 Hi everyone. My name is Prithika. Listen to the brief background about me. I completed my engineering from Assistant College of Engineering in the year 2018. I did my bachelor's in electrical engineering and then I think towards second year of college I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in civil services. Actually one of my really close friends is preparing for this exam. So based on that I prepared myself that I was going to sit and study for at least two years and write this exam. So in the final year of college I took this decision of not sitting for placements and attempting this exam. So after my college I took a month's break and immediately joined Shankar Academy in Nannanagar Chennai. I joined the June 11th batch and I did my GS coaching as well as my optional coaching from Shankar. My optional was anthropology and I think when it comes to this exam there are a lot of myths about this exam. A lot of people even before starting they kind of decided this is like a five year plan or something because there are a lot of myths that you can never clear this exam in the first attempt or you at least need to spend four or five years. So something that actually stood with me was most of us are in prime youth in our lives. We are around 22, 23 till 26. So most of us and we are spending a lot of time sitting and studying. Like personally for me I did not work so I was sitting and studying full time. So in the beginning what I decided was I will give at least two or three serious attempts and in case I didn't clear I will go for a job. So because of that what I did was before starting my preparation like I told you that in my final year of college I decided to write this exam so I was just looking at all the interviews of toppers and everything. So there's something that I realized very early on in my preparation I think that really helped me was whatever you score in mains is actually what matters. Like you have prelims, mains and interview but again prelims is very unconventional and I think most of you would have seen the paper you know that for the exam that happened two days back and you can see like how unconventional the paper is. And again when it comes to interview there are a lot of factors that affect your interview so you know you cannot exactly prepare for the interview. But when it comes to mains you have nine papers over which you can show your competence. So very early on in my preparation I decided that I had to like maximize my marks in my optional subject. So for me like the optional classes started back in July I think it would have been a bit later for you. But for the first five months of my preparation that is from July till December I devoted at least two to three hours every day for optional and it was more on weekends. So doing this it not only gave me confidence but it also like I felt that I had completed a considerable amount of portion when it comes to mains. Like your optional you'll be writing it for almost 500 marks and even if you look at the mark sheets of proper you can find out that the score over GS does not vary much actually. You know like everyone has a similar score and something that can push you into the list or push you into you know the service that you really want is your score in your optional. So I did that. So I mean there's a very simple strategy that a lot of people follow that is maximizing your score over your optional your essay and your ethics paper. I mean like the marks have not been released yet but this was also the same strategy that I also followed. But maximizing your marks over these three subjects doesn't mean neglecting you know your GS papers. You need to make sure that you score the average that everyone scores in GS and maximize your marks in these three papers. So this was a strategy that I followed for mains and I was focusing on mains till December. And after that I started focusing solely on prelims towards FEP. My prelims was on June so I spent around four months focusing only on prelims. Before that I was attending all the tests in the institute. I was looking at all the mistakes I was making but I wasn't solely focusing on it. So I started solely focusing on prelims after February and again when it comes to prelims I found that there are certain subjects where you can again maximize your marks. So when it comes to prelims my strategy was I felt that certain subjects were my stronghold. For example quality was my stronghold and certain subjects I was pretty weak in. So to tell the truth like history is a subject that I found very difficult. So what I did was I made sure like the subject that I was strongest in for example quality. For example if there are 20 questions I made sure I got all those 20 questions right because there was another subject which was my weak spot. Which is also very important subject so I cannot afford to lose marks in quality if I'm also going to lose marks in history. So this was something that I followed and I think it worked. Because I mean if you look at the question paper you see that subjects like quality in history you have at least 20 questions every single year. And there are also certain subjects I mean areas which are not very difficult but aspirants usually tend to leave off. For example map-based questions and all. If you practice maps it's actually very easy to score marks and every year they ask at least 4-5 questions from map-based questions. So these are again areas where aspirants usually tend to leave off. So I focused on areas like this and when it comes to prylums my target was getting somewhere around 110 to be on the safer side. The issue of prylums is if you are you know if you have a cat in the world situation just scoring correctly around 100 you hardly have 100 days between prylums and mails. Whatever we tell ourselves you'll tend to at least waste the first 15-20 days seeing whether we can clear prylums or not. But according to me I think prylums is like the most difficult part of the exam because every year the pattern keeps changing and it's becoming very unconventional the type of questions they ask and current affairs are not limited to like you know one year or something. So this was a strategy that I followed and I think when it comes to interview interview something