Unacademy - Strategy to crack UPSC CSE by Shalini Duhan (AIR: 21-2015; 100-2014; 190-2013) Video Lecture | UPSC Preparation Strategy and Tips by Toppers

hello friends my name is Shalini Diwan
and I have secured rank 21 in UPSC CSC
2015 this was my third attempt and prior
to this I have already been selected in
Indian Revenue Service and Indian Police
Service I'm a Vita graduate from DC our
u.s. timotha Haryana and you can follow
me at an academy and you can watch the
videos related to you PSA preparation
and you can also contribute voluntarily
so in this presentation basically I will
be are dealing with the certain general
queries which the s parents have and
also with the book lists for the prelims
and certain slides are also there about
the essay so as far as the query related
to the electronic or the paper material
is concerned my main source material for
the preparation was a paper material and
especially the newspapers and there are
you so supplement with the online
information which is available because
nowadays the amount of information which
is available on the Internet is huge and
sometimes it can also confuse the
experience or the experience they get
overwhelmed by what is available online
so I feel that if if the the person
knows how to use the information
effectively I think it is a very
important tool and it can prove to be
very useful so what I did is that like I
my preparation strategy mainly revolved
around the newspapers I used to go
through two newspapers daily Hindu and
Indian Express and I refer to the
standard books like the NCR teas along
with the magazines like unum
down-to-earth and certain selected
articles from frontline also and along
with this I used to follow the monthly
current affairs booklets from vision is
and varam also and along with this I
used to follow certain selective
websites like nunal and it's
occasionally and I feel along with this
it is very important that the person
practices the answer writing because
along with the all the knowledge which
you gain through studying all these
books and all these magazines it is very
important that you are able to translate
whatever you know in the final
examination for that the answer writing
is very important so sometimes people
ask whether the person should have a
career back up while you are appearing
for the UPSC well now in my case I
decided to appear for the UPS exam after
I go through the SSC and not to have a
career back up but for me this is how
the things progressed now the getting
through the SSC exam gave me a lot of
confidence to take a plunge for the UPS
exam and I think that was a major factor
that helped me to you know clear this
exam without taking much of this stress
and especially in the first attempt but
I think totally boy boils down to the
individual choice and it also depends
upon a lot of personal factors also so
the next slide it deals with the book
list so in the history culture and
geography I mainly relied upon the NCR
T's for culture Nathan Singhania is very
comprehensive it's very good for economy
please do refer to economic survey and
for environment especially for the
prelims you can go through the chancre
is for environment and besides this for
the current affairs definitely
newspapers and then Current Affair
booklets are they're huge now front line
you can go through selected articles and
and you can go through new novels so
sometimes you can visit it's also just
like I said in the previous slides so
like you can see my book list is not
like very I've just referred to only a
few limited books so the key is you keep
your study material limited but but you
revise it again and again because you
know see once we
Oh through the material for the first
time it just gives you an overview of
the thing but they said you go through
the material second time or third time
you will come across you will be amazed
to see that you may have missed a lot of
important things in the first reading so
it is important that you give it the
material a second or third reading
so basically key is that you go through
the material two three times you revise
it and especially when the prelims is so
close so what you can do now is just
revise whatever you have already studied
don't read anything any new stuff see
the preparation of the prelims is not
separate from that of the means it's a
continuous process it's an ongoing
process basically the difference is just
that before the prelims like for one or
two months depending upon your comfort
level you have to start reading things
in a more specific in a more detailed
manner as per the requirement of the
prelims so what you do is you pick up
last year's question papers and you go
through them and you see what kind of
questions the UPSC has been asking along
with that previously or question papers
plus the revision or whatever you have
studied at this point of time and along
with that you need to practice practice
is very very important practice is very
important for the time management as
well as you need to learn how you are
going to apply whatever you have learned
whatever you have memorized or whatever
knowledge we have gained by reading all
those books you need to apply that in
solving the questions also reading all
that is one thing but you know applying
all that knowledge to solve the
questions and to reach at the right
solution is totally different and for
that you are going to need practice so
revise and practice at this time and
nothing more so in the next two slides
I'll be dealing with the essay I believe
the essay should be the priority for
every esperan because in si si is a
paper where you can just you know with
the small extra effort you can get a lot
of marks and you can enhance your score
exceptionally so I feel that si requires
two things mainly you should have a good
knowledge base and you should have good
in addition or but you can say is
writing skills and I believe that the
first thing that is the knowledge base
that is you know you can create a strong
foundation by properly thoroughly
preparing the mains material because
once you are doing that thoroughly the
knowledge part will be covered as far as
the second part that is the writing
skills are concerned I'd varies
individually so what you can do is you
can just write two three essays and you
can get them checked and you can get the
feedback and you can start working on
that accordingly well I wrote the essay
on science in tech topic in the 2013
means essay and in that year there was
just one essay so for the first one
however what I did is that I prepared
the framework for almost entire essay
and this I have been doing for the last
two attempts also and we have been
getting two essays to write so in the
first one out of an hour but I do is
that I prepare the framework for both
the essays and I'll be very frank to say
that I always play safe when it comes to
the essay so I kind of follow a
particular standard pattern like I I
will start with the quote and end with
the quote and then I would cover all the
aspects like like say I will cover the
historical dimension also international
administrative so I will cover all the
dimensions possible dimensions like in
this science and technology essay I
wrote it like I created the framework
based upon the 4G that is growth green
governance and gender and that is how
science and technology can help us in
achieving growth in protecting the
environment and and in you know in
enhancing the you know in what you can
say is in governance also or in making
our administration much more effective
so in essay you can include you can
enrich it by including examples you can
include facts and certain index like I
in the science and technology si I gave
this innovation index I introduced and
in example I gave the example of Britain
how like because of the size and tech
development the Britain it could you
know colonize the entire world because
of the advancement in science and
technology similarly I gave the example
of Japan also that how they could
progress because of science and tech so
you can give examples like this you can
introduce facts and other data also so
this is all about si so this is like
people have sometimes doubt about like
they are not from a big College they are
from Hindi medium or they are not
working when they appear for the ups
they interview I would say these all are
insecurities if you are coming from such
a background be very confident because
you have reached till the interview
level because you are capable and do not
be insecure because of these things
unnecessary thinking about these things
will only affect your morale so right
thing to do is focus on your preparation
give your best and stay positive about
the results because if you have given
your best definitely the result is also
going to be best as they say it's better
to try and fail rather than not trying
it on so my best wishes to all the
aspirants and thank you for watching
thank you