term benefit, long-term benefit. If you're asked about, you know, agriculture related questions, he had a particular template. So what a template-based approach does to your answers is that, you know, it gives you a way to generate content when you're stuck, right? Many times it's not because you have lack of content, but it is your inability to pull out content in that seven minutes or 10 minutes when you're writing an answer. And a template is something that gives you that direction to extract more content. I'll take an example in this context. We had a question last year, if I'm not wrong. It was about what are the challenges associated with lithium ion batteries, right? A straightforward question, which was very much in vibe at that point of time. UPC has still not asked why wouldn't mind asking that question this year also because there's a probability that it's in news. EBS are in news. So we had a student who had approached this question from a life cycle perspective where he said during mining, during usage, during disposal. This is something which is very simple, right? If you really think about it, it's not rocket science. It's not something that you cannot come up with. But at that point of time to have a template which will help you bring in dimensions into your answers will generate more content than your peer group. This examination is a peer performance based examination. You getting one mark more than the next person in every question will put you in the top 50 ranks. This is very likely the scenario in this paper, right? So this guy came up with this dimension approach. He also had extensively started using diagrams and epic papers. And when he secured a rank, you know, I asked him, you know, where do you get these, all these diagrams from? So he had said that, you know, he had picked up from this, what do you call, Gita by, what was his guy's name? David Patnaik. And you go back and look at this book. So the kind of what I'm trying to say out here is that people find inspiration, not just in Lakshmi Khan and, you know, spectrum. They look for areas to adopt ideas from wherever possible, right? So ethics is a paper where diagrams are working this year ranked six, right? He has said he has extensively used diagram in answers where to use it, when to use it and when not to use it, right? Since 2018, the use of diagrams shot up so much that, you know, people started using diagrams in the wrong places, wherever it is not necessary. So there are people who can't say that, you know, sir, I have drawn a diagram in every answer, but that is not a reason for you to get great marks in GS. It is an approach which can enrich certain answers and not necessarily every answer in the paper, right? This guy secured rank one, right? All these papers are available in public platforms or none of this is my property. There are various institutions. I have taken these copies because I have worked with some of these guys, right? He started this approach of shorter points, breaking answers into parts. And he has had a great influence on how people write answers ever since, right? The way he wrote answers was completely different from a lot of people at that point of time. Moving on 2019, this is a shift that you will see, right? I'll keep this brief. My idea of using this is to help you understand that, you know, what worked last year, then cannot work this year or may not work this year. It is important to improvise, innovate in your own way. Our role is to give you a direction. Innovation will come in each of you in your own way, right? It's not going to be a one size fit solution. This guy ended up securing rank seven. Why don't you maybe some of you know 2019, right? And this is a guy who started differentiating everything possible with the Hello. Can you get a birthday lantern? This has continued ever since. Password is the same, right? Yes, Wi-Fi password is the same. KDVI. Sir, you are on mute. This is for one video and the video for the other part, right? So this is also something that you can see. This is something that you can try. This is working. This is still continuing, right? Data is not being just put as part of sentences. Data is being pulled out and put into Python, into graphs, into tables. So that it's more visible for the evaluator to see and check the paper. Yeah. Any of you would probably come up with these kind of practices, but how you use it, how you make it more visible and organized is something that is you can play with. This person had ranked 11 if I'm not wrong. Again, table are approaches of breaking answers into parts, right? Use of diagrams in ethics. The best place to extract updated value addition and diagrams is proper answers because they have already done it. You don't have to come up with this. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, right? It's already there. Download all the copies. Two, three things that you have to keep in mind when you do this. Always make sure a copy had people in top 10 ranks scoring 100 marks in essay, which is not the best model for essay, right? Also make sure that you know you are extracting content from the year in which they have secured a rank and not necessarily from a previous year. This is general for institutes, including us to upload copies of topics of previous year also just to show that he was part of the program at some point of time or the other. Always make sure that you know the copy that you are taking as a point of reference should be written should have been written in the exam year in which they have secured a rank, right? Mass that the student has obtained in the particular paper and the year of the copy, right? 2019, this is Vishaka Yadav. You can see that the increased presence of value addition. Almost every point is being justified with some form of data point or something. After this Divya Mishra adopted this and we counted 150 data points in one paper. I'm not bluffing. You can sit and do this if you have the time. Each answer there was six, seven, like if it's a 10 marker, 50-60% of the arguments that she's giving is being substantiated with some content, right? So I think what is happening in terms of answer writing is that the evaluators are rewarding people who are substantiating what they're writing and not giving generic statements, right? Two people write the same answer and you write a generic statement and he writes a generic statement and substantiate it with a small data point. He's likely to get half a mark more or one mark more than that paper. That's the difference between getting an 80 and 90 or 80 and 100, right? So one thing that has happened is that the extent of explanation of each point in each answer has become smaller and smaller. To the extent that, you know, most people have one line or two lines of, you know, explanation for their answers, right? So increase the number of points, right, substantiate and validate wherever. Not saying that this was a question. This might work one because we people like me are standing and shouting that do this, do this in a year or two, this could also become normal and then we will have to go for something else. But I think this is a year where it could still work because it's still not predominantly used, right? Now, what is happening in this case is that, you know, a lot of people one don't have notes, right? A lot of people have notes, but those notes are not reflected in the papers. It's one thing to have notes and to revise it and to reflect in the paper. And many a time what we see is that, you know, people judge the performance of a paper based on a few answers and not based on the overall paper. You come out feeling that I had a great, you know, paper based on a few answers that you've written. But unless that percentage, I'll come to that later, right? Now, after this, I think the new trend that we are seeing is that in paper two, we are seeing the use of quotes. At least two, three people who have scored above 125 this year, 129 or 130 is the highest score in paper two this year. We have used quotes in IR, have used quotes as conclusions in social justice, have used quotes as introductions in paper to polity. So use of quotes have become more common, right? I'll take an example of an IR question where somebody has started with a quote of Jaishankar and concluded with a quote of the Prime Minister, right? So these things are happening and I think the issue is a quote of the Foreign Minister at least for this year. So make sure that you collate those quotes and I think the advantage of collating quotes is also reflected in the use of essays, right? That's also a place where you could use this as a value addition, right? Moving on from this, I think another thing that I want you to see is we have shared a printout of this. This is a segregated, not the Marxist, but a printout of segregated questions, right? This is something else that, right, this is something else, I think it's not there. We would like to see if you are not scoring above 410 in years, you are not getting into a decent right? I think this is one of the conclusions that I'll make. I'll share one more thing. This is a score that we don't have everybody's mark sheet. We have roughly 35, 40 candidates out of 100, which is a reasonable sample size for us, right? This is a score of essay. And you'll see that, you know, not many people have scored above 140. In fact, you can count it in your hands, the number of people who have scored 140 or above. Essay has become unpredictable as similar to interview. I don't know how many of you here have gone for interviews. How interview scores turn out is something that we cannot anticipate. Please notice that, you know, people give the same reason why they have scored high