that varies largely across you know the type of board you get the day you go on. Something that I heard from toppers from previous batches is never depend on your interview. Like I mean if you get you know 180 plus an interview it's well and good. But in case you know you cannot depend on interview to push you into the list or you know push you into the service you need. So maximize your marks and names and you know like interview just add to it. So this was a strategy that I followed throughout the exam and again when it comes to your first attempt like all of you have joined classes so I think for most of you have been your first attempt. Something that I did was I kept my resources minimum like I did not go over the standard books at all except for optional. So I kept my resources minimum and I focused on repeated readings of the books. For example like quality I did not go beyond Lakshmikanth but I repeatedly read Lakshmikanth and same thing when it comes to like history you know modern yeah not go beyond spectrum. But I made sure I revised it repeatedly. I think when especially now like the number of books and you know materials available on the internet it's very easy for you to refer a large number of materials and you actually get confused. So something initially like I would suggest you to do is make a list of the books that you actually want to refer to and stick with it till the end. Like a lot of people have asked me like current of past magazines or anything. I decided on a magazine in the beginning and I stuck with it till the end of my preparation. There is always going to be some magazine or the other that will have something extra but you cannot know everything under the sun. So make sure you keep your resources minimum stick to it and focus on revision. When it comes to an exam like UPSC when you know syllabus is so vast. Revision is what matters the most especially when it comes to means because you'll be writing around five papers in three days and again four papers in two days. So you should be in a position like the last 20-30 days of your main preparation should be only on revision. And again when it comes to another very important part of this exam is your answer I think for means. What I did was I think like initially you will have tests going on every week. And with that they will give you around five questions. I wrote that religiously whether other people wrote or not I followed that and initially when you start you really cannot expect to write excellent answers. I look back at my preparation and my answer sheets. I can actually see an evolution in how my answer writing has improved and there's no shortcut when it comes to answer writing. The only thing is you need to write repeatedly. So start writing regularly like I used to write with another girl. So both of us used to write maybe one question a day and exchange incorrect answers. I think writing with another person helps you maintain that accountability. Sometimes when I have to write on my own you know I just tend to skip it and go. Writing with another person will help you maintain that accountability and but when it comes to answer I think you do not have any other choice except write regularly. Like initially when you're going to start answer I think do not focus you know on the speed and all. You can reduce the time towards you know on the time between villains and means now focus on the content and also start simultaneously writing answers for GS as well as your optional subject. This is very important and I think I told everything that I really wanted to tell so we can move on to questions now. Hi Maan Shruti here. Hi. Hope you're doing well. Yeah I'm doing well thank you. Since I've been posting their questions I'll just read out one by one and you can ask. Yeah sure. What are the major difficulties you're faced while preparing villains and how do you overcome your struggles? Okay like I will just answer this question in general. I think one of the major difficulties that I faced in this exam was being away from you know I did not use any social media for two years and I was literally like living under the rock. So I think that was very difficult and this preparation unlike other exams it is a pretty long period like you study for one year and your whole exam process goes for another year. So I think you know like all the anxiety before all the exams and you know whether whatever we are doing is actually going to be fruitful in the end. I think this is something that I really faced my overall preparation and I think overcoming that is like take some time like this exam is not like your whole life. This is something I realized only after I wrote villains you know. Take some time away like meet your family, meet your friends, exercise or do something like when you tend to focus all your energy on something in case you don't get it then it's very hard to accept that failure. So I think this is something I realized like got pretty late in my preparation so make sure like you take care of your physical as well as your mental health whenever you're preparing for this exam. And the next one is how to prepare and revise current affairs just magazines or daily current affairs. When it comes to current affairs I read the newspaper regularly I followed the Hindu but I did not make any notes from current affairs. The issue that I faced with making notes is I made notes for one month and I realized that I'm not very good at note making to tell the truth. So whatever I was making notes actually again repeated in the magazine and it also helped me save a lot of time. So I followed one you can follow any magazine you have Shankar almost all magazines cover the same news articles but I followed one magazine religiously and I made sure I repeatedly revised it. So for example before my brilliance I revised each magazine at least three times because you're not going to make notes make sure you use that time to revise the current affairs magazines. How to frame a timetable and how many hours did you study? Personally I'm not a very big fan of timetables. So I did not make a timetable but if you are someone who's very organized it's always better to have a timetable. So I'll just tell you the schedule that I followed. My class is from 8 to 