Saumya Anand, IAS, CSE-2020 Detailed Strategy

 Hi Readers,

This post provides a detailed strategy for clearing UPSC CSE and is penned down by Saumya Anand, IAS, CSE-2020. Following is her strategy, in her own words:

Hello Everyone!

My name is Saumya Anand. I have qualified for UPSC CSE 2020. My optional was sociology. Based on it, I have been allocated to IAS 2021 (Tamilnadu Cadre). Here in this article, I am sharing the overall strategy/ approach that I followed during my preparation. In this article, I have decoded five essential ingredients needed to crack the UPSC CSE examination. I hope you find this article useful. I would like to give a disclaimer that all the views expressed here are personal and this strategy may/may not work for you.

Brief background

Firstly I would like to tell you something about my background in brief. I come from a lowermiddle- class family where my father is a teacher and my mother is a homemaker. Seeds for pursuing civil services was sown in my mind by my father during childhood. So, it was my childhood dream to become an IAS officer and serve the nation. I did my engineering in IT from Delhi Technological University (DTU formerly known as DCE ) in 2019. I started my preparation from the final year of my college. After finishing college, I single-mindedly gave my full 1 year to UPSC CSE preparation. By the grace of God, the support of everyone, and hard work, I was fortunate enough to qualify it in the very first attempt itself at the age of 22.

How did I start?

It has been said by a Chinese philosopher Confucius that the “Journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step”, which means that to achieve something, one must take small but concrete steps. So, my overall approach has been to take hundred little steps rather than taking one big step. Before beginning my formal preparation, I downloaded the syllabus from the site of UPSC and crammed it. After that, I watched strategy videos of at least 100 toppers. This was done to find out the minimum common things prevalent among toppers. Based on this, I chalked out a customized strategy for me based on my strengths and weaknesses. Here I would like to mention that please don’t follow any topper blindly. As every human is different, things that work out for one, may not work out for others. Make your strategy and stick to it. That’s why according to me, self-confidence is the first essential ingredient to qualify for India’s toughest competitive examination.

“कौन कहता है आसमां में सुराख नहीं हो सकता,

एक पत्थर तो तबियत से उछालो यारों”

Overall Approach / Strategy

I started my preparation from July 2018 onwards. So I was having 2 years to prepare for this exam. As I had to attend college also, so from July 2018 to May 2019, I focused only on General Studies. Here my goal was to understand and learn basic concepts of GS once before passing out of college. For the next 1 year, I studied my optional and side by side used to revise GS. Accordingly, I divided the time from July 2018 to May 2019 among different subjects of GS. I used to study only 1 subject at a time as I can’t focus on different things simultaneously, but this may vary from person to person.

My approach to studying a subject was 5 layered. Firstly I used to read NCERTs for that subject. This was done to make a base as I was out of touch with humanities for a long time. I did not make notes out of NCERTs. Secondly, I used to see previous years’ questions so that I could understand the types and nature of questions that are being asked by the UPSC. This is a very crucial step as it has been said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” At this stage, the goal was not to solve the questions, the goal was to understand the pattern of questions. Therefore analyzing the syllabus and previous years’ questions is the second essential ingredient for qualifying for CSE. I bought a wizard publications book for prelims previous years’ questions. This is a very good book as in this book, topics segregated questions are given. For mains, I just downloaded previous years’ questions from the UPSC site. Thirdly, I used to study standard books for that subject at least 4-5 times. Only after this(fourthly), I used to make notes out of it. I did not follow a standard template for notes making and used both online (OneNote )and offline modes. Here I would like to mention that I did not make notes out of everything. I made only for things that were difficult to remember and followed different techniques for note-making like charts, graphs, tabular, sticky notes, comparison methods, etc. After revising my notes 3-4 times, I used to solve the previous year’s questions again (this time, the goal used to be to solve as many questions correct ) and mock test papers for that subject. This was the fifth layer in my approach. Also, I followed an integrated prelims-mains approach during my preparation.

My Prelims sources

My Mains sources

My overall approach concerning mains was to cram every word written in the UPSC CSE Mains syllabus. After that, I made 2-3 page notes on each topic mentioned in the syllabus by analyzing various dimensions of that topic like pros, cons, solutions, short term, long term, govt. initiatives, way forward, etc. Here again, I would like to mention the role of previous years’ questions as they help us to analyze the various dimensions of a particular topic.

Sociology Sources

Current Affair Strategy/ Sources

I used to read The Hindu daily for prelims and mains in the morning and make my notes out of it. For the interview stage, I started reading Times Of India too along with Hindu. Initially, I used to make notes in offline mode. After 3-4 months, I switched to online (one note). In the evening I used to read daily current affairs provided by insights and solve their daily current affair and static quizzes. And in the end, I used to read monthly magazines of Vision IAS. This way I made comprehensive current affairs notes and used to revise them weekly and monthly. I followed current affairs for the last 1.5 years. As we study a lot of things, we tend to forget them. Therefore revision is the third essential ingredient for cracking this examination.

When to start solving Test Series?

The purpose behind solving test series is to analyze one’s performance before the actual examination. Test Series helps us to build on our strengths and minimize weaknesses. However, there is no point in solving tests when we have not studied anything or we are in the initial phase of preparation. There is a general hype in the market that we should start solving tests or do answer writing from day 1 of preparation. I do not subscribe to such an idea. According to me, test series (both prelims and mains) make sense only when we have studied the syllabus sufficiently. Therefore, one should start solving tests only when he/she has studied and revised the syllabus at least 3-to 4 times. For prelims, I started solving tests from October 2019 onwards. For mains, I started writing 3-4 daily answers from December 2019 onwards from the insights site. Only after prelims, I joined full fledged test series for mains for both GS and Sociology. It may happen many times that one may get poor scores in test series. Despite this, one has to continue hard work and maintain consistency during preparation. Hard work and consistency are the fourth and fifth essential ingredients for this examination. This is because “UPSC CSE preparation is not a race, it is a marathon.”

Hence I have decoded the recipe for cracking the UPSC CSE examination in terms of 5 components which are as follows:-

• Self Confidence 
• Analysing Syllabus and Previous Years’ Papers
• Revision
• Hard work
• Consistency

I wish the best of luck to everyone for the upcoming prelims examination and feel free to contact me for any help on my email id:saumyaanand7587@gmail.com. Now, I will like to conclude my article with a very inspirational quote that has motivated me a lot in my life.

“खुदी को कर बुलांद इतना

के हर तकदीर से पहले

खुदा बांदे से खुद पूछे बता

तेरी रज़ा क्या है

तेरी रज़ा क्या है”