Swati Sharma Strategy

JOURNEY-

For me, prelims had been the biggest hurdle. I began my preparation in Nov-Dec 2020 for my first attempt in 2021. Due to COVID, the exam got postponed to October 2021. I knew somehow that I was not prepared for this attempt. After which I realised that I need to work on GS as well as CSAT. Also I hadn't prepared enough for my mains. I had not completed my optional or GS papers.

For my second attempt in June 2022, I had around 7 months left. I gave my 2 months (Nov & Dec 2021) to optional. From January 2022 onwards, I focused myself on clearing Prelims as I badly wanted to write at least mains in my second attempt. I stick to NCERTs and standard books, wrote online tests, practiced CSAT along with PYQs, but still I couldn't qualify prelims even in my second attempt.

MISTAKES I MADE-

1. I solved the tests, but did not analyse them. I did not find which are my strong areas and which are the weak ones. I did not make a note of silly mistakes that I was making.

2. Only solving PYQs will not help. We need to recognise the themes repeated by UPSC. What most toppers said about "analysis of PYQs", I had no idea on how to process this.

3. I reached centre just 10 minutes before examination. This created a lot of panic and anxiety in my mind. I also could not attempt more than 70-75 questions because I lacked confidence.

Even during the gap, I checked my GS answers, which further degraded my confidence to attempt CSAT confidently. It doesnt matter which test series are you joining, what matters is how you proceed to understand your weakness and rectify them.

After June 2022, I started to prepare for mains. From July- September 2022, I extensively completed my topic-wise notes for GS papers, preparing for prelims simultaneously. From Oct- Dec 2022, I gave my heart to optional preparation. From mid-Jan 2023 onwards, I shifted totally to prelims.

CHANGED STRATEGY AND THINGS THAT WORKED FOR ME-

1. For Prelims, from July onwards I started to solve 5 -10 MCQs daily of Insights, Forum, Goaltide IAS which are freely available on their websites. This helped me build technique of MCQ solving for static and current affairs. I joined test series for Prelims in Nov 2022, this time offline (Forum IAS PTS).

For my third prelims, I had given around 50-60 tests (including sectionals). I began giving sectionals from Nov 22, this improved my MCQ solving and aided multiple revisions. I gave a lot of open mocks and analysed my weakness. From March onwards, I started this practice of solving GS paper in morning and CSAT practice in afternoon.

I think the most crucial thing that helped me clear prelims 2023 was PRACTICE & REVISION. I maintained a register to write down mistakes or any new detail that might come up in prelims.

Also, I did my PYQ analysis from January onwards. I will try to add an idea on this.

2. For Mains, I began writing one answer daily by joining Daily Answer Writing Program of Enlight IAS for GS (from August) and for optional (from October). This helped me to complete my syllabus, hover over each topic mentioned in syllabus and streamline structuring & content of my answers. I used to generally write the PYQs for evaluation, and write 3 more answers (that I evaluated using model answers provided).

3. Apart from basic books and tests, I made borrowed notes from newspapers and monthly magazines and added them to enhance the content.