If you start your preparation now, you will have approximately 7-8 months to study for the exam.

Know the exam well: Before preparing for any exam, it is important to know the nitty-gritty of the exam well enough. Pick up the previous year papers and skim through them to get an understanding of what is actually asked in the exam.

Strengthen your foundation with NCERT & Standard Booklist: No matter what your background is, you need to understand the basics of the core subjects of the UPSC syllabus. Hence, refer to NCERTs, they can be downloaded from the official website of NCERT for free. You can refer to the essential NCERTs books for each subject given below to save time. Questions and important concepts are usually based on these books.
• History: Class 6 to 12 NCERTs
• Geography: Class 11 and 12 NCERTs
• Economics: Class 12 NCERT
• Polity: Class 11 and 12 NCERTs
• Science & Tech: Class 6 to 10 NCERTs
Once you have read all the NCERTs, it’s time to expand your knowledge by reading the standard books.
• Modern History: Spectrum
• Medieval History: Satish Chandra
• Polity: Laxmikanth
• Geography: GC Leong, Atlas
• Art & Culture: Nitin Singhania
• Economics: Ramesh Singh

Maximum amount of time is spent while reading and making notes of the NCERTs and the standard books. You can make use of the summaries available online to save time. EduRev currently has courses for all the subjects of the UPSC. You can find everything related to the above mentioned NCERTs and the recommended books there. These courses contain comprehensive topic-wise summaries, tests, videos and mind-maps.

Practice Answer Writing + Revision: Answer-writing practice and revision play an important role in the entire scheme of UPSC preparation, especially for the UPSC Mains Exam. Once you have completed a subject from the NCERT as well as standard books, then you can start practicing answer-writing. Before that, it will be a futile exercise as you will have to depend on books for the content of the answer. Also at this stage, it is also important to incorporate consistent revision. You should keep your weekends free for a dedicated revision of whatever new you’ve learned during the week.

Choose an optional: Give sufficient time to yourself to finally decide the optional. Take into consideration factors such as your own academic background, Interest, Time available and access to resources before selecting it. Try to revise it at least once before the prelims.

Essay Writing: You can refer to previous year papers or online sources like InsightsonIndia, AspireIAS, DrishtiIAS, EduRev to hone your essay writing skills. As a beginner you can take reference from EduRev, as it has 100 sample essays to help you understand the pattern of the essays. The app also has detailed and elaborated solutions to essays from previous year’s question papers.

Mock Based Test Learning approach: Two months before the prelims exam, you should incorporate a mock test-based learning approach. It will give you an exam feel. Sit for an actual exam-like mock test at the same time and then analyze your performance. Check your weak areas and brush up on the concepts that you may have missed. It will not only help you in anxiety management during the actual exam but will also prepare you extremely well for the exam!

Finally, prioritise on cracking GS-1 and CSAT as you won’t be able to give mains if you don’t clear them first. The core material for Mains and Prelims is the same, the point of difference is the application of that material.