How to prepare Physics Optional :

Step 1 - Make your own notes and cover the full static syllabus. Then revise them multiple times, get all the derivations and formula's on your fingertips. Refer to the notes of Rishav Gupta sir, Abhijeet Aggarwal sir, Aniket Hirde sir, Vishu Mahajan sir, etc (any of them) and fill all the gaps in your own notes. (There notes can be found on there respective blogs, or telegram channel, or the following link - https://t.me/physics_optional_solutions/477)

Step 2 - Go through the PYQ's year-wise for last 20 years. Now identify all the extra topics in PYQ's which are not covered in your notes. They are all important because PYQ's are repeated very often (even the tough ones) !

Note - The syllabus changed in 2013, thus many topics such as Cornu's spiral, Bose-Einstein condensate, Saha Ionization formula, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian, etc which are present in the PYQ's before 2013 are not required to be prepared. These topics can be skipped.

(For Physics PYQ's, use Sathish and Brothers publication (https://raajkart.com/satish-brothers-previous-years-solved-papers-physics-civil-services-3.html) or directly download the individual papers from the UPSC website or get all the papers from the Examrace website - https://www.examrace.com/IAS/IAS-Mains-Papers/Physics/ - it has all the papers from 1987 onwards (except 2008 which I will share below) or use this link - https://t.me/physicsupsc_official/1112. In the DIAS tutorial sheets, some of the tough questions may be missing) (one can also use the PYQ compilation from here - https://t.me/quantumiasofficial/501)

step 3 - Start using the textbooks now to cover those parts/questions which are asked in PYQ's but are not in your notes. Textbooks must be used selectively to do the Worked examples and some extra topics which are not in your notes but are in the PYQ's/Syllabus. No need to read the textbook page to page and word to word and cover each and every random topic outside the syllabus - always remember that tough questions will be tough for everyone

Tip - For some tough questions of PYQ's, which are neither in your notes, nor in the textbook, nor in the PYQ resources, then you can use Chegg and get the solution by pasting the Chegg question link in homeworkify website (https://homeworkify.st/mirror-1/).

Note - it becomes very hard to study content from the textbook since all the relevant parts are scattered and multiple books for multiple topics are bulky, so there are two options. Either you can handwrite the extra content into your notes, or you can index the pages and then scan them, print and finally append to your written notes. This way you will have a single compilation of all the important textbook pages along with your handwritten notes all in the same place.

(one can also do the same exercise of index, scan, print and append for relevant parts/important pages from topper notes of Rishav Gupta sir, etc, because even these notes may have some extra value addition/content/extra diagrams, etc - but this exercise for the topper notes is completely optional and only if time permits, not at the first instance)

Step 4 - Answer Writing Practice

Step 5 - Value Addition sheets and optional steps shared in this channel

Below I'll be sharing the 2008 UPSC Physics paper 1 and paper 2 since it is not available online on the internet:

Pointers from my end:

1. Majority of paper is repeated from the PYQ's year-on-year. In fact 90% of the paper can be traced to PYQ's only, just asked in a different fashion or different wordings. Thus PYQ's are the MOST IMPORTANT. It is sine qua non to solve atleast past 10 years PYQ's and ideally last 20 years if time permits.

• One will have to make the PYQ solutions himself/herself, that is the only way forward. However, there are few resources to help, namely:

a. Rishav Gupta sir DIAS Tutorial Solutions (until 2012) - Shared below

b. Prafull sir PYQ solutions for paper 2 - https://t.me/prafull_loksevak22/63 (shared below as well)

c. Use this YouTube channel (OuThink) - https://www.youtube.com/@outhink7671/videos 

d. QuantumIAS PYQ solutions - https://t.me/quantumiasofficial/710 or t.me/physicsoptionalpyqsol 

e. Use this Telegram group (https://t.me/physics_optional_solutions or https://t.me/physics_optional_solutions/459), or message link - https://t.me/physics_optional_solutions/459/460  

f. Selective PYQ solutions prepared by me (shared below)

Tip - to get the solutions to some tough PYQ's, one can also refer to chegg to get verbatim solutions. Just use homeworkify website (https://homeworkify.st/mirror-1/) and paste the Chegg solution link to get the free solution. One can also use the bot from https://t.me/FreeportSuperChannel for solutions from Numerade, etc.