Book list to crack UPSC CSE/IAS exam preparation by Ira Singhal; Rank 1 IAS 2014 Topper Video Lecture | UPSC Preparation Strategy and Tips by Toppers

hey guys what's up this is yo single and
I'm here to share my resources for CFC
the CL for you this basically means all
the books that I referred and all the
materials that I refer just to give you
a bit about who I am I got Rank 1 this
year strangely yes I do admit so what
I'm doing is I'm trying to get give my
material and give my resources to all of
you who can't afford coaching and who
don't want to do this
so do spread the word for this education
revolution and if you have any queries
this video is done by an Academy and
it's by Roman senators so that's his
Facebook link out there and when you you
can just post your queries so how many
probably respond to you or you can just
comment below in this video just to give
you an idea these are my marks for SI
and g s1 g s2 3 4 and geography optional
i didn't really prepare for problems so
contrary hug you there
that was one six and i'm sorry to doodle
6 not all that great but just about
enough to pass through okay starting
from the essay i didn't use a book i
kind of went with the essays based on
whatever my knowledge was I remember
doing essays a lot in high school so I
think that must have helped in that must
have stick by so I didn't really do any
of the essays in specific I've never
written an essay for myself never
practice any and I tend to not use
quotes or my other authors and I tend to
not try to remember stuff so essay was a
blank I just did it directly during the
exam if you guys need help with essays I
believe an Academy has two videos there
which you can go to one watch and you
know hopefully those they're going to be
enough for you to kind of sail through
the essays gs1 now art and culture
that's something I never actually
prepared there are a few videos here on
an Academy for this I think six videos
so you can watch those I wish I had
maybe I'd have scored a little better
with the gs1 paper
this was on rent three for me so I left
all the art and culture questions since
I haven't prepared this section
independence history which is what they
call modern history you know this I did
from two sources one is for pre 1857 I
did the old ncert not the new one and I
did the spectrum for spectrum book for
1857 and beyond
the way I see it is you don't really
need to go in-depth anymore they need
you to know the topic need you to know
what the event was and then you have to
sort of analyze it right then and there
during the exam and that works okay so
what you're doing is just get the basic
idea and then go do the answering bit in
the exam so I did not read the fat Bipin
Chandra iron or the one with 400 of
something pages and I thought it was a
complete waste of time because it was a
single perspective and what actually
happens is when you read books which
give you a perspective is that you don't
really do a perspective from other
angles you just go with the perspective
that you've read so for me that was a
waste of time I didn't do that
um NCERT the new one I missed reading
that but I think that's a good one
because what they do is there's a
special topic in the exam about
important personalities from the Indian
history and what they do is that they've
given all the important personalities in
the boxes in the book so you know there
are these slight small boxes and they
would like the name and give you the
history of the person and that helps
remembering those people so new NCERT
again is a good idea for pre
independence history post independence
history I seriously think it should only
go with a new ncert it's called India
since independence it's absolutely a
brilliant book it gives everything you
need to know and it's very clear very
concise and to the point I think it
takes around four or five hours to do it
once again it has all the personalities
in the boxes so and what I think is that
upse I haven't really run out of
questions to ask from bad bird so you
know for the next two three years I
think it should do well so I don't think
you need to go into depth beyond that
book for now
industry I did with the old NCR tees
it's available as photo copies in the
market you know I did it right from
ninth to twelfth
the questions were mainly from along
10th world but the ninth and 10th books
gave me a good base to answer the
questions you know it gives you a good
background it gives you a simpler view
of the thing and makes it easy to answer
the questions so I did the whole 9 to 12
and I didn't read another book for this
no no normal oh no any other book so for
me it was just the old NCATS like I said
for older post-independence history ups
he hasn't run out of questions for this
so again the NCERT suffice for a few
more years now
sociology stuff I picked up on material
of a couple of coaching's and I kind of
went through that I think there are a
lot of specialized books available on
those topics as well since I was doing
my prep at the last minute I didn't
really have the time to go through all
of that so I just kind of went with
whatever my journal understanding of
Indian society was and that's how I did
now geography but um I actually have it
as my optional so I really can't tell
you what books to read and geography
like modern India history the
