Ishan Sinha, AIR-234 CSE-22 Prelims Strategy in view of 2023 Paper

Hi All,

This is the 12th Topper Journey & Strategy post from the Batch of 2023. In this strategy post Ishan Sinha, who cleared CSE-22 with AIR-234, has shared detailed Prelims Strategy for 2024 Aspirants and beyond.

Introduction

Hello!

My name is Ishan Sinha. I recently got a rank of 234 in the UPSC civil services exam 2022. This was my third attempt. My optional was history.

I have managed to clear prelims consecutively in all three of my attempts.

You can Contact Ishan on his Telegram Channel and Instagram Profile

A Word on Prelims 2023

I won’t indulge in any criticism of the paper. Regardless of whatever paper UPSC sets, there will still be 10000 approx people who will write the mains every year. There is a high possibility that next year’s paper will be on similar lines, or perhaps even more difficult than this year (although I’m not sure how they are going to do that). So be prepared for that. I’ll share a strategy subject wise.

Prelims Strategy in view of 2023 Exam

Polity:
Laxmikant. No need to make notes from it. For polity, the current affairs is not that important, although do keep reading newspapers and keep following events from the paper.
I didn’t read the polity NCERTs, the polity philosophical questions mostly can be solved from PYQs and common sense.
Ancient and Medieval History: whatever source you have done, do that only. I followed old NCERTs for this (RS Sharma and Satish Chandra). If you are doing Tamil Nadu textbooks, that is also fine. But don’t go for both, choose either of the two. Do read the new NCERTs as well. Although they aren’t that important, there are certain parts of it which may be important, e.g. Buddhism Jainism, chart on timelines etc.
Modern History: Spectrum. Nothing else to do. Also, if you have history optional, even then reading spectrum is necessary. Preparing for prelims is completely separate from preparing for mains.
Economy: I followed Mrunal Sir’s notes. Current affairs are important here, and here, his updates handout was sufficient for me. If you want, you can also look up any current affairs compilation, though I didn’t do it. But don’t overdo it. Please do cover the budget and economic survey when it comes. For budget, I typically used Vision IAS summary. For economic Survey, don’t sit to read the entire document – any summary by a good institute is enough. This you can choose as you wish. I did the summary by vision.
Environment: Shankar IAS booklet. I made separate notes from this. The formula for note making is that the length of your notes should be 30-40% of the length of the book. For current affairs, I read the newspapers. I made notes of important species in the Indian subcontinent which included their distribution and status of existence.

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SnT: I read the biology portion from Lucent GK. For current affairs, you can read any yearly magazine you want (though I didn’t)
Current Affairs: I just read the newspapers. Didn’t make any notes or didn’t read any yearly magazines. However, I do confess my approach is the wrong one in the current scheme of things. Whatever current affairs magazine you want to follow, follow it. But prefer the yearly ones and not the monthly ones. The relative importance of current affairs would be environment> economy> SnT> polity> IR> social issues (you can skip this one if you want)
Mapping: Prepare this thoroughly. Study the Atlas for at least 15 mins everyday. When all else fails, this part will be your saviour. I made separate maps for BR, NP, TR, physiography of India, rivers and Ramsar sites. I will share these maps soon on my channel or blog.
Mocks: I practiced both sectional and FLTs. In my personal view, 8 FLTs are more than enough. Analysis of the mocks are extremely important. After solving and checking the mock, sit and analyse the questions. I made a separate sheet where I used to write how many questions I got correct from the ones I was completely sure about, from the ones I was 50/50 and so on. Also write down how many questions you got wrong as a result of silly mistakes, lack of revision etc.
Which mocks to solve: I have a very poor opinion of the most famous prelims mocks in the market (I will not name them because I don’t want to be sued 😅). It always penalises any form of intelligent guessing. Personally, I found Forum IAS mocks much better. Also, don’t go for those free all India mock tests and all. I attempted one and got 79. My marks in the real paper were 108. (Sab moh maaya hai)
PYQs, PYQs, PYQs: I hope you understand the reason why I wrote this in bold and underlined it. Do pyqs. Do PYQs. Do PYQs. Don’t just solve them, analyse the options. Collect some information about the options you don’t know about. Try to understand the UPSC’s pattern of asking the options and giving incorrect statements. Do PYQs. Period. For history, I practiced from 1995 onwards. For other subjects, I did till 2005.
CSAT: Please do practice it. The times for leaving permutation, combination and probability are long gone. Practice these thoroughly. There are videos available on YouTube explaining these topics, especially from the perspective of CSAT. Practice the PYQs here as well. CSAT papers from 2019 onwards should be covered like proper mocks before the actual paper. Apart from this, questions on clocks, calendar are easily solvable if you know the technique, so please do cover those. I used to do as many comprehensions as possible in the first 40 minutes. After that I used to move to the maths sections. Whatever strategy works for you, follow that.