 Hello everyone, welcome to the YouTube channel of Shankara A.S. Academy, so this is a small video that is going to address one of the questions that has been troubling the many aspirants. And one such question is, how much marks should I score in a UPSC means to finally secure a rank. Let us understand this, see in our schools the maximum mark will be 100% and we will be awarded that also and when you go to college it will be slightly lesser, so you will get in the ranges of 90s through the max. And if you go to medical school it is much worser, you will get in the range of 70s the max. But if you think about UPSC, let me tell you the maximum mark that was scored in UPSC, it was in 2017. If you have any guess regarding that, it is 55% or slightly above it. And if you ask me the scores, say if you consider in 2016, there was a score of 901 out of 2025, that is I am including also the interview score. I am not only talking about the main score, I am also including interview score and 2016 may the rank 5 person had a score of 901. And if you take 2013 rank 1 had a score of 975. And see 901 is about 44.4%. So the maximum score itself is around 55% and can fluctuate between 44 and 55%. So all you have to do is to work hard to achieve this half mark and that will ensure a seat in the list. So let me just break it down for you. What are the scores in the UPSC? Let's start with the essay paper. So it has a score of 250 and we have 4 GS papers each for 250-250 each. So that comes up around 2000. And apart from that, we have two optional papers which is 250-250 each and together it is 1750. And we have the next stage which is the interview stage. We have the score of 275 allocated for the interview. And together it makes 2025 as the total score. The maximum of 2025 is only 55% which was scored in 2017 by the first rank. So that said, you can see the amount of fluctuation that the marks have. Say you want to target something and you are working towards it. But what happens is the UPSC decides to evaluate the paper very liberally. So you end up scoring more marks and which may be encouraging with may or may not ensure a seat. Say you score about 1000 whereas that may not ensure a seat for you. If at all the correction was very liberal, so the cutoff could be really high. But consider a very stringent evaluation of paper that year. In that case, the average mark will come down. So you can imagine the amount of fluctuation that the marks have. So a targeted preparation on marks is not something that you will have to aim for. So what I would suggest is you will have to focus on what is in your hand. So what is in my hand? There are five things that you will have to keep it in mind for securing a good rank in the final list. So let us go over it one by one. First and foremost is reading widely. See any exam you have to read and hands down there is no alternative to it. And you may see how I have cleared. I have reached mains, I have read widely. No. Let me tell you preliminary preparation is slightly different from the mains preparation. Of course, majority of the syllabus and all is same. But you will have to focus more on analysis when you are talking about mains preparation. Slightly more than what you did for the preliminary perspective. And when I say reading widely, I wouldn't say sit for 15 hours in a stretch and just read, read, read and read the newspapers, read the articles, read the books. No, that is not what I mean. Say you casually are sipping a tea and you casually come across an article on something very important or relevant to the exam. So you get curious and you start scrolling through it. Or you start flipping through it. And that is exactly what is called as reading widely. You should be able to incorporate knowledge without any effort. And that is what is called as reading widely. And the next important thing is inculcating writing speed. Say in one of my current affairs session, I had actually told the students to type out the answer and post it in the comment section. And one viewer had rightly pointed out that the writing speed is important. Valid point, right? Because most of the time, people skip answering questions despite knowing the answers. And this results in reduction of marks. And they may not make it to the final list, despite having the knowledge. So writing speed is very, very important. So what do you do for writing speed? Focus on writing an answer every day. One or two every day, just write the answers. See, this has two advantages. First of all, say you have a topic on the 127th Constitutional Amendment Bill, right? So what happens is you really do not know the answer. You are blank. You are a clean slate there. So you want to write the answer. What you will do is you will end up reading three, four articles regarding the 127th Constitutional Amendment Bill. In the meantime, you will analyze and you will get a good grasp on that particular topic. And after that, you will write the answer. So you will also know the topic and you will also gradually improve on the writing speed, all right? And when you're doing this, you will also know what to read and what not to read for an main answer. And that will take you to the third point that is you will keep your answer crisp. When you keep your answer crisp, you will save your time. You will answer to the point and it will reflect the knowledge that you gained by reading widely, all right? So when you have these three attributes, you will not do the fourth automatically. That is you will not read around the Bush. Say they ask you about Himalayas. If you ask about Himalayas, you write only about Himalayas. Say from where does it extend? How does the Himalayas form? You know, those are the things that you'll have to address. But what you'll have to skip is you should not focus on what is a mountain, right? And that is what is called as beating around the Bush. See, when I correct the papers, within three to four lines, we will know if the student knows the answer or not. So that if the person is beating around the Bush automatically three to four lines, the marks will be cut and we'll be skipping to the next answer. That's all. So you will have to focus on what is required, what is asked in the question, and you will have to keep the answer concise and producing the knowledge that you have gained. And apart from that, of course, interpreting a main question is slightly challenging for a lot of us. Work on it. Every day, again, writing two, three answers will help you here. So write the answers more relevantly, keeping the horizons of the answer focused towards the question will help you fetch more marks. So in essence, what I would suggest is rather than running behind the targeted marks, focus on what is in your hand and work on that. Stay consistent. And this will help you get past the main exam. So I hope this helps. If you like the video, like, share, comment and subscribe. Stay home. Keep hustling. Good day.