Note-making strategies for Mains preparation

Mains preparation:

Note-making strategies:

Physical vs. Digital - Either would work depending on one’s convenience. I had hardcopy notes for mains but prepared digital notes for the interview.

Note-making for mains:

First, understand what the demand of the examination is.

1) We need to write 150 and 250 word answers.

2) We need facts to provide objectivity to answers.

3) We require examples to substantiate our points.

4) We need catchy introductions and conclusions for many standard questions.

5) Diagrams, graphs, and flowcharts are required for better presentation.

Whenever I prepare notes, I try to keep the above points in mind. After prelims preparation, we do not need to explain each and every point in our mains notes as we use them for revision and recalling points in the answer. So, there's no need to unnecessarily explain points in notes.

For notes, mains syllabus is the guiding light. Each and every keyword mentioned in the syllabus is very important. Questions are directly asked in exams from these keywords.

Stages in note-making:

1) Go through the syllabus first and cover them from the identified source for the topic without making notes.

2) Next, look at PYQs to understand the demand of questions.

3) Based on the understanding of PYQs, short notes can be made from the source.

My take on notes - I realized that the shorter the notes, the better the revision and retention (brain psychology). I tried to squeeze the content into as little space as possible. In my first mains, I had only 2 small diaries for all 4 GS notes. In the last attempt, I added one extra notebook because a few topics were not covered, and value addition was done. My revision became very easy, and I used to carry them wherever I used to go. Especially as a working professional, this style helped a lot in revision anywhere. Additionally, I realized that sometimes while revising GS3, I was not able to recall something studied in GS2, thus having concise notes together made navigation quicker and helped me not to procrastinate. “Revision became effective”.

Current Affairs for mains:

Current affairs compilation and newspapers are two important sources for covering current affairs. I found mains 365 very useful for the CA topic of mains. I did extensive value addition from these documents. Recent versions started to include the facts and examples at the end of the booklet that can also be referred.

Newspaper of mains - The newspaper is a very good source of increasing the understanding of current issues. But since I did not have time, I decided not to read it intentionally and devote the same time for revision.

Further Value addition - I used to do value addition from toppers' copies and mock test model answers. These two places are reservoirs of content that can be directly written in the actual exam. I used to go through topper test papers and notes of a few selected candidates and noted down any good points that I used to find there in my notebook. The return on investment here is the highest. Apart from this, mains 365 also covers a basic summary of every topic in the magazine, and the same can also be referred to.

For the topper copy - one can refer to copies of those who have scored good marks in respective papers.