10.30 in the morning. So I used to wake up go to class and come back around 11, 11.30 and then start studying. So I studied for around six to eight hours every day and I made sure initially at least two hours I was devoting for optional. This is apart from the newspaper reading and I was again preparing full-time so had like my whole day. I did not have any classes in the evening and all. So my optional classes were only on the weekend. So on weekend I had four days of optional and I devoted almost entire weekend only for my optional. So this was something that I followed. And again if you're going to make a timetable something that I would suggest is make a timetable which is in sync with timetable that is being followed in the academy. For example, you know you have history tests that meet. Make sure your timetable is in sync with that. A lot of people do not go according to the academy. If you don't do that, I mean one disadvantage is in case you're writing tests and you don't study for the test and you score low you will not be able to actually gauge where you are in your preparation. So make sure you make your timetable in sync with what is being followed in the academy. And how to prepare for ethics paper. How to stay motivated throughout the course. Okay so when it comes to the ethics paper, I waited for ethics till classes were over. So you have a really good ethics teacher. So I majorly prepared from Sir's notes and then the book that I followed was Lexicon. So apart from that, I think ethics portion will be covered from that. You still have the governance portion left. So with the governance portion you link it with GS2. So you have governance there as well as ethics. And the main source for that is this ARC report. So make notes of it. And again a very important part in ethics is your case study. Like case study is actually very simple but the main issue with case study is it takes a chunk of your time when you're writing the answers. So make sure you start writing case studies. Don't do it now. Do it after your class is over. Like Sir will tell you how you're supposed to answer case studies. And after that ethics is actually a very easy paper. A lot of people get scared you know just because it does not have any concurrence with your prelim syllabus. But ethics is actually very easy and if you have good writing skills it's really easy to also score marks in ethics. And again when it comes to motivation, I very firmly believe that external motivation can only do so much. You need to be internally motivated when it comes to this exam. So I used to like make very short term goals. Like your only goal should not be to clear prelims you know next June. Make sure you have short term goals. For example you have a test this weekend. You have a goal of scoring above something in that particular test and take a break regularly. So I think this helped me stay motivated. And do we need to study all the NCRTs? Okay so when it comes to this I followed a very different approach. I did very few NCRTs so I don't know that will work for everyone. So again when it comes to NCRTs it depends on your understanding of that particular subject. Like I found the NCRTs a geography very helpful but certain subjects like history I do not find it fruitful to read from 6 to 10 especially the time to benefit ratio I do not find it that great. And again when it comes to subject like quality I had a very strong base in quality so I did not find the need to read NCRT. But in case you want to read it NCRT is a very small book. In case you have a doubt having a dilemma over it I would suggest you go over it. But certain NCRTs mandatory have to be studied and that is your geography class 11 and 12. So you have four books in total. You have to study that and when it comes to history your old NCRTs are for modern, medieval and ancient. And again when it comes to history prioritize your NCRTs like finish modern first then ancient and like medieval is very difficult but they are asking questions from it so do it in the end. So make sure you prioritize based on the number of questions that are being asked. And certain subjects like economics I did not study NCRTs. How did you manage between your classes, weekly tests and self-study? Like I told you like I attended classes only for two hours a day so I had like more than enough time for self-study. And weekly tests like again like I already told you I was going like my study routine was in sync with you know this weekly test of what it was being taught in class. So like till main side did the same thing and for me inside made sure my study routine was in sync with whatever was being taught and whatever test was there for that particular week. So I think it was easier for me to manage. And again when it comes to self-study like a lot of people have asked me like I attend like six hours of class a day and all. See even if you attend six hours of class a day it will not help you if you do not devote enough time for self-study. Like I personally did not attend classes for CSAT and all but even if you are going to attend six hours make sure you devote some time at least four or five hours a day for self-study. How to approach the anthropology option. Okay so when it comes to anthropology I dependent mainly on classes first. So I made sure I had a good understanding of the subject. After classes I was making notes simultaneously you know when it was being taught in class I used to note it down and when I was doing my self-study I used to add on to those notes so I did not make separate notes and all. Later for value addition I used a book called Ember and Ember. I think people from anthropology option should be knowing it. So initially I did all the stand out books like P. Nath and V. N. Das and later for value addition I used Ember and Ember. So this was my strategy for Anthol. When should we start answer writing practice for me? Answer writing there is no particular time to start like we cannot wait you know to finish considerable amount of syllabus. So for example you have just done one chapter for example you studied 1857 reward try answering two or three questions from that. And again when it comes to current affairs you are going to read the newspaper regularly so I think you can start now. It's