Siddharth Bhange, AIR-700 CSE-22 Journey, Prelims-Mains Booklist & Strategy

Hi All,

This is the 22nd Topper Journey & Strategy post from the Batch of 2023. Siddharth Bhange cracked CSE-22 with AIR-700 in his 2nd attempt and has provided his journey brief and detailed Prelims and Mains Booklist and Strategy in following post.

Introduction

Hi everyone, this is Siddharth Bhange, I have secured AIR 700 in UPSC CSE 2022.

June 2016, I was 16 years old and just the results of UPSC CSE came out. Tina Dabi was making into the headlines. 2016 results inspired me to appear for UPSC CSE. Tina Dabi made me believe that this exam can be cracked in first attempt. I was not academically good. Scored 52% in 1st semester of 11th, 63% in 2nd semester. And barely managed to score 74% in 12th boards. Due to my poor academic performance, I was told to stay away from exams like UPSC😅.

You can contact Siddharth on his Instagram Profile

But despite opposition, I decided to start the preparation of UPSC in 2018. My English was very weak. In 2018-2019 I worked on my English, developed my vocabulary, started reading English novels, autobiographies etc. to improve my English.

Actual preparation started in June 2020 when covid lockdown started. 2021 was my first attempt. I was fully prepared, didn’t leave anything, covered each and every topic. But I couldn’t qualify 2021 prelims due to I’ll health. This was major setback for me cause I was fully prepared. But still couldn’t qualify prelim.

After prelim failure, many people advised me to quit UPSC and do some job or go for masters cause of poor financial situation of family. Also I didn’t join any coaching, so many around me were saying “bina coaching ke nhi hoga tera”. But, still I managed.

I decided to do not to appear for this attempt (2022) and go for MBA. But my seniors asked me to appear for the exam even though I was not ready and studied very little. But, because of strong preparation of earlier attempt, I managed to crack prelim 2022. Mentally I wasn’t ready for this attempt. I was about to skip this attempt. But thanks to my seniors who gave me hope and confidence.

Coming from lower middle class family, achieving this wasn’t easy. I couldn’t afford coaching so never joined any. Too much financial pressure (ghar ka bada ladka); entire optional I did by myself, no coaching, no guidance, only YouTube 😅. So it did take a lot of efforts from me.

All I learnt is to Focus on Process without expecting any Outcome. Just giving your 1000%% . “Jo hoga dekha jayega” was the constant motivation for me 😂😅.

Strategy

My strategy was simple, one standard book for each subject. Minimal resources was my mantra (as suggested by earlier toppers)

For Prelims

Art and Culture: Selective reading of Nitin Singhania for Harrapa, Buddhism, Jainism, Dance, Painting, Puppetry, Sculpture, Architecture.
Modern History: Spectrum Selective reading
Polity: Laxmikant
Environment: Vision Current Affairs
Economy: Made handmade notes from 2015 videos of Mrunal (bit old videos) and Vision Current Affairs, YouTube Videos for some topics.
Geography: 11th and 12th NCERTs of Physical Geography. Rajtanil Solanki Mam Videos for Conceptual clarity. 11/12 NCERT for Cropping Pattern
Science and Tech: Vision current affairs
For Current affairs: Vision Magazines, Prelim booster news discussion of Only IAS YouTube channel.

Prelim Strategy

For freshers— start at least four month before prelims.
Have at least 4 revisions of all standard books.
Solve all sectional mock tests of Vision and analyze those tests. Also learn those solutions of tests (VVVVIMP)
At least 3 revisions of Vision Current Affairs
Start as early as possible for CSAT. Pls don’t ignore CSAT. My CSAT score was 66.66 so I know how important it is to focus on CSAT.

Join here for free guidance from Mudit Jain, IRS CSE-17 (IPS CSE-14 & 15), Author of 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, 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 Ethics 4th Edition Sample, Decode GS2 Sample & Decode History Sample

For Mains

GS1:

Modern: I read modern only during prelims and didn’t study mains specific book due to paucity of time.
World History: skipped
Post Independence: skipped
Geography: Did a glance of NCERTs
Society: My optional was sociology, so didn’t study anything specific. But 11/12th NCERTs and Vision Mains 365 are sufficient.

GS2: