Saikiran Nandala -Prelims Strategy:

Prelims Strategy:

My scores:

2022 Prelims: cleared by 0.4 marks above the cut-off

2023 Prelims: ~23 marks above the cut-off

CSAT: scored above 100 in both

Resource list:

1. Polity: Laxmikanth, Sunya IAS Prelims notes

2. Economics: NCERT, ECO 550 MCQ by Vivek Singh

3. Geography: Amit Sengupta NCERT explained videos in YouTube, PMF IAS

4. Geography Mapping: Sunya IAs notes

5. Modern History: Vision VAM, Sunya Prelims notes

6. Ancient, Medieval and Art & Culture: Sunya Prelims notes, Vision Quick revision modules

7. Environment: Vision VAM, Sunya IAs prelims notes

8. International Relations: Daily news papers( I used to read World section with more attention)& current affairs.

9. Current affairs: Vision PT365, Byjus free current affairs videos on YouTube before Prelims

My approach:

I have started with Mains prep ( it's more of an integrated approach for both prelims and Mains in the starting from Feb 2021 to Feb 2022) and switched to full-fledged Prelims mode in March 2022

3 months during Prelims 2022:

1. Initial 2 months , I enrolled for sectional tests of VISION. I used to read and revise a particular subject then used to write sectional tests. Then before moving to next subject, I used to revise the subject again based on sectional tests strengths and weakness . < wrote around 10-12 sectional tests from Vision>

2.last 1 month: active and fast revision of all subjects, nothing new I read. gave around 7-8 FLT( from various institutes like vision, forum, Shankar, sunya)

For Prelims 2023:

1. I just had 25 days time between My 2022 attempt interview and Prelims 2023. So, in those 25 days I just used Sunya IAs prelims short notes for all the subjects, wrote around 3 FLT mocks.

2. I guess the current affairs read over past one year and for interview, deep conceptual understanding evolved around Mains prep in core subjects, the conviction and confidence developed in my thought process helped me to do well in Prelims 2023.

My takeaways on Prelims:

Analysis and working upon mistakes are equally important as consuming knowledge if not more:

1. it's very important to analyse your mistakes and improve upon them, if I write prelims tests in 2 hrs, I used to spend 2-3 hrs in analysing it.

2. I used to classify the mistakes I have done in mocks as follows:

A. Due to lack of knowledge completely

B. Knows about it but due to lack of clarity and conceptual understanding

C. Silly mistakes even after knowing it fully.

3. Then after sectional tests is done, I used to do active revision in the topics where I'm doing mistakes in A, B,C format. This helped me plug in knowledge gaps, helped me to get more clarity in subjects and built that conviction.

4. Initially I used to get scores of 60-70, then by working on the above aspects, that helped me to improve my scores in mocks around 90-110 range progressively.

Year-long process

1. From May 2022, I used to solve daily 5 MCQ from Vision IAS telegram channel questions.Similarly, I used to listen to Byjus daily quiz in YouTube. I used to do both of them in during office free time like coffee breaks.

2. So, over the course of 10 months. I developed this habit of solving questions, analyse how my thought process goes while solving questions and created a problem solving mindset.

Analysis of PYQ:

1. This is must to do, one will get fair idea of how questions are framed, how to solve them.

2. I used to read the information about the options mentioned too.

Pattern recognition

1. I see Prelims more in terms of pattern recognition. Since , we hardly know 30 questions that our answer is correct for sure. For remaining we have to come up with an answer during that 1 minute using all the knowledge we have.

2. It's important to build that skill to increase the probability of your answer getting right. Many things like option eliminations ( this role is slowly declining but still relevant), connecting the dots, thinking differently might help. For example, questions on history and art& culture: sometimes can be solved easily if we look through timelines.

Grab the low hanging fruits:

1. It's very important to not miss on questions from Polity, Economy and few direct conceptual questions from Geography, Science & Tech.

2. Make sure you are thorough with these concepts, because the probability of you getting answers right in these subjects are high.

Focus on unconventional topics:

1. Every year, the weightage for International relations, Science & tech ( related to recent happenings) are increasing. I feel not many coaching institutes materials cover these.

2. These can be grasped only by reading newspapers and developing that mindset over the course of journey. Then it gets easier to understand the patterns.

3. Read World news section, S&T section in news papers throughly, this actually helps a lot.

Attempting no. Of questions:

1. This aspect depends on the individuals ( some have better success rate, some have low success rate they have to attempt more) and also it depends on the toughness of the paper

2. I have attempted 80Q in Prelims 2022( actually I should have attempted a bit more) and 92Q in Prelims 2023.

Calmness in the exam hall:

1. It's very important to be cool and calm in those 2hrs. Our year long of hardwork need to be put into practice in those 2hrs. So, don't panic, don't over analyse, just take one question at a time and think about only that question in that time.

2. Many questions can be solved and probability can be increased by just having a clear, calm mindset.

This PDF covers broad dimensions of all the topics to be covered.

I found this document useful just to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Please note this might not be exhaustive list.