Introduction:
Solving previous years' papers is an effective way to prepare for any competitive exam, including the UPSC. It helps you familiarize yourself with the exam pattern, understand the types of questions asked, and assess your level of preparation. Keeping track of your progress while solving these papers can be beneficial for several reasons.

1. Identify Areas of Strength and Weakness:
Tracking your progress allows you to identify the areas where you excel and the areas where you need improvement. By analyzing your performance in different subjects or topics, you can prioritize your study plan and allocate more time to subjects or topics that require additional attention.

2. Measure Overall Improvement:
Regularly monitoring your progress helps you gauge your overall improvement over time. By comparing your scores and performance in previous years' papers, you can get a clear picture of how far you have come in your preparation journey. This sense of progress can be motivating and boost your confidence.

3. Set Realistic Goals:
Keeping track of your progress enables you to set realistic goals for your preparation. By analyzing your performance and understanding your strengths and weaknesses, you can set specific targets for improvement. These goals can be in terms of increasing your accuracy, speed, or overall score in the previous years' papers.

4. Identify Patterns and Trends:
Tracking your progress allows you to identify patterns and trends in your performance. You can observe if there are certain types of questions or topics that consistently trouble you. This information can help you focus on those areas during your preparation and develop effective strategies to tackle them.

5. Test Preparation Strategies:
Monitoring your progress provides an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of your preparation strategies. You can experiment with different study techniques, time management methods, or exam-solving approaches and observe how they impact your performance. This iterative process of improvement can help you refine your strategies and optimize your preparation.

Conclusion:
Keeping track of your progress while solving previous years' papers is a valuable practice during UPSC preparation. It helps you identify areas of strength and weakness, measure overall improvement, set realistic goals, identify patterns and trends, and evaluate your preparation strategies. By regularly monitoring your progress, you can make informed decisions to enhance your performance and increase your chances of success in the UPSC exam.