scores and also why they have scored low scores, right? The perception of what worked and what did not work keeps changing based on the marks that you get. I'll add essay to this category now because essay has also become dicey from this year considering almost every question has been philosophical in nature and almost every question has been, you know, tricky to interpret. And since this is there, this is not there, I'll share it. The other sheet is there, I think it was shared in the telegram group yesterday, right? Something in essay is that it is becoming even more difficult to interpret philosophical essays and majority of the crowd that writes these exams are engineers who have not written an essay in their life, right? So your experience with essay is very low. And the topic is such that, you know, unless you keep going back to the topic every two days, your likelihood of deviating from the demand of the topic was very high. And there are a lot of topics which has contested interpretations like the hand that rocks the cradle has at least three different interpretations where people are convinced that this is what it is. And we see that, you know, people who have taken such topics are the ones who have likely fallen from 130 to below 100 or 140 to 110. We have a lot of people who have year on year dip 30-40 marks in essay. Essay is something that you cannot undermine from now, right? So having established the uncertainty of essay, I think GS1, as far as I know, it has peaked at 120. This is the highest score, GS1, right? I can see ranked 12. There will always be outliers who have scored 200 something, 400 something, people who have not qualified for the service who have scored high marks in certain subjects, right? But from the data that we have, this is what it is. It's very likely there may be one or two person who are one or two marks more than this. The variation may not be huge. This is paper one, right? Paper one being a paper where, you know, you can find a lot of issues is because you have geography and society, right? Geography is a paper where a lot of people are not well-versed or a substantial percentage of people are from geography often, or work geography often. I think there is that segment of people who have moved out of geography also. So this set tends to either over-perform or under-perform based on how much expertise they express in their paper. If there are geography students who write geographical answers in paper one, they tend to fall. They tend to fall down and same applies for the equation between society and sociology. Last year we had this student, Meera at rank 6. The first year she appeared for Mains, she had very low marks in paper one and she specifically said that, you know, she scored extremely sociological answers in her paper one. Even citing thinkers like Durkheim and everyone in her answers in paper one, which back by it. And in the next time when she scored one of the highest marks in paper one, she had not done that. So if you are somebody from sociological background or geographical background, try not to express your geographical or sociological knowledge extremely in backfire. But at the same time, having a geographical and sociological knowledge also helps you to, you know, understand certain questions, deal with bounces, write faster. So it can work either way. So society is another topic where a lot of people don't put their heart into. And ironically, a lot of people put effort into world history and post-independence which accounts for only one or two questions in the paper. I'll show you the weightage of topics also. And the combined weightage of history is 75 marks. Your world history, post-independence, and history put together accounts for 75 marks, which is the equal weightage that society has. And geography has 100 marks. So people who have to, we will get into paper-specific approaches later. I'm just showing you the trends. This is paper two. Highest has been 129 or 130 if I'm not wrong. We had last year rank 14 who had 129. We also had rank 31 who had 121. Right. And both of them have written names before rank 31 is a law optional students, right? Law optional students tend to have same similar equation between geography and paper one law political science optional students have similar equations with paper two. Right. I'll talk about this later and how you can leverage this expertise in your preparation. Right. GS three, this has become the most ridiculous paper in the last three years. Many of you, if you have written mains, I think this is a paper where you're likely to have below 90 below 80. This paper has become very difficult to support. Right. I attribute this to a couple of reasons. One, you have the biggest or the highest diversity within a paper in paper three. You have economy, agriculture, science and tech security environment disaster management. It's extremely diverse. Right. And moving from one topic to the other has become very tricky. And also, the likelihood of bounces is highest in paper three either from science and tech. You have the overground worker question in security last year. Overground or underground. I'm not overground. Right. You had the S 400 question last year, the LED question last year. If you look at the one, two, three, four, the likelihood of a bouncer is the highest in paper three. I'll come to that part later. And how what you can do in this particular paper. Just for again, the highest marks from this year also is from just last year is also just for and last to last year is also just for. 2019 2019 2019 Vishakha Yadav had one 62. Last year, Sartak or Sartak Agarwal or Divya Mishra had 129 130. This year's rank one has 139 marks in paper one. Paper four. So this is a paper where you can score above 110 or where you should score above 110 so that your overall score goes above 400. Very likely based on current trends or based on last three years friends, your possibility of scoring above 100 in paper three is relatively low. Right. So, paper four is where you salvage that 1015 marks and increase so that you ensure that you score is above 404 times. Why I'm talking in terms of marks is that you know you need to set a goal right you need to say that you know I need to have this much marks in this much area. We were having a session with this student Sanjana Simha, maybe you've heard of her, she improved from 207 to 37. And she said she had clearly established that I have to make 40 marks improvement in GS, right. She improved from I think 370 380 to 420. It's important to define what kind of improvement are you looking for because then you quantify it and then you tend to work towards it. So, paper four is one area where I'll talk about you know other things that's happening in paper four. I'll come to that. Right. So, see the GS totals. How many people in the top 100 have scores below 410. Not seen on the screen. Somebody has stopped sharing my screen. I'll share it again from my end. This is visible now. So, a number of people who have scored above 400 410 420 in the top 100 is extremely high. Right. And this is a short requirement, or a necessity, if you're looking at a top 100 top 200 score importance of the score right. If you are below 400 you should have max of mechanical engineering or an intro with 300 plus course right. So, observing the marks and often and surprisingly I think social science subjects have done almost as well as science subject, right, take political science take and pro take sociology. I think the number of people who have are in the top one percentile are very similar. I don't undermine that unless you know there are certain options, the options which I feel are more difficult to score. You have psychology. More difficult to score. Right. So, this is the trends in terms of marks. Now, another thing that I want you to show is this. Right. We have shared a printout of this. Right. I think it's in the document. Why we are sharing this is for you to dedicate your effort in the right direction. Right. You should know why you're putting extra is that amount of time for expedite topic. Right. If you are investing in society it is primarily because it is 75 marks worth things. Right. World history has become a topic which either gets what they call neglected in alternative years, or are you receive questions which are either too complicated that you can't answer or too simple that anybody can answer. So, the basic logic is that this is based on past year's trends, like you know, if something happens this year which is entirely different from what I'm saying. I'm not in control, like, you know, I'm just analyzing what has happened and I'm just sharing my understanding of what is happening. Right. Based on the current friends, if I am preparing, I may skip world history for this year, right, considering that there has been a question. There has been years where it has been skipped. Right. If you want to prepare world history, you might as well prepare from some really concise notes that's available online, right, you know, there are certain purpose notes that are 20 30 pages, right, you know, which you can probably finish in half a day or one day. Post independence is an extension of modern history and society. It's somewhere where modern history and society meets, right. And the other things which you can notice are the weightage of geography, and whenever a particular subject has a weightage more than 50 or 25, try to break it up into smaller subsection. In geography, you have human geography or economic geography accounting for 25 months. You have environmental geography accounting for 25 months and physical geography for 50 months. Whenever you break a particular syllabus area into smaller and smaller parts, it's easier to tackle and you know, deal with that particular subject area. Right. This is what we have shared a print out in, in case anybody wants a soft copy, you can always reach out to us will share a soft copy also in case if you want to analyze over and above this. A lot of themes are great. This is something that you will have to understand, right. This is a sheet we have shared, right. This analysis is interesting. Certain things have super high probability. Eight out of nine years questions have come from certain subject area. Right. So what is the logic, right, the probability of a question coming from that area is extremely high. A student's organization is one such area, population and associated issues is one such area. Students who are online will share this document. We can share this document. Which we printed today. In the telegram group, sorry, in the zoom meeting. This is important. I've already done some of you, so that you can a cybersecurity oriented question in security is extremely high probability. An inclusive oriented growth oriented question is high elections question on what do you call comparison of constitutions is highly probable in paper to once you know that certain areas are highly more likely to come. Pre-prepare value addition, pre-prepare introduction, pre-prepare conclusion, pre-prepare maps diagrams. Plenty of a question on India Sri Lanka relations or India China or Ukraine crisis is very high. So what you do is that you pre-prepare a map on Ukraine, which you can use on any question related to Ukraine. You see a lot of topos copies and you see amazing map diagrams. They don't do it in the examination hall. They have practiced it before. They are just replicating what they have already done. It's not, it's not something that they know or probably they are, they have certain expertise which they have leveraging here. They are a geography of students who can easily draw a map for anything, right. But the rule for maps is that always make sure that it is being used in the right place and appropriately, right. In 2018 we had a question on high codes and somebody had drawn a map and marked all the high codes in the country in the question. It was an analytical question. What I'm trying to say is that you know the map has to be you know used in the right context in the right place, right. So teams are there are neglect. I was talking about some of them question on you know security agencies and they are managed in what they call the security topic is relatively lesser. Most of us mostly have one part right. Most series including us tend to increase the number of parts in even in 10 markers. I think some of the questions that you will come across will even have two or three or parts. The maximum number of parts questions that you're attempting understand the sequence of questions that you're attempting. Most likely in paper one question number 8, 9, 10 is society 1819 20 is society right. Why we say this is because it's very like that you will have a certain expertise on IR in paper two, but you realize that the IR question is question number 19 and 20 when you have 10 minutes left. Right, which could have is. Now, people say that you know, quality of static questions. I live out here a little bit. You have static issues which are dynamically relevant. The question of woman and judiciary is a static question but it is the context of debates around which which we are seeing in contemporary time. So, thing is happening repeatedly in newspapers, expect static questions around that right. Dynamic teams will get static questions and static issues could get dynamically applied questions. We're also seeing questions which is very difficult to demarcate where it belongs, especially in paper one whether it's human geography or society, whether it's post independence or culture. Right. So, this is also another issue so what you do for such kind of questions is that you leverage your experience of both the subjects and use it in the answer. When you're writing a society answer when you assume you're writing a society answer which has a geographical implication, you apply a geographical knowledge as well. Understanding what type of questions are being asked will also help you better introduction, specifically in the context of current context introduction. I'll share some of the answer sheets of topics, and that should give you some direction, right. So, this is extremely important. This is already two weeks since prelims and if you have not already done this, analyze papers trends and push and give the effort in the right direction. Right. And this is also important that you know you don't overemphasize on areas which you are strong at. I sometimes see people from law optional and political science optional spending so much time on paper to which I feel is an area where they are already having a certain expertise which they should leverage. So, this year we had Avinash, like I was saying rank 31 law optional students he clearly said that you know I did not study a lot of quality because I am already a law student so I have a lot of advantage there. Why I'm saying this is in the context of analyzing the way he's analyzing the type of papers that's coming right. This document should be useful almost every year. There is a question on federalism is very popular. Second challenges and management in border areas, left-wing extremism extremely popular team, right keeps coming. Okay, paper specific approaches. Just one again like I said weightage right areas which can be neglected. We have put for certain types of value addition for certain areas of paper one culture having the potential for diagrams and max right history having the potential for. Maths and timelines. If in if you're not familiar with timelines, it's a vertical vertical horizontal line where you have, you know, frequency of things marked across that I may have a sample of a timeline. This is a timeline. Not relevant for us but just giving an example of what a timeline looks like. So pre creating timelines on Gandhi's participation in freedom struggle. Ambedkar's contribution in freedom struggle. Judgment like you know how a judgment has evolved from XYZ evolution of basic structure liberalization in India. Timelines can act as good value additions and a different set of value additions. I'm saying this because you know I've been saying it for the last two years it has still not caught on right. We always try to differentiate the kind of value addition that somebody can put in their papers right. So timelines is something that you can try out in particular paper right. Use of keywords is extremely important in art and culture. There are documents which is being circulated online with specifically classified keywords according to different types of art and architecture right use that to write your bluff right more subject oriented and technical right. Society question I think what is happening is that you can interconnect your preparation of society and social justice. Whatever contemporary content that you have in social justice like your schemes initiatives that you can use to enrich your answers in society, and your conceptual knowledge of society can be used to argue better in social justice and paper too. Society can also would be called society has repetitive teams and society answers in society paper. Last year there was this question about, I think, what was that crypto currency. Yes, that feels very much like an economy answer and it's very difficult to write a society answer in that we had. Ryan 40 here a few days back, he's from sociology, and he had talked about how he compared cryptocurrency to betting, and he talked about how it is a type of gambling and then he wrote about gambling addiction into this right. So your ability to connect a particular team according to the subject is something which is very important right interlink with social justice interlink with current affairs right. Like I said earlier, geographical answers and sociological answers only to a certain extent, use your knowledge but don't use too much technical words or thinkers or theories in your answers in society or geography, right. Society this paper is also something that is being advised to start with for somebody who's starting out their preparation, because this gives a residency, because you have just done what they call modern history and culture and geography for problems, and it gives you a continuity. So if you are confused and if you have so far not started your preparation, just one can be a paper on which you can start your preparation with right. People who score less in this one, most likely score less because when they have to call neglect geography. During my preparation I had neglected geography but we did not have such an extensive paper which accounted for 100 marks, because we all have strengths and weaknesses. For somebody who's looking for mass improvement from one year to the next year you can be hovering around 70 80. It is primarily because of your lack of knowledge or expertise in geography or society. I'm repeating it again, right, because culture is something that you cannot bank on one year it's 50 marks next year it's 20 modernist reason extension of a problem, which most likely one Gandhi oriented question would be there. So it's relatively more, you know, doable, but society and geography is something that you have to work on and always make sure that in physical geography the best form of value audition is use of diagrams to represent the geographical. So we have had toppers who have had compendium of diagrams ready, even before the examination they have a diagram for floods, your volcanoes your what they call one so instead they have