pre-independence history has been
explored quite a bit so you might need a
little more specialization in this topic
as well I do do remember Morrell has
covered some of the topics moranto at
all and I think an Academy also has some
nice videos on this so plus you can find
really cute basic videos on YouTube
about some of the topics specially your
resources and stuff you know world and
India resources so I think that should
about do your topic for you and even for
the optional I started with the NCR T's
and since it was my optional I started
with the NCR some plastics I don't know
if you need to start from there maybe if
your understanding is better you can go
from class mind or whatever level you
like but yeah NCR ease I think are just
your basic starting point going to GS 2
now I did actually quite well in this I
got 2 or 120 to 1 to 50 so
I'm a little surprised myself because I
did right well in the exam but I guess I
must have written pretty well so for the
quality bit I only did Laxmi can't I
find it the best book it gives very
clear basics it's easy to read and it
kind of structures the whole thing
really well for you so what happens is
you don't need to hunt you know pages
and you don't need to hunt topics and it
kind of puts things in the same place
for you I find it the best book ever
because I feel like it kind of puts
everything in the same place and it kind
of gives you a nice perspective and an
easy language and easy to understand and
it deals with the sort of events that
are happening in the world around you so
you know I find Laxmi Khan quality as
the best book so that's what I referred
I did not really deliver sue or any of
the others technical books I guess I'll
have to try those again now because well
I sort of do want to check them out but
I didn't really do it done so it was
just Lakshmi Khan for me at that point
now we have a new topic called
representation of people's act I didn't
find any study material which was good
for that or what I did was then I went
online I searched RPA I went through a
lot of multiple websites for that I did
a lot of other material and in the news
there was I think two judgments that had
come last year so you know whatever
items were there in the news I would do
those and I you know so my RPA was
mainly about news and current affairs
and from their websites coming to
schemes I did a lot of schemes from the
ministry websites for example the women
and shy child development whip slips
ministry website you know it deals with
all the schemes that they've come up
with Minority Affairs website and all of
that so they deal with all the minister
schemes and all the plans that the
government has and all of the agendas
that have been working so I did all of
that for all my schemes and all of the
admin then another really interesting
thing was which I discovered last year
was my friend Shekhar he used to kind of
listen to the news and well he kind of
forced me to listen to the news with him
and I found that after news they
sometimes had this
Roncalli news analysis on a IR where
they discard they discuss the schemes of
the news of the day and that gave me a
different perspective to from what my
perspective was so you know and then
sometimes I would discuss it with a
couple of friends they went to the
previous day and that kind of gave me
multiple perspectives so I sort of
helped analyze the news bit and help
analyze the current affairs but um so
you know um the changes that I made this
year was a listening to this news
analysis B do the Ministry websites
which I hadn't done before and then I
also did a google search for the schemes
didn't really do only from the websites
I also did it from the Google okay so if
you do a Google search on what other
schemes that are currently running there
will be a lot of results and you can
sort of filter them and figure out which
ones are the current ones and which ones
are the expired schemes and it gives you
a nice perspective and how things are
going in India directly coming to
current affairs
I hadn't been reading the Hindu who I
was too lazy for that so what I did was
I picked up this vision coaching current
affairs which would come out I think it
was just a compilation of the news items
from the Hindu I did them from December
of 2013
up to I think November or October of
2014 or 14 for the mains and this sort
of worked for me I remember I realised
there was one question from December
2013 in the exam one from Jan 2014 and
one from Feb also so you know that kind
of help doing current affairs from back
then and since I had I was too lazy to
make notes what vision material did was
basically make those notes for me so
like I said December 2013 and I did not
leave the current affairs this attempt
like I had done in my previous attempt
in 2013 when they change the syllabus
they did not write the word current
affairs in the syllabus anymore and in
13 I thought that okay we don't need to
do the kind of s anymore and that was my
mistake and which is why I support very
low in the paper that you and I made
corrected that I did the current affairs
this year and I can see the difference
for international I did the wadi rum
coating material which came out like a
month before the exam or maybe 15 days
and I found that enough for me I already
had a base for iron because well I've