always better. Economics where did you prepare? You said you didn't read NCRT how did you prepare for economics? Okay so I did not have any background in economics and also the main source that I relied upon was the teaching classes that were taken. So I made sure like my base was strong with that and the main book that I followed for economics with your class notes and I used the Shankar book that they give in the academy and a lot of people also follow this book called Shankar Ganesh so you can also follow that. But made sure when it comes to a subject like economics only your conceptual understanding is what happens. If you look at your prelims paper and all they repeatedly ask questions only from certain areas like inflation and what happened. Make sure you have an understanding on that that is more than enough when it comes to economics. And another source that is extremely important for economics is your economics survey. So it will be released and fed with the budget so you make sure you finish your static portion before that and then after that you can read the economics survey. How did you improve on your essay writing? One thing for essays I did not practice essay until after prisms. So again when it comes to essay there are two types of essays if you look at the question paper. One essay is a very you know your general type of essay like education and gender or health and all of that. So those essays are actually a bit easier compared to your philosophical essay and you will be able to answer those essays based on what you studied for GS and the strategy I use for that essay is there's an acronym that I followed it's called special like instead of A you replace it with E so S-P-E-C-I-E-L S is for social P is for political, I is for international affairs C is for cultural, E is for environment and L is for legal. So I made sure like any essay I was writing I covered from all these angles. So this is the strategy I followed for the general essays and when it comes to philosophical essays you need to write random essays in practice because we cannot predict the type of essays that they are going to ask. So for that I think I wrote around 10 to 12 philosophical essays before the exam and I got it corrected and I personally met Rajika Mamanol and asked her like how I should improve on that. Some students are from management side, how should they choose their optionals? Okay I don't know like how management optional is but personally what I followed was producing optionalist. I mainly took my optional based on interest. So I went through all the optionals available on the PSE website and then I shortlisted certain, so I shortlisted anthropology, sociology and political science and out of this I again you know just googled and started reading you know few chapters and standard books. So from that I felt that anthropology was more suited and I did biology till class 12. So I think that was an added advantage. So just go through the syllabus of management and see if there is adequate material available and if there are test series available, if that's there and you have a good conceptual understanding you can surely go for it. Some say spectrum is good for history, some say between Chandra which book should we actually follow for history papers? The Pinchandra is your NCRT so you need to study that so I did between Chandra and I also did spectrum so both actually. I think I mean if you are asking for India's struggle for independence you don't need to do that. That this book from the mains point of view and a lot of people don't like I did not like for names like the weightage given for modern India in history. GS1 paper is actually very less and you would be able to answer questions from spectrum point of view. So asking about the NCRT written by Bipin Chandra you need to do it. If language is the toughest barrier by preparing is English is more needy for preparation. There are a lot of people who clear with regional languages like even this year I have a batch meant to roll the exam fully in Tamil and they clear. But personally I don't think I'll be able to tell because I prepare fully with English so I really don't know about the barriers and you choose a different language. Is engineering subject or scoring optional? Yes I mean surely like if you have a really good understanding of engineering you can surely take you have electrical civil and mechanical engineering I guess so you can surely take any of that it's really high school. How many mobsters do you think it is enough before facing the prelims test? So prelims again what I did was until like December I was following only the test that was given at Shankar and later on like you have a lot of websites where they give you know free mock tests of certain other institutes so I used to just choose any one institute and I started attending mocks from that also like just sitting at home and attempting so totally I think before prelims I attended around 40 to 50 mocks the reason why I did that was when you keep writing you know the test from a certain institute I felt that sometimes you just guess by flu guess by knowing you know how the examiner is setting the paper from that particular institute so that would not help you when it comes to UPSC so I felt going over to institutes mocks kind of gave me a variety so around 40 to 50 mocks. On what basis did you choose your service? That is purely a personal preference like my first preference was Indian Fallen Service which I've been allotted now I think when it comes to your service you instead of going you know just following the herd I mean after means you'll actually have a lot of time to sit and research on the different services so make sure you research on it before putting a particular service Should we read the original Kurukshetra Composality If you are doing it like please do it like I started doing it but in the course my preparation I think they just disappeared but it's always better if you have time you can surely go over it and it will also help you in prelims as well as means like value addition and surely help you By what time you should finish your standard book and for how many days you should start a revision Personally what I followed was I did not you know like certain subjects I finished earlier like quality you know I finished earlier and I was revising side by side certain subjects I started like environment I started studying really did I started studying environment only in like Jan of it and like art so all of that I started early years I mean what I did was I did not finish all the books and then start revisions so I was doing it like side by side What was your strategy for CSAT CSAT I did not join any coaching and like I already told you I am an engineer so when it comes to CSAT you need to score the minimum number of marks so what I did was around March or something I bought a aptitude book and then I used to practice around an hour a day and I felt reasoning and verbal was easy but I found it difficult in points I went through the previous year's papers and I made the list of areas from which you are asking questions and I practice at least basic questions from that When it comes to CSAT like the past two years they are making it a bit difficult so do not neglect it but also do not spend a lot of time on CSAT Again another way to gauge your preparation CSAT is before starting my preparation I attempted a paper like if you really want to attempt a CSAT before attempting the 2018 CSAT paper like that year is considered to be the most difficult when it comes to CSAT so I was scoring around 100 210 in that paper so I felt like I was on the safer side so I did not devote a lot of time for CSAT and again when it comes to CSAT do not neglect any area for example when I wrote the exam a lot of people left points so they were depending on verbal and reasoning but they did not ask any reasoning questions in 2019 so a lot of people they failed actually so do not neglect any area if you are weak in a particular area please make sure you study the basics of that Any specific inputs for working professionals? There are a lot of people who work and they clear every year but I don't think I can personally tell much because I was preparing full time so like I am sorry I don't What's the answer writing pattern of yours? I followed you know the normal pattern I did intro body conclusion and when it comes to GS1 I made sure at least the geography part of GS1 I made sure I was doing at least one diagram you know a map or something and when it comes to your optional make sure you write case studies and diagrams again so I did not follow like any totally different this very simple strategy works when it comes to and again like I follow this strategy till my exam but again in the exam I was not able to implement this fully like around 10 questions I wrote in this format and later like because of time constraints I could not follow this format fully How was Shankar Ayase test batch? I found it really helpful like I already told you I followed like only the test materials I mean the test for brilliance as well as means so I really liked it Is it okay to refer one magazine a month and another academy magazine another month so we could cover most Like I already told this when I was speaking so limit your sources that is extremely important I mean it's not humanly possible to go through everything so limit your sources to one magazine and make sure you revise it repeatedly if you're going to follow this strategy I think later on you know before brilliance you'll find it very difficult to revise everything and one student is a final year student and he's asking he's taking coaching for this year is it right after college? There are a lot of people who clear like that so if you're able to devote enough time then you can surely give it personally I was not able to do that so I took a year after college but there are a lot of people who clear immediately out of college so if you're devoting enough time you can surely go for it How to remember the facts in current affairs when reading current affairs magazine You cannot do anything except revise it repeatedly or make sure you have the conceptual understanding like a lot of times magazines do not explain the background of that particular issue or something so in case of that you know Google and again see or make some acronyms whatever works for you but mostly you have to revise repeatedly What kind of questions did they ask in interview regard to foreign service? They did not ask me any questions regarding foreign service they did not ask me any questions regarding my background also so my view was very general it was mostly based on current affairs They did not ask me anything regarding service preference or anything regarding international relations How many months is required to complete the NCRT and standard books? Like I already told you I did not read all the NCRTs so it did not take a lot of time Again I think I already answered this question because when it comes to standard books I do not complete everything and then go for revision So for example I completed spectrum within two to two and a half months but certain subjects like environment I started only towards the end of Jan so I did not have a fixed schedule but if you are following something like this make sure you complete your standard books by December of Jan About India your book whether we need to study all the chapters? I did not study the India your book at all What were your hobbies? My hobbies is playing tennis reading books and watching two prime shows So this is what I wrote in the dash How to study ancient medieval and art and culture Did you follow standard books or our essay materials? When it comes to the three subjects you specifically told I would give more importance to art and culture than ancient and the least importance to medieval So for art and culture I referred to class, notes and nithin singhanya Like nithin singhanya the book looks like this but the way they would have written it is actually very easy to remember they have given you pictures they would have highlighted so make sure you go through nithin singhanya and again when you are reading nithin singhanya not all chapters are important Like just go through previous year's question paper you will understand that certain chapters they repeatedly ask questions For example Buddhism and Gainism is a chapter where they repeatedly ask questions so go through that and again when it comes to ancient the NCRT is what I followed and do not