Hi all,
There are 100s of strategies and ways to go about UPSC CSE Prelims preparation. I have already posted many toppers’ Prelims strategies here.
However, this strategy differs from most. Though the idea of keeping the study material concise is familiar, you will be amazed by 98.5% Accuracy Ratio and the reason of same.
Shilpi’s strategy in her own words:
My best score in Prelims has been 64 correct out of total 65 attempted in CSE 2015.
I had a rather weird strategy. I focused on Accuracy rather than blanket shooting at Questions. For this, I did the following:
- Dedication towards core subjects: At no cost would I sacrifice revising Polity 1 time more over reading random current affairs. I did the same for all Core Subjects – Modern History, Geography, Economics, Environment, etc.
- I kept my sources to minimum and focused on maximum number of revisions. Especially before the Prelims date, I revised twice in 15 days. This factor alone increased my accuracy.
Join here for free guidance from Mudit Jain, IRS CSE-17 (IPS CSE-14 & 15), Author of Decode Civils – Philosophical Essay Writing, Decode GS2, Decode Ethics 4.0 & Decode History Books
Ethics book referred by CSE 22 Toppers: AIR –76, 91, 176, 189, 249, 288, 297, 299, 326, 356, 476, 541, 611, 616, 700, 737, 739, 746 & others
History book referred by CSE 21 Toppers: AIR – 44, 212, 572, 653 & others
Sample PDFs of Books: Decode Civils – Philosophical Essay Writing, Decode Ethics 4th Edition, Decode GS2 & Decode History
- For Current Affairs, I focused on one primary source (1 Newspaper) and 1 Secondary source (Monthly Magazine)
- I solved 10–15 Test Papers of a test series at my own pace according to my own schedule. I didn’t bother to be pressurised 2 months before Prelims date with marks obtained in Tests. Till the time I had a chance to improve myself by studying and revising, I focused on that. This required some psychological training but once I got the hang of it, it became easy.
As a result, I knew almost 55 questions exactly. For 10 questions, I had a good intuition. Out of which 9 were correct and one turned out to be wrong. Overall score = 127.34
Also Read: PRELIMS 2021 LAST 30 DAYS STRATEGY
As I mentioned in the beginning, it is an unusual strategy. It worked for me due to learning methods I have been adopting even before UPSC preparation.
Hoping that there is something to learn from here for all the readers.
PRELIMS BOOK LIST
Modern History: Spectrum, NCERT 12th, NCERT 11th, Bipin Chandra & Ghatna Chakra.
Art & Culture: Nitin Singhania Book, NCERT 11th, TN Board Book & Nitin Singhania Notes.
Ancient-Medieval: TN board Book, NCERT 11th RS Sharma, NCERT 11th Satish Chandra, Lucent, Vajiram Yellow Book (Ancient + Medieval), Poonam Dalal & Ghatna Chakra.
Polity: Laxmikanth, NCERT & Bare Act.
Economy: Budget (Only Summary), Economic Survey (Only Summary), Mrunal Notes, Mrunal Lectures, Vivek Singh, Vajiram Notes, Ramesh Singh & Sriram IAS Book.
Environment: Vision IAS Current Affairs, Shankar IAS Book, PMF IAS, Biology NCERT, Google, Shivin Chaudhary Course on EdSarrthi & Sunya Current Affairs.
Geography: 11th & 12th NCERTs, Atlas, GC Leong, PMF IAS, 11th NCERT (Not 12th), Rajtanil Solanki Lecture Videos & Sudarshan Gujjar Lecture Videos.
Science & Technology: Vision IAS Current Affairs, Biology NCERT, Shivin Chaudhary Course on EdSarrthi, Sunya Current Affairs & Lucent.
Current Affairs: Newspaper + Coaching Magazine (60.5%), Only Coaching Magazine (30.3%) & Only Newspaper (9.2%)
Which Magazine: Vision PT365, Vision Monthly, Sunya & Insight IAS
Follow her on quora for reading such strategies and answers
Read Other Prelims Strategies:
- Prelims Strategy A2Z
- How Darshan Overcame 4 Prelims Failure to get into IRS while Being a Working Professional
- Prelims: How To Score Big?
- Prelims Test Practice Method
Link: DecodeCIVILS YouTube
ATB!!
Leave a Reply