it they have already have and it's reflected in their answers. And advantage of having diagrams is that you know whenever you have less content the size of the diagram can always be increased. It occupies more space so you end up writing less right. These are what people do right and I've seen this in top and stakeholders copies where there are large maps which has absolutely no value adding to the answer but it access great fillers right. This is something that you can try. These two hundred and 25 marks in quality of 50 marks for IR and another 50 marks of 75 marks between social justice and governance right. This is something that you have to see right extensive use of I think before I do this let me show you some of the answers of people who have scored good marks in these papers this year. We had 107 right secured rank 14 use of diagrams. Most of you know these diagrams these are not complicated once this is all something which is familiar always bridge the gap between what you know and what is in your notes and what you're writing in your papers right. See this question and this is something that we see that a lot of people don't do this is an opinion oriented question some of you who may have been part of our programs in the previous year would have written this question. The question is do you agree with the withdrawal of non-cooperation movement after the territory incident right so he has given an introduction right given a factual introduction justification of withdrawal. Yes, why. However, it was not justified. Now, a lot of students we saw was only arguing one side of the question and this creates a certain lack of a compared to others. So, see, I'm right now speaking in a broad sense in terms of preparation but what you're doing in your papers and what you're doing in each of the answers is something that's unique to each of you, which we can discuss individually whenever it is applicable. I will show you some use of diagrams, visibility of keywords, cultural backlash, son of soil and see the substantiation and see the visibility of the substantiation. This is also important. It's not just about writing. It's also about ensuring that the person who is taking a paper sees what you're writing introduction being substantiated wherever possible. He has substantiated this person has 98 marks in paper one. The number of points which I was earlier saying the extent of explanation has gone down and the number of points is on par with paper three even in paper one and paper two. Look at rank once paper two copies look at all the people who have scored about 125 in paper two earlier our notion on paper two was that you know you can explain a little bit and maybe the number of points is seven eight, but now it's come up to nine 10 points and he has 109. He secured rank 43. You're seeing what you're up against right to the specificity with what people are writing number of points. And you'll find a lot of similarities between people who are in a particular mark range the way they approach the questions the way they substantiate their answers. I was talking about interconnect social justice to society. Number of points. 109. That's only 10 marks away from the highest. When we go from here this to paper two, right. Governments tickering teams use best practices and schemes of governments to substantiate your paper to governments answers. I had one of the rank holders who said that you know he or she used last year's questions as introductions and conclusion for this year's question. I don't know whether you guys remember this question, you know, what was it intergenerational and intergenerational equity. I think this was last year, no, paper three. 2020, right. So for last year is inclusive growth oriented question that was being used as a conclusion in the answer. I think that the way people are innovating, right. So, so I'm saying that you know maybe you could use some of the questions of this year as good introductions or conclusions in answers next year. Right. As new questions as both, you will have to leverage this right see when you're expected to know 150 value addition for each paper it's not individually 150 value addition. I'm expecting that you'll have to remember 600 value additions across four papers I'm expecting you'll remember at least 400. Because a lot of these things will overlap. What access good value addition in environmental geography will access good value addition in papers deals in environment. So, but this is a difficult part, it's one thing to know what to do and another thing to do it. Most of you would walk out of here assuming that you know what to do and probably the next time you sit and write you're more likely to do exactly what you have done than to change it right it's not that easy. Right. Best practices and case studies in governance and social justice based question as a substantiation. In the body part. I'll show you some just answers I think that should give you some direction. That was interesting. This is a question on edition 124 a this was a question I think almost all of us asked all the prominent institutions have asked this last year. See the introduction. How many of you would have connected this to the current context. The second paragraph is basically the relevance of the question why is this being asked that exact interlinkage with the relevance of the question is something that you should do wherever possible. Because the question is a static question but it is being asked because of the dynamic relevance of the question. See the conclusion the question is about India's part of parliamentary control being, you know, an outcome of composition or outcome of rule and procedures. See the conclusion. This is a good place to scavenge such kind of thing. Right. This is another thing that's happening this is a new trend. It started 2020 if I'm not wrong but it is passing on now for questions which are dynamic but which is related to a static topic. People put the constitutional provisions or legal provisions associated with that as a extension of the introduction in the question itself. How is it constitutionally relevant. What are the legal aspects associated with this 127. I think the highest is 129. I think he has 27 or 128. 132. For who's is 134. Okay, okay, but I'll consider anything which is 10 marks in the range of the highest score as a book. Right. I've been in line 14. See this. This is the IR question I was talking about see the introduction. He started to report. So, I started this session with evolution of answer writing and I showed you how people are writing earlier because it's not static. You may not limit yourself to this. If you have a better idea, we're open to the idea. Majority of things that I'm standing here and telling you are things which I have gotten by interacting with a lot of people. Right. We just have more wider interactions that that's the only difference. Right. But people are innovating. You can innovate as long as it's logically relevant. See the conclusion. This is Abhinav Dain. This guy also has 127 in paper too. He has 60 marks improvement year on year. 56 or 60. He has said that, you know, he got an interview called because of the GS marks and he got a rank because of his interview score. I think he had 190 to his interview. See the number of points. This is something that I'm noticing, which is new for me. The extent of explanation has fallen. Right. I'm seeing this in this guy also the other guy also. I've seen a couple of copies at vision and forum also and I think this is something which is common. The number of points has increased and the explanation has reduced and the value addition is more visible and increased. It's database substantiation extensively. I wouldn't be surprised if I can count 150 data points in this paper as much as possible. Right. We have a lot of aspects of answer writing will discuss in a different context how people are breaking, making it more visible. There are a lot of things. I'm right now only talking about best practices that people are following for each paper and what is being done. Introduction, use of diagrams. I think this is the only person who has secured or two consecutive years top 100 right. Last time she had missed by rank one rank. She was the first rank in IP 73 she secured. And this time she's ranked 57 or 57 if I'm not wrong 57 or 53. I think that's as impressive as getting rank one to get a top 100 rank in two consecutive years. She is off charts. She is extensive. She is a little very close to under the beef. I have to say a lot of schematics, a lot of diagrams. I don't have a mark. So I am not exactly able to tell, you know, which paper, how much marks, but assuming it's a top 50 rank, it has to be somewhere around 100. This guy's ranked 31, he had 121. The optional student analyst Bangalore if I'm not wrong. What you have to think is how would I respond to a similar question? Will I be able to write these things? That's a question that you have to keep asking us. And if not, what do I need to do that? Right. So this is a paper two for you. Paper three, like I was saying, a lot of areas where you tend to have a lot of diversity of questions, finance and tech security. Look at the weightage. Look at approach for different questions or different things is different. And the possibility of bounces are very in paper. The last person I was showing rank 31. He said he wrote 45 papers between problems and main classes. That's 900 questions. And he said 20 out of 20 questions came from questions which he has already written in paper two. And despite writing 900 questions, he only got 16 out of 20 in paper three. So my assessment of this is that, you know, the chances of a bouncer is extremely high in