given the exam before so you know I kind
of needed to just know the latest bit
other things that I did for this paper
was go through a lot of government
documents like some of the reports that
had come out and you know what I did was
I made a list of all the topics
mentioned in the syllabus and I would
Google search each of them and get
different viewpoints and get different
material on them and you know so that
helped to lazy to make notes but it gave
me a general idea and if I read the same
topic in five sources sort of some sort
of things would stick in my head this
was something I tried for the first time
this year and I think it made a lot of
difference it helped and generally what
I did was I went oh I did not do
material from a single coaching I did
three coaching's Shriram washy ramen
vision and something was good somewhere
something was good somewhere and I also
material was better online so I went
with all of that and then compiled my
stuff gs3 I had 95 on 250 not all that
great but suffice appeal the basic
economic bits wasn't all that tough for
me because Business School I kind of did
all of that didn't really need to you
know go in-depth but I do recommend it
for anybody who doesn't have a
background in economics for me it was
just about brushing it up and you know I
just picked up topics and things from
here and there I didn't really do a
particular source okay so you can do
this from NCERT if you like and I think
they give you a good basic round
economics current affairs in particular
is something I did for all the thing is
what he's done is give you an idiot's
guide to the things and I think that's a
brilliant way of putting things so for
me it was a brilliant source and the
unfortunate part is that I did it only
the night before the exam and not for
that long so that was something that I
regret had I done it better so for me
currently what I do think is that when
always the best source available
I think an academy will be coming out in
some of the videos for economics so you
guys could check this out as well and
hopefully they'll help you build your
economic space much more then I did the
government documents and the websites
and for example I did the Economic
Survey it gives you a lot of you know
helps you in building up the latest
stuff and then for the traditional sort
of solid topics I did do vision and
freedom coating material coming to the
security bit varam booklet for security
is what I did I don't think it was the
best thing out there in fact well the
material was just alright it gave me a
base to start with but I had to build it
and I also checked out this Shriram
material it was decent it wasn't again
like the best but it was good for some
topics and ok for some other topics so I
did a combination of stuff and also a
lot of hunting online NDMA and disaster
management websites of the government
took care of my disaster bird SNT
biodiversity and environment is
something environment like I've
mentioned in another video I think an
academy has around 80 videos on this so
you can do those there and since
environment has become an important
topic for the exam you will need to do
it a lot more than I have done S&T again
they have a lot of videos here and a
Khan Academy around 10 I think so you
can check those out as well I did not
know about these what I had done was a
wizard science in tech it is an
extremely fat book almost a couple of
inches fat and really big with a really
small font so it takes around 3 to 4
months to finish that book I had done it
in my first attempt so for me just meant
revision in my later attempts so I kept
kind of doing that because for me it
wasn't such a lot of effort but yes it
is a very fat book and it takes 3 or 4
months to finish that so if you want an
easy thing you can just go through the
videos and on Academy I think yeah like
I said I just updated myself from the
wizard science and tech it's a good
comprehensive book but way too
comprehensives unless you have the
patience filled you
won't be able to do it now coming to GS
for ethics I have a 135 on this all I
did was the King lexicon book I even
countered the pages I mucked it up it
was 187 pages the reason I know this is
because I kept used to I used to keep
thinking oh my god reading this topic
for that long no
so 187th in book small pages it worked
for me because I have a background in
ethics I have done my MBA and there we
do this topic in a lot of detail so I
did not really need too much preparation
I haven't ever done a single case study
on my own
mmm so but I don't think it will work
for most of you a lot of you have been
asking me for books I'm sorry I'm not
the right person to advise you on this
okay so you don't have to kind of hunt
through other books and hopefully you
will get some material I handled my case
studies basis whatever I'd learnt in
business school um it wasn't any single
technique it was more about using
multiple techniques to solve each
problem some of the techniques which I
think you can google our pestle
something called stakeholder analysis a
value chain analysis a SWOT analysis a
pro/con analysis and a couple of other
star strategy tools is what we call
these so you can go through these and
they should help and solving case
studies so thank you for watching this
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