Some insights and suggestions 1) Forget about what has happe | Shubham Kumar: Strategy and Notes for UPSC(CSE)

Some insights and suggestions

1) Forget about what has happened in GS and Essay. It will unnecessarily impact your performance in optional. Always remember that your relative performance matters and not the absolute

2) 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

3) Utilise these 5 days well. After a certain point, performance in optional depends upon how well you are able to reproduce concept/facts/data/thinkers in exam. This depends upon how well you have revised and revision requires time

Optional Strategy

I’m sharing what I followed in these 5 days after GS papers

1) Studying for 10-12 hours

2) Revising Optional thrice - 1st revision in 3 days (Till Wednesday) , 2nd revision next 2 days, 3rd revision after language paper

3) Writing some questions: can write 3hours test also, after revising for 2-3days

I wrote 2018 PYQ paper (during 2020 attempt) of Anthropology paper 1 on 3rd day. Till this time I was able to revise whole paper 1 and half paper 2 (1st revision). One can write 2021 paper.

It serves 2 purpose-

a) Generally we get out of touch with optional due to minimum 12-15 days of only GS studies. Writing tests boost confidence and prepare us well for real exam

b) Increases your efficiency of revision - generally we become complacent and revise optional in very relax way for first 2 days

4) Avoid studying anything new

Even if you study now, you won’t be able to write in exam.
Have some basic knowledge in every topic so that you can handle compulsory questions

Best wishes for remaining mains papers !!