paper three. And that's probably one of the reasons why everybody scores lower in paper three, right, or it is being scaled down. This is the, you know, possible alternative argument, right? Because if you are missing two or three questions, everybody is losing out by 10 or 15 marks in this paper. And that's the difference between a high score of paper three and paper two or paper one. This is at 108109, one goes up to 120, 130. Likely, everybody underperforms in three or four questions in this paper, right? And there may not be anything that you can do about it also, to be honest. The chances of you getting a bouncer from security or last year, there was this question on GDP computational methodology, which was very much a relevant topic in 2015-16, right? We asked earlier questions last year, we had a student who came and complained that, you know, you are asking questions which was relevant in 2020. And we said, you know, wait for the UPSC paper, right? Because they tend to pick up teams which are even older than that, right? So expose yourself to such uncertainties because you just want to train yourself to deal with such kind of situations, right? If a similar question comes, how do I deal with this, right? That should be the question that you asked, right? Economic questions, longer connect last year's questions into intro or conclusion. Agriculture is something that I feel agriculture is a poor cousin of economy. Everybody concentrates on economy, right? Very rarely people concentrate on agriculture, right? Be it irrigation, be it livestock machines, be it food processing, I think that's an area. And the irony is that it has as much weightage as the economy in the paper. 210 markers, 215 markers from economy, 210 markers, 215 markers from agriculture. The weightage is the same, but the emphasis is almost half. So if you want to work on paper 3, one of the areas, hidden areas where most people neglect is paper 3 agriculture, right? Pull out that area, work on that, right? Disaster management, one trend that we are seeing was entirely dynamic questions, but now there are static, conceptual and factual questions also coming from disaster management. One strategy that is usually advised for disaster management is that, you know, not only disaster management, areas from which there is a possibility of bouncer coming is that pull out questions that's being asked by all prominent SEDs, including us or XYZ, right? So what you're trying to do in this context is that, you know, let's say that if you solve all the world history questions that we and XYZ institutions have asked, if something comes outside of it, it's anyway going to be a bouncer for majority of the people. What you should avoid is that, you know, we asked a question like last year, I think the orcas was something that everybody asked. We had asked a question on rock art architecture. Everybody who was part of our program probably has a too much edge over you on that particular question. So, which has higher incidence of, you know, bouncers coming in, science and tech, economy, conceptual questions, you have culture, which has a high incidence of bouncers, social justice and paper tools. Make sure that you solve everything that's available around you. And that can be a means of preparation also, because if something comes outside of it, it's not your headache. If it comes from that, the former should not be there, right? I'll show you some papers. I'll answer it. I have not selected it, but I have seen this. I'll show you. You saw how the constitutional articles, right, if there's a question on health or education or till development, they put case study as a heading, put a small box and put that content there. Not necessarily a substantiation, it's basically to show that, you know, I know this also. Sometimes it's not side to side corner. There's a small box and it's there. Case study, right? I think whether it depends upon a couple of things, one, weightage of the question to what you already know, weightage of the question. I would not try this in 10 markers because I'm already running sort of time, space and marks, right? 15 markers I have, if I don't have sufficient content on the core area, this is a trick that I'll use as a filler. So sometimes things are not used because you have to do it, but because you don't have any other option, right? In the body part, right? People are using constitutional articles in paper to add an extension of the introduction, even before the body starts. That's also happening, right? Not, you know, you're getting it wrong. You're getting it wrong. It's just mentioning the case, right? You know, solid waste management in XYZ place, right? Adult literacy program in XYZ place. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, just just a crux of it. Throw it and run away. Don't, don't explain, right? You know, you're seeing people's copies. It's being flooded with one line, two words, three words, value addition, right? It can be applied to geography also wherever you feel that you are underprepared, solving extensive number of questions from that area can be a strategy. I was talking about the guy who solved 900 questions. We have ranked 75 who have solved 600 questions. 500 is a must, right? You can't do less than 500 years question. Number of days is more, right? And what happens is that let's take an example of IR. If you sit and solve 30 or 40 questions, at least three out of four questions will come from teams which you have already written content on. The UPSC so far has been complicating, I'm saying so far, because it can change, right? I'm saying so far. So, so far has been complicating, brilliant question because it's an elimination round. Mains is a selection round. If you have to ask a question on cybersecurity, what can you ask? Challenges, solutions, what are the limits? It can be broader headings. It can be reworded. This will be this only, right? So I think in this sense, it's more predictable compared to prelims. But the challenge is that you all have your own handicaps and strengths. Some of you have bad handwriting. Some of you are not able to remember facts. Last year, rank 16, that I've never used data because I can't remember data, right? Go back and look at a paper. She hasn't used data. So for every rule, there is an exception. I'm only basically talking about friends being followed by a majority of people. I don't dissuade people from using a paragraph approach in answer because some of the people who are still writing in paragraph forms are still getting marked, but majority of people who are getting marked are writing in point format. This is Divya Shakti. I think this is a paper which she's good at. Keyword explanation, value addition. All these papers are on our websites or others' websites, right? It's all publicly available copies. Are you seeing this? Will you be able to do this in seven minutes? That time is also important, right? You may be able to do it in 15 or 20. If I give you enough time and piece of mind, but in seven minutes, will you be able to pull this off? That's the question, right? You go through 10, 15 toppers copies, you will get enough data and data points for this. You don't have to sit and caverns from everywhere. A couple of people who are doing this will be enough. I think I have told you this. My primary rule for a diagram is that it should be self-explanatory. I will not have to sit and think, where is this going? In that sense, I think this is a... But what she has done is that every keyword she has boxed, whatever she wants, evaluators to see, she has segregated that. She also has a recent handwriting that matters. You know, it's going to come out much more crappier than this, right? I don't have a mark sheet. She's under training in test results for you. We have evaluated copies. And for her, we had given her extensive mark. We also had the bias that she was around 73. That bias will always be there. Don't go by the test series marks because I don't think anybody can judge you. Because this whole subjective evaluation has a lot of bias. This is the sixth year we have done a test series, this is the seventh year. This time we are lucky. There have been instances where we have given top and right holders very low marks also. But primarily because of how that paper has been written. Maybe the paper was not completed and explained the reason. But this was, if any of you have doubts on how we evaluate, you know, what we do, we tend to give lesser marks. I think you may have seen this from some poppers in the telegram group. Shankar gives less marks, right? We give less marks. I think they are known for that. The logic is that, you know, you should get more marks in UPSC than what we give and not vice versa. There's no point us giving you 450 and then you're getting 380. If it's other way around, we'll be much more happier. Okay, moving on to paper 4. I think it's taking more time then. I'll just fill up a little bit. Paper 4. One problem that we are consistently seeing among people who score less in paper 4 is that, you know, many of them start with case studies and then don't have enough time for part A. This is very common. And my logic on this is that, you know, it's always part A rather than part B. Because part A is very clear on what is being asked and what is expected of you to write. Part B is a context and you are expected to give a response or solution to that context. And you are comparing your approach towards the situation with somebody else's approach towards the situation. And you always have to assume that, you know, the person who is taking your copy may have a different view on this. And when that happens, it may not be as easy a walk as you think, right? And I think