I hope that those who are writing this year’s mains are prepar | Shubham Kumar: Strategy and Notes for UPSC(CSE)

I hope that those who are writing this year’s mains are preparing well for their optional and language paper.

Going through papers I realised that GS 4 was extremely lengthy and overall the questions are becoming more and more analytical-
1) many questions were asked directly from syllabus
2) few from current affairs
3) some very rare topics from syllabus
4) some factual and random questions. (Only this part is not under your control)

You should realise that performance in Essay and GS is very relative. If the questions were tough or paper was lengthy then it was for everyone. So always your relative performance matters and not the absolute

In 2020 mains, after GS papers, I actually was not satisfied with my performance as I knew that I won’t be able to improve marks in GS + Essay combined as compared to 2019 attempt (and it did came true 2019 I had got 560 and in 2020 attempt 558)

After GS 4 exam I felt that this attempt has gone waste as I was not able to deliver better as compared to 2019 attempt

After some crying after GS 4 exam that evening I realised that if I’m able to score well in optional and interview combined then there is decent probability to get into top 70. (I almost improved 90 marks in this)

Some insights and suggestions

1) Forget about what has happened in GS and Essay. It will unnecessarily impact your performance in optional.

For GS, If you have prepared well, practiced answer writing and attempted almost all questions in real exam, you can get minimum 115+ in essay and 360+ in GS.

From here, If you are able to score 270+ in optional and 180+ in interview, there is enough probability that you will get into the list. So entire focus of yours should shift towards optional

2) Utilise these 5 days well. After a certain point, performance in optional defends upon how well you are able to reproduce facts/data/thinkers in exam. This depends upon how well you have revised and revision requires time (More on this later)

3) Language paper: don’t ignore it. Every year many people are not able to clear it. So go through PYQ papers if you haven’t till now, see model answers of last 2 years minimum, see the types of questions being asked, rote learn few things like opposite words, idioms, writing essays on common topics etc

Best wishes !!

Shubham Kumar
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