again go through previous year's question and see like areas they are focusing on So when it comes to ancient they usually do not focus on the political aspects of kingdom So they usually focus on the social aspects For example the Mauryan empire, the condition of women or the condition of lower caste So this is what they focus on and another type of question that they ask is they give a term maybe a Sanskritized term or something from that period and they ask the meaning of it All of this is given in the NCRT so make sure these are the areas that you pay attention to and medieval I did not read medieval fully actually I read only the Vijayanagar empire Marathas and Mughals I mean that is mostly what is there but I focus more on the art and architecture in medieval but if you have time please go over it because from last year they started asking a lot of questions in medieval like till 2018 there was hardly any questions but now they are giving me this with the least importance to medieval even if they are asking a lot of questions the issue of medieval is you are trying to benefit with very less there are so many kingdoms, so many things to remember and they will ask you two questions and even after starting everything we cannot be sure that you will answer both those questions so prepare accordingly Please tell me more about answer writing practice for a beginner certain sites that I found useful is like from our academy they post like one question or they know you can do that so just write your answers and all these websites people post their answers beneath so you can also just go see like how others are writing and you know certain points that you can add and they also post the synopsis within one or two days so I think initially you can start doing this and more than all of this something that I found really helpful was like I told you we have the test like I had my test every Friday and along with that they used to send so I used to write it and getting connected by someone from the academy someone you can directly connect to was really helpful for you know things you have to incorporate in your answer and everything so I think you can start this initially How did you plan your revision for prelims? I think from you know like I told you from theft till almost the beginning of May I was doing revision writing more tests and for studying new materials from May like that is one month before the exam I made sure I wasn't reading anything extra I was just focusing on revision so like initially I was spending around three to four hours on revision and later I was spending almost five to six hours a day on a revision and again when comes to revision I made sure like I was really well versed in the standard books like Laxnikantan Spectrum so I could spend more time revising areas like art and culture or environment How many months current affairs should be prepared before prelims? I prepared current affairs for one and a half years so I wrote the exam in June 2019 so from Jan 2018 till March 2019 was what I prepared for prelims How to read newspaper daily as a beginner? See when you are reading newspaper as a beginner make sure you have your syllabus handled with you or you will find some articles you think is important connected with the portion in the syllabus and you can read it and another thing that you can do is in case you are not able to find articles that are important wait for the daily news analysis of a lot of institutes they release daily news analysis wait for that and maybe watch the video for half an hour and then go and read those articles I think if you follow this for maybe a month or so you will be able to identify articles which are important from your syllabus. What are the best subjects you would recommend for rectoring Shankar notes? I refer my notes for almost all these subjects. Certain subjects that I found very very important are quality economics and geography. Was there any particular chronological order of how you study from Lakshmikanth? I think I went with what is given in Lakshmikanth only so I actually went with how it was taught in class and it was similar to what is given in Lakshmikanth. So first time you know all the basics and what is the constitution, the preamble and like fundamental rights and all after that I studied centre separately state so when you are studying like that compare the positions in study for example you are studying the president compare the powers the president has with the powers of the governor because it is very similar in fact the governor has more powers than the president and doing this will help you save time like Lakshmikanth's book you know most of the information is repeated again and again. Okay so again when you are studying the prime minister compare it with the chief minister in study so I think this is something that I follow and again study the judiciary together like the supreme court high court the district courts everything. How to prepare for environmental or related questions in freelance? Environment has become a very important subject in the past you know two three years. So when it comes to environment you have two types of questions that they ask and I use only the Shankha book for environment and there is more than enough I mean to tell the truth you actually have a lot of content and it takes time the first type of questions that they ask very basic questions on like what is ecosystem biome and all of that all of that is given in the book and make sure you study that and then on the second half is what is related with current affairs so you have you know like climate change organization all of that so these are the areas that they are focusing more so for that focus on the organizations that are in news repeatedly focus on organizations that India is a part of and you know and certain areas that our government is focusing on for example for a very long time we have this relocation of cheetahs in the news so focus on areas like that focus on the national parks that are in the news so environment again related with current affairs in study So summarizing editorial from Hindu daily health editorial if they summarize and have a note will it be useful it will like you can again connect it with the syllabus like editorial help you