the older you get, you have stronger opinions and less, you know, open to change. Right. And you are, your papers are being probably being checked by an age group which is in their 50s and 60s. And they have a clear standard. This is what has to be done. And then you come out and give a very practical or very idealistic suggestion and that could probably be backfiring. And because people start with part B and also because case studies have gotten longer, I don't know whether any of you have noticed this. Case studies have gotten longer. I'll add reading speed as a skill to UPC preparation now taking into account C-SAT also, right? You need good reading speed now. So, considering the part B is longer, many people are taking one hour 45 minutes, one hour 50 minutes in part B for writing 120 Marks worth content. And then come back and rush to 110, 130 Marks worth content in 50 minutes, 60 minutes, 70 minutes kind of situation, right? My advice is to start with part A. If you want to mix and play, maybe you can write the first five questions and then go finish the case studies and then come back and finish the remaining question. This is completely true for DS123 also, where people start with 15 Marks, write amazingly great answers, best answers and 15 Marks. But as an evaluator, I have to go through 10 crappy answers before I reach your first 15 Marks. Assuming that only one person is taking this copy and I'm taking it in one sitting, right? And then what happens is that I come into your best answers, your best case studies after a sense of bias, right? This person is not as great as I think, right? You look at somebody's answers long enough, you'll form opinions, you will form views which can cost you half a Mark, one Mark in every answer. If your 10 Marks are not as good as it should be, your 15 Marks will get half a Mark or one Mark lesser in every question. Human bias, nothing else, right? And when somebody gives you half a Mark less, he's not even doing it because he feels that he's punishing you. He's subconsciously doing it because his opinion or his first impressions have not been great, right? DS4, I would suggest to write more than DS123. One, because your potential of scoring 120 plus or 110 plus is the highest in paper four. Two, because we have seen this being done by a lot of people who have written six, eight DS4 papers, right? So maybe you can consider writing extensive number of papers as a good strategy for DS4, right? Codes, every break again, you know, 130 Marks is again broken down into four ethics, governance and codes and each of this part has a different approach. We can discuss that in detail later, right? Case studies, the way people are introducing, the way people are diversifying their introductions, the way people are concluding their case studies. I think I have a copy of, this guy has 117. After 137, it's mostly below 120 or 125. 137 is an outlier score. Rank one has 139, sorry, not 137. I had two views on this. I have one set of people who write extremely technical answers with theoretical keywords and then I have a set of people who write very simple plain English answers with a lot of relatable examples. And I feel the second approach is working more than the first approach, right? And when we talk about, and one of the challenges in value addition in paper four is that you know it's getting monotonous. A lot of you are writing the same Armstrong Paine and Ashok Mka and Gandhi and Ambedkar. So there is a need to diversify your value addition and paper book connected to parent affairs, connected to things which are relatable. I had a topper last year. He said he had, I think this guy's name is Jayanth Natha 40 something or 50 something somewhere there. He said that, you know, he had a world map and for each country he had collected the examples. He had collected examples on from Latin America, examples like Frida Kahlo. He had diversified the audition. I think the attempt out here is that, you know, the examiner feels a fresh with affair that, you know, he comes to come has not written the same set of value addition as the others have written. I think diversifying the quality of your value addition would be a good idea in paper book. Frank six has extensively used, what do you call diagrams in this paper, I don't have his copy he has only written one copy with us. He has extensively used diagrams in his paper completion of paper is one factor because of the way people approach the paper. A lot of people don't have great answers for the last, at least for 30 40 marks are not well attempted. I think that will have a tendency to push down his course by 1015 marks. Paper completion approach towards case studies type of value addition. These factors are important emphasize on the context interconnecting it with something that's happening around you. Use of relatable and diversified value addition case studies for this question. Stimulator towards the last. Now, the fatigue is highest in the ethics paper because it's the fourth paper on the second day. Right, and you can't imagine that unless you have experience. So experiencing stimulators and writing the last 30 minutes of this ethics paper is a completely different experience if you have written mains. I've not written something in 10 years why I can't verbally explain this but we have heard from a lot of people that you know it's very difficult to. So experiencing it in a simulator context, at least two, three times in the month of August or September would be a reasonably good idea. Notes are I think this is basically, you know, taking notes content from, you know, notes of purpose. And I think ethics is a paper where we have really good notes, because it is not dynamic. Even notes being made by somebody who's a top rank holder in 2016 17 is still relevant, because it's something that's still you can use. This year I'm still scavenging on the nose. I have a couple of shortlisted notes. Last year's up a la Mishra's ethics notes were brilliant, especially her notes on case studies were brilliant. Take a look at it. It was very concise and she had a lot of specific things that she can use in this thing. You are noticing had a brilliant notes on case studies where he had summarized the civil service conduct tools into two pages and how it can be used in the context of arguing in case studies. This out to me later I'll share whatever I have. I don't think right now I have the time or the bandwidth to do that. Okay. Now, some of you have written multiple names have not been able to score well enough, right. You are doing right. Don't be in a cocoon. Right. Don't think that you know I'm doing this. I don't care what anybody else is doing, especially when you're writing your second third or fourth or fifth main. We had something who had given the seventh means last time he secured rank for 99 this time. Seven main, so seventh attempt, seven main six interviews or something like that crazy number. Right. So it's important to compare from one paper to the next paper what are others doing what is somebody else doing in the same context. A lot of people who have been preparing for a certain number of years or tend to write a lot of generic content. The question is extremely common. Right. It's more common than you think people just repeat the question as a first paragraph of the answer. Or they that that's something which is a petition of point the first point and the fifth point exactly same just in different words. I thought of related content but not enough relevant content. I think one question that you have to ask yourself is that you know how much of the content in this answer is updated how much of this content is relevant to the question. And the more number of years you write your biggest casualty will be the question interpreted what is being asked what are you writing. Are you writing what has been asked or are you writing what you know, right. And this is very, and this is why you will see people who are appearing for the first time coming in top 10 ranks, because they are biggest advantages that they know very little. Right, they revise that enough number of times and then they put it into the paper. But the more you know, the more likely are you deviate from what is being asked. I always try to set a context to look smart. And by the time you notice that your one page is already gone. A lot of people come with great answers and so that you know my answer and I realize that the answer is starting on the second page. So the first page is entirely context which is not something that has even been asked in the question. Contextualized aesthetic answers I think Shubham Shukla I think one of the words that he constantly is using answers which are clearly demarcated clearly structured. Right. mimicking and writing all these basics have to be followed. Right. Many of you who have been writing for years may not be clear for good enough notes which you are. Because unless you multiple times what is in your notes is not reflected in your paper. And that doesn't help. Right. The 15 marker Fiasco I said the first 10 questions are bad. Right. And a lot of people feel that you know I have already done everything I could do right there's nothing more I can improve. I think that attitude is something that you can change with respect to the separation, especially if you're looking for marks improvement rank improvement is a different story. You know that's a much tougher fight than marks improvement. Right. What did you do in the last minutes, analyze that, right, and have an honest analysis of that. How many great answers were able to write unless you're writing 50 60% good answers in a paper, even your good answers will be surrounded by a lot of bad answers and then it will pull down your marks of good answers also. Right. If you're judging your paper on the basis of one or two questions that you have written. It would not work. You have to have, and that's where extensively writing like a vinesh comes in 900 questions 20 out of 20 in paper to came from questions that he has already written. Imagine that situation, like, you know, you have already written these questions or things once or twice, right. It would definitely help you to write much better answer subsequently. Right. syllabus blind sports like I said, you know, agriculture, you have not done enough on society, etc, etc. scavenging notes, topos copies notes also unless it is in the last one year or two years don't take it unless you're taking for a static topic, because I think many of you would have referred to Roshikesh Reddy's notes. I'm somebody who have extensively suggested that, but I think it's already two years old now, right. Always make sure the notes are this year or last year maximum because otherwise there is a possibility of your content being obsolete. Right. Custom problems custom solutions. Right. One person improvement whoever is familiar with the atomic habits. Everything can be improved everything can be improved in the minutest of phase. Nothing as simple as a pen, right. Your sequence of attempts. Now for time management, we have been extensively suggesting shifting from a smartphone to an analog phone for the next three months. I honestly believe it will add two hours more per day. And across the next 90 days that's 18 days more of a small things. And we see this when a person comes to us or when somebody gets a rank. What is the kind of attitude that person has or the kind of questions that he asked for kind of things that they are doing. And many of these things which we are suggesting are things that we have observed in people who have gotten great rank. And they keep doing these things. Right. What are top was doing. Right. Many of them, especially last year we had 15 people in top hundred and out of that nine were people who already improved a rank. This year we have 19 people. No, no, no, we don't have 90 we have 14 or 13 people in top 100 and people in the top 50, and at least five, six of them are people who have improved. Thanks. I think the minute details are important, right, you know, subject syllabus practice, they go into the nitty gritty is much more than you think, you know, because their targets are higher. Right. So, my nearest attention to detail, right, pursue to improve is extensive. And this is something that I have noticed since 2017 16 I have the person that I was throwing a copy Abhishek, he had improved from rank 254 to rank 10. I have somebody who I've worked with somebody who has improved from rank 500 to rank 13, and the amount of attention to detail and amount of, you know, practice and effort and revision. These guys do are crazy. You're fighting with the competition, which is crazy. It's not your fault it's the way the exam is and the kind of things which are at stake. It is not an easy task. Right. And the value addition should be in your answers and not just in your notes. This is very important for me. If your value addition and if your data points are not in your answers, it's as good as you say. So, every time you do a paper I have done this I can probably share this. This is a little extensive but maybe you can have a shorter version of this one. Test analysis. How many answers have I scored good marks? How many how am I 10 markers is always 15 markers? How are my initial answers is always my later answer. I don't want you to do it for every answer but randomly you can pick up a few questions in a paper and do this kind of an assessment. So that one, if this team repeats in UPSC you should be able to write a better answer to you improve because you make observations and implement that in the next paper. You don't prove because you joined XYZ Institute for the test series. You improve because you write again and again and again and you look for improvement. We are a platform which provides good questions. We provide perspectives and inputs for you based on whatever we have seen right. You will only improve if you write again and again and again. And we see a disproportionate number of topers having utilized 80-90% of the tests that they have done for. Avinash has written 12 out of 12 tests. I don't know how many of you were part of our programs earlier and how many tests you have written. The usual average is 30-40%. If you have joined 12 tests you would have joined elsewhere. I don't know. But most likely if you joined for a 10 test plan you would not write for more than 3 or 4 tests. The possibility of improving increases because you write more tests, you make more iterations, you make more improvements. This is my best answer to the question. Have I addressed all parts? What is the most apt introduction? Could I have connected the introduction to something more contemporary? Have I mimicked the question? Have I addressed all parts? How many arguments have I substantiated? Could I have substantiated more arguments and if so, how? If you are taking 3 hours to write a test, I don't mind you spending 4 hours to do a post-test analysis because there is a high probability that some of these things will repeat or questions will come from these things. Let's say you take secularism as a theme from society and you write 4 answers from that theme. Honestly, there is nothing that UPSC can throw at you from secularism that you can't salvage from the answers that you have already written. So that will only happen if your post-test analysis is extremely intricate. This is something that you should keep asking. How could I get half a mark, one mark more in each of these questions? What should I have done? Post and pre-test exercises. Pre-test exercise is where somebody sits with the paper for 5 minutes before they start writing and decides, this is a question where I'll draw a map and this is a question where I'll give more data. This is a question where I'll approach from a tabular perspective. If you practice this fast enough, probably you can spend 5 minutes before you start writing even to sequence your attempt. We suggest that you first attempt questions which you know, you have less idea and then you put your last 30 minutes to questions which you have relatively much less idea. Sequencing of attempts will always improve your score because you will give time where it is relevant. From what I understand, I think you get it up to 5 minutes, varies from center to center, but usually you get 4-5 minutes. Either you sit or you look like your leg is half out and half in. Less redundancy of content, more updated content, 60% or more above average answers, answer sequence are better, interpretations of answers are much better. They address the demand of the answer sooner. I think this is something that Appella had said last year that her answer starts after the first three lines. The answer must start after the first three lines. Go back to your answers and see when is your answer starting. What was the question? When did I start writing that answer and when did I stop my introduction? Practicing a lot more. I would recommend 25 papers at least. How you do that between now and end of July, maybe you can target 10 papers, 8 to 10 papers. We are recommending to keep a day and a week as a test day. It's easy for me to stand here and say this, but I am seeing this being done, I am seeing people doing this. I even had somebody who had written 50 papers, Krishan had done that. Krishan had kept a bed with his roommate that for every test he will give him 10,000 bucks. I am not making this up, I will give you his contact, you can always reach to him. So you need some really strong compulsion so that you end up writing. If you write you will improve. You will not improve because you join us, you will improve because you keep writing. Self-explanatory statements, a lot of incoherent statements in people who score less, which was not making sense. How to use the next 89 days? One approach, start with your week areas or give emphasis on continuity. Two, three things, syllabus completion, notes, value addition. I don't think it's a great time to start making notes, but you can always salvage notes, print. What we suggest is that you know, one side of an A4 sheet and use the other side as a space to update and extract whatever you feel is relevant. But you must have good notes so that you can revise, so that you can revise and make sure that those content is reflected in your answers. Most of the students who are sitting here, I assume a majority of you have already given, usually attract such a crowd. We'll find it easy to interpret the question of 2022 means if you get it right now. You will know conceptually what is expected of, but your ability to substantiate that or write better quality content will be purely based on revision. And that revision is directly interlinked with the quality of your notes. The bulkier your notes, the lesser you revise, the lesser you revise, the lesser those content will reflect in your answers. So notes has a direct correlation. There are exceptions. This year's ranks 6 has said I don't have notes, I studied from newspaper. So for every rule there is an exception, but from what I have seen a majority of people who score good ranks have good notes. Ethics approach, like I said, increase the number of tests for ethics because your probability of increased score in ethics is higher. Essay is a completely different conversation. A couple of ideas that I'm suggesting is that, you know, maybe you can get an outsider's perspective on what you're writing. Reach out to your English