How To Crack UPSC Exam?

Union Public Service Commission conducts Civil Service Examination every year in the month of May, this exam is the only gateway to the prestigious services like Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Revenue Service (IRS) and other listed services from group A

Before discussing about how to crack UPSC exam lets take a gist of the exam pattern, better understanding of the pattern will provide a foundational base to prepare a strategy relevant to crack UPSC exam.

UPSC Exam Pattern

UPSC exam is conducted in three phases, overall the exam cycle is of about 1 year which includes prelims, mains and personality test. details of these 3 stages can be checked below:

1. Prelims – This is an objective based examination which includes two papers (200 marks each), paper 1 is of  general studies and paper 2 is of Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT), CSAT is qualifying in nature which means the candidate has to score only 33% marks in the paper and merit is prepared based on the results of GS paper.

Candidates who clear the cut off of the UPSC CSE prelims exam are then eligible for UPSC CSE Main Examination.

2. Main Exam – Before appearing for the Main examination the candidates have to fill the DAF-1 which includes personal and educational information of the candidates. The main exam consist of 9 papers ; 4 GS papers, 2 Optional papers, 1 essay paper and 2 Language paper (qualifying in nature)

After clearing the Main exam, candidates are eligible for the final stage of the exam i.e. Personality Test or interview

3. Personality Test – Before appearing for the personality test to crack UPSC exam candidates have to fill the DAF-2. Interview is conducted by UPSC at UPSC Bhavan in Delhi and candidates are grilled by a 5 member panel which includes members from UPSC based on their background, DAF-1 and DAF-2, work experience and everything about their personality this grilling is to check candidates mental personality.

How to Crack UPSC Exam?

Now after understanding the details about the UPSC CSE exam pattern it would be easy for you to make a strategy aligning with the exam requirements.

a successful strategy to crack UPSC exam includes-

1. Reading Newspaper
2. Well versed with syllabus
3. Quality discussions
4. Devloping answer writing skills
5. Attempt mocks regularly
6. Revision
7. Reading Yojna and Kurukshetra
8. Choosing right optional
9. Don’t ignore CSAT
10. Essay writing skills

Importance of Optional and Essay

The main examination is of 1750 marks out of which 1000 marks are for GS paper 1-4 and 500 marks for optional and 250 marks for essay.

Students generally tend to ignore these two major portions of the exam despite of the fact that these are scoring. Optional subjects require in depth study, candidate should study the optional before prelims examination because it will be time taking process be it any subject you choose to go with.

Before choosing the optional, keep in mind that it should align with your interests, the availability of study material, and its scorability.

The essay paper includes 2 parts, Part A and Part B, each containing 5 topics from which 1 topic must be chosen, amounting to 125 marks each. In recent years, a trend has been noticed where both parts now contain philosophical topics. This is different from the previous pattern, where one part had topics from General Studies (GS) and the other part had philosophical topics. Therefore, practicing writing essays on philosophical topics is required to be prepared for any situation in the exam.

Interview Preparation

Preparing for the interview is not the last stage; you must prepare yourself from the start because the interview examines your personality, and it can’t be developed overnight. You will have to work on your skills throughout the entire course of your preparation. It is a gradual process.

Before going for the interview, you must be thorough with the basics relating to your personality, which you mentioned in your Detailed Application Form (DAF), as the interview will mainly revolve around your DAF. To prepare for the interview, the best strategy agreed upon by all the UPSC toppers is to appear for mock interviews and take feedback to make improvements.

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