because example in the Hindu like certain days you have editorial supporting a particular issue and on certain days you will again have editorial which not support a particular issue so maybe having very small notes for that to surely help how to cover missed current affairs as I am starting my preparation now only the only way to cover your missed current affairs is from the magazines so start studying those magazines regularly How did you handle internal security questions? For internal security I use the notes that are made in class and the Shankar book you have known that I found it really helpful for internal security and again when it comes to internal security focus on more pressing issues of today's world you know like cyber security and bio war areas like this and always related with current affairs in study how should we approach world history? For world history I follow only like class notes and I found it pretty helpful and again like world history there are certain years they ask very random questions but last year when I go luckily they ask a very simple question but one area that you need to focus on in world history is apart from the revolutions like your French American and Russian revolution focus on colonization and decolonization so these are areas where you can ask questions for at least 4-5 years Did you use diagrams in your essay papers and all? No I did not use diagrams in essay diagrams are usually not encouraged when it comes to essay usually they do not ask you to draw diagrams How to prepare basic science in nutrients Okay basic science I do not prepare like in general I focus more on the technology part and to tell the truth I feel they ask more questions from the technology part and basic concepts in science so for that I again refer only our class notes and I found that it seems like very long and apart from that certain areas that you need to focus on is use the ISRO website focus on the important missions that the ISRO has done in the past one year and every mission has something you know special about it so focus on areas like that defense I do not concentrate much but any in the style of something that is in the news you need to know and who is deciding it like is it DRDO and is it in collaboration with any other agency or any other country and focus a lot on biotechnology especially this year because of pandemic and everything so they do not ask very detailed questions they ask questions that are you know very general for example last year they asked a question on augmented reality I did not study anything about augmented reality but I answered that based on I do not know if you remember there is a game called Pokemon Go that game so I used to play that so based on that I was able to answer that question so they ask questions more on your everyday application so they ask a question on digital signature which is very prevalent these days so you know like small small areas like this make sure you look through it and again you know your digital payment system all of that especially since you are moving towards a digital economy you cannot afford to miss areas like this so focus on areas like this what about economic survey and second ARC report okay economic survey is important from your brilliance as well as means ARC is again very important from your main spot of view so for economic survey you will have classes that go on and from brilliance point of view you need to study the volume of economic survey so that this focuses on the macro economic picture they tell you like what is the inflation level and all of that so all the data is very important from brilliance point of view and this data you can use it in means but from brilliance point of view you need to study your volume one where they focus on certain areas you study detail about it so I did not study the full economic survey like the full economic survey is more than like 400 pages and almost every single institute will release some summary that will be like you know around 100 pages so I studied that ARC the summary is available in the net as well as in your governance classes you will get a report summary of ARC so make sure you study that that is helpful from GS2 as well did you find Shankara is material easy for your preparation see like I told you I did not use all the books but certain subjects I studied like science and tech, environment, agriculture but I defended more on the standard books you will find it very useful for means especially certain areas where you not have material at all did you face any challenges in the interview ask me a lot of questions from economics which wasn't my strong goal so I think that is a bit challenging just give a brief and we can end it so what I already told you was now devote adequate time for optional as well as your mains answer writing and all and I think for you like brilliance is even later I think it's on June 27th but you have like very little time for mains so make sure you devote adequate time for mains now because that marks is what matters you know whether you push you into the list of from IES or whatever so make sure you devote adequate time for mains brilliance since it has become very unconventional I wouldn't suggest devoting around almost 6 months of brilliance so if I had to change something in my consequent absence that would have been something that I wouldn't change devoting lesser time for brilliance and keep your resources minimum more than you know one or two books for particular subject do not refer except if it's your optional even an optional like first complete book and then you know maybe go for repeated for value addition or anything but when it comes to GS and all don't go over more than a book that is not necessary at all keep your resources minimum and focus on answer writing this exam is going to be a pretty long journey so make sure you have the motivation everything and again don't please this exam is something beyond your life or something this is just something that's going to be part of your life so treat it like that and I think I will summarize and whatever thank you for a wonderful time and first of all congratulations for being here and I hope all our students have been inspired by your talk thank you thank you mom thank you so much