teacher in college and school, right, give your essays, get a different perspective. Because I would, because I think it's too much on data and not necessarily on the arguments and ideations that's expected in this. People talk about, you know, whether you have included this data point or this committee or this report in your essay, which is not necessarily what is required in essay, what works in this necessarily does not work in essay because the nature of topics have changed. Any questions, I can take a couple of questions. Segregated was segmented approach is where people always have this confusion of how do I manage optional and just together. One approach is that you know you dedicate three days of a week for options, three days of a week for this one day for the test writing, right. Every week you should be writing one GS and one optional and every alternate week or every fortnight you should be writing one essay, at least right. Segmented approach is where you divide a day between something, right, you know who you are and what works for you. Segmented approach is where you have, let's say, three slots of three hours each, one slot is for option, one slot is for GS and one slot is for current affairs, right. So you decide what works for you best whether you like diversity within the day, or you like to finish one thing and then move on to the next thing, right. I think what is happening is that the nature of topics is such that you know, even if you write 10 essays, you will be thrown across a topic like you know your perception of me is an understanding of me kind of topic where I don't know whether it would help. Honestly, don't write extensively because for me essay is going the direction of interview where the schools are not very much predictable salvage more marks in GS and often this is what I would do. Okay, I'm not saying you not to write essays definitely you should write essays but I don't know whether extensively writing will have a direct correlation with course you can definitely brainstorm a lot of topics. Think if you get a quote like this what would you do right that may be a good exercise that you can try out but not necessarily to write more get outsiders perspective on your essays what do others feel about what you're writing because essays are probably being read from literature background or something like that, right, and they would, and people who are scoring has not not everyone but I'm from the Steve Miranda crowd, or people who they were 1010 years. So those kind of crowd you know people who are well extensively well read and you know who can articulate and express their content. I say, you can come out to us, I can take a read, I give very good suggestions on essay, I've told some people that don't concentrate on essay you won't get marked anyway. I'll at least give you clarity on this right. I'll give you clarity and it's more or less comes to right, because you can't fix this in a span of three months to be honest like it's too less time to fix your grammar and writing skills and everything. Considering you have to work on your optional and GS as a 2018 we had a rank holder who got the highest marks in 175. And we had told her you know after she wrote the process they don't write any more essays you will do well in essay right. It's other way around also we usually have a hands on you know whether this person can you can either write an essay or not right. And majority of people are concentrating on pellets and pastel and they're concentrating on content dimensions, social, political, economic, that kind of approach. And for philosophical essays I don't know how effective it is because I think the emphasis is on interpretation of the topic, right, and how you are able to express your ideas and how you are transitioning from one idea to the next idea, etc. So raise whatever you have your subject expertise your memory, whatever, right, and your first main is different from your second is different from your fourth is different from a main that you're looking to improve back. You can't expect to do the same things what you did last year and have a different result, you will have to try something different, right, what is suitable for you is highly subjective, right, we can always present and help you out in the same. Right. I'll take 30 seconds to talk about our program also right, we have a test series. We have legends, voyages, two plans. If you have less than 350 marks in this, or if you're writing main for the first time voyages is a plan for you because the first eight tests are sectional, followed by four full length test. Legends plan has all 12 full length test, and it's usually preferred by people who have 350 plus or have written multiple names. And that would be the plan if that's what you're looking for. What we provide as a part of the series question papers, solutions, evaluation, discussion, mentorship, good answers. This is what we do. This is my seventh year, the team is also extremely well experienced in this area, probably one of the most experienced team for mainstream series right now. So, marks. No, no, just yes, yes, yes, yes. If you're getting 350 plus essay, you should not do this. Plus GS plus essay, right, you are in a really bad spot, right, because that's a place where you can improve from right. To be honest, right. Anything else anybody wants to ask something. Mira is that ranks it is just for my reference. She, she can, she said, you know, I can't remember facts, so I don't emphasize on that. This, I feel for somebody who's appearing for 2023, it's not a bad plan. For somebody who's appearing for 2022, you are practicing sprint for a marathon. Right. But my concern is that many of these initiatives know will involve you going to a place, hitting their writing, then coming back, even if the exam is for one hour, pre and post is going to cost you three hours. That's very valuable at this point of time. And I feel that you know, rather than writing, you can always brainstorm on questions. And every week if you're able to at this point of time write a full paper that is good enough for me right now. August September I'll expect you to increase the frequency I'll expect you to write at least three stimulators in the month of August and September. This is 1234 back to back on two consecutive days. We have one, we have to the last four tests of legends and voyages are simulator and we have an all in the open test. No, I don't think we will be able to give you 25 papers, you'd always have to, you know, pick up something from elsewhere also. This is a good year to do that. This is a good year because many of your writing means two months in a span of nine months. The days are great. The number of days are good. And I don't think it gets better than it was as good as this in the last four or five years. This is the best year in the last four or five years. If you are doubtful whether you're clearing problems or not, hold, finish, but keep studying. Join our programs only after you clear about the program about your outcome. It holds a lot of time. Some of them are doing well. Arpit Arpit Arpit could have come into top 10. Arpit has for 14 years and only to 15 max. That was surprising for inversely if you look at the reason why she has 295 in optional and only 408 or 407 in years. Play to your strength. If you're somebody you know that you know I can score 300 in max. There's no harm in investing this proportionate amount of time there. Only time will tell. I can't take that decision because it's highly subjective. But usually what people do is that they spend a lot of time on such kind of project. But when I'm analyzing the marks that people have gotten, I think I'll show you that percentage of marks is always the total return score. Yes, among the top 100 accounts for 48 to 53% of the total return score and optional is only accounting for 33. Anything else? Anybody else? If there's any individual personal doubts? This is a lot of telegram groups. I think I can share it as well. It's there. It was circulated yesterday. I can take my mobile number or take my mobile number. I give my number to everyone. 9717-8323-49. In case if I don't pick up, put a message or WhatsApp. Whatever I have, I'll share. Anything else? I'm a big fan. I think that's a little risky. I feel the papers are being checked by people not necessarily with the subject expertise in that. And so it can go above their head, right? But like this is like, you know, somebody came and said that Erasingal has a used map in her essay. Can I also use? It's on you, right? The sample size is large enough that, you know, there's a rule exception for every rule. It would be a good idea to look at last year's questions of the series. A lot of time we realized that the question that we asked last year is relevant this year and coming in UPSC this year. For static areas, you can go up to three years, three, four years also, like history, ethics. But for dynamic areas, last year would be sufficient. They are repeating things. We had an experience last year where we did not, we had a chord question from one of the faculty. We did not ask saying that, you know, 2019, the question had come, but two consecutive years chord question had come 2019 and 20. So they are repeating things as well. Okay, right. We have a couple of suggestions. Let's sit separately on this. There are a couple of things. It is not foolproof, but we can try this out. This is just a trailer. This is a selling pitch, mostly. But rest of it is like, you know, when you join the program, we can look at your copies and give you individual suggestions. Okay, thank you guys. Thank you everyone. Just just one second. Let me just respond to this. I'll just one second.