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It’s the evening of June 3rd. You are frantically checking answer keys. You have got 75 correct and 10 wrong. With sweaty hands, you take out the calculator to find out you have scored 143!!! You say to yourself “something’s wrong.. let me check again”. Another answer key gives you 140 while a 3rd gives you 145. Slowly, the truth dawns upon you that you have cleared upsc prelims 2018. You will be giving mains this year. After 2 days of enjoyment, you need to start preparing becauseYou have never practiced answer writing.You never “really” studied your optional.Even current affairs was done on prelims point of view.You still think English is more important in essay than content like in school days.What I mean to say is that you are in deep trouble!! How to get out of it??First of all, go through the syllabus of GS papers and optional everyday. This way every important topic of newspaper will attract your eyes.Next, run a thorough analysis of last 5 years question papers. Here, you need to know about “upsc favourite topics”. My analysis says:GS 1: women empowerment, water conservation and drought, globalisation.GS 2: SHG, NGO, pressure groups, tribal affairs, Kashmir issue.GS 3: agriculture issues like farmer suicides, floods, drought, border fencing, space tech, nano tech, global warming.Run your own analysis also. It helps. Make notes on above issues. Take help from anywhere. Also, notes should be made on the lines of answer writing. Only difference is don’t restrict yourself to word limit here.For example, cover all areas of globalisation like economic, cultural, social, environmental, effect on disabled, SC, st, minorities, women, etc.As you have cleared prelims, you know last 1 years current affairs. By looking at mains question papers, you should be able to guess what questions might come this year. My guess till now for important current topics:Nirav Modi scandalIndia’s low score in Enviroment index but high score in ease of doing business.FAME India policy and success.Mission Clean Ganga.Acts and upcoming bills, etc etc…In the same way, you need to prepare and keep updating notes on such issues like you did for UPSC favourite topics.Also, don’t forget about essays. This is where you can score. Read about how good essays are written. Every Sunday, Insights gives mock essays. Practice them and self evaluate or ask a friend or a teacher to evaluate.Simultaneously, study your optional everyday for 2 hours or however you feel like (depends on your hold) but touch it almost everyday. Make sure to revise whole optional at least 3 times before exams.It will take you maximum 3 weeks to write all notes( favourite and current topics), understand essay writing and analysing question papers. Learning them will take another week. Less time because as you write notes, you keep on learning also.Ethics: Another area where you can score high. Give it 1 week. Buy a good ethics book like Lexicon. Understand case studies and how to solve them like what are ethical perspectives to be used while solving case studies? In this 1 week, practice at least 1 case study everyday. Ask a friend or teacher to evaluate right then and there. Learn from your mistakes.1 month and a week over and you have all your ammunition ready. Now, start firing.Practice 1 answer writing or more from insights or any other source everyday. Time yourself. It just takes maximum 15 minutes to write an answer. Don’t think you will be able to manage in the hall. If you feel, you need more practice in case studies as 1 week was not enough, do it now. Along with a GS/ optional answer, practice a case study also (only if you feel the need).Plan it out. 1 day GS 1 answer, second day GS 2 answer, third day GS3, fourth day GS 4, then optional. Repeat.I did not tell you to practice writing from 1st day itself because you did not have any mains oriented knowledge at that time. All, answer writing would do was destroy your confidence. But if you feel, you are well prepared, then go for it from 1st day itself. ( I am writing this answer considering worst case scenario.)Join test series. Give your tests only after full preparation of a paper. Optional test series also needs to be taken seriously. Same goes for essay series. This is for 2nd month.In 3rd month, practice your test series as if you are giving mains. I mean, everyday, solve a paper from 9–12 and 2–5. Include language papers also.Regarding language papers, study them once every week. Look!! Everyday, you are studying for 10 hours. You will be needing 1 day break a week. Cover language papers on this day. Take them seriously. Unless you clear them, your papers will not be evaluated. At least 10% of the candidates suffer every year as they did not prepare language.So, 3 months over and you still have 1 more month to go before mains.In this last month, repeat mains like exam after full preparation like you did in 3rd month.Lastly, newspapers still need to be read everyday.Let me compile everyday things:Newspaper.Answer writing.Optional.Reading question papers/syllabus. (Initially, everyday. Later, need basis).Weekly:Essay.Language.In second month only, 1 test series paper.It’s the end of January 2019. A friend calls you “mains result out”. Heart beating fast, you open upsc website. You wipe your palms. You open the pdf file. Hit ctrl+f. On the search bar, you write your roll number with trembling hands. You see the result. You again check whether you wrote correct roll number. Yes, you have written correct roll number. You refresh the page. Again check. Now, There’s only 1 voice inside you:“What clothes should I wear for the interview board?”

Feedback of Study IQ prndrive course (pre + Mains)If you want answer in one word weather you should purchase pendrive course (UPSC pre+mains) or not I would like to say “NO” but wait here is some more things to consider –First let me tell you I purchased this pendrive course and try not to reflect my personal feelings/disappointment for this platform (Study IQ) in this answer/feedback.Here are some pointsThese pendrive classes/lectures are one sided where only faculty speaks flawlessly for certain period of time Unlike regular and offline classes where it is more like a discussion and cross questions makes it very interactive and interesting. You can feel the difference between in demo online classes of like vision ias and next ias on YouTube or their website.One more difference between live classes and these pre-recorded classes are - in live classes faculty uses example of recent events and you can relate as well as remember them very easily. And in pre-recorded classes you know the case.If you consider or compare price of the whole course it is definitely a good deal where you can find all the subjects covered in minimum price available in market as of nowIf you ask me quality of the course, I will tell you one thing that no institute will provide you all good faculties. So as in Study IQ every topic covers from its base but in my opinion it is not as per standard which UPSC required but if you compiled it with standard sources and test series it will be good enough.No material provided by Study IQ just lectures and that’s it not even ppt/pdf files of lectures, so you need figure it out yourself about the notes and allOne important thing they keep shifting dates of completion of the course you can see evidence in attachment given, on asking this they just say it will complete soon It is not just one month but it is happening since June till now it is only 80% of syllabus. they intend to finish syllabus by june last.You have to clear your doubt in faculty e-mails only, sometimes reply come as soon as one day but sometimes it takes around a fortnight and sometimes no-reply. there no platform available to chat/interact with your peer and discuss something important.Some lectures are unarranged some time ago but recently I have seen changes made with the arrangement in the websiteOne more thing they keep offering 35-50% discount every second day, it’s just a strategy of selling and the actual price of the course is around Rs 22,500/- onlySo, now if you ask me that if you buy pendrive course or not I will say it depends on your personal condition or view.One last but most important thing don’t go for after seeing too much positive reviews of any institute on quora and other sites as those are institute backed review.Hope it helps thank you

I took my first attempt in 2017 and had started seriously around August 2016. I had done some NCERT books previously in the run-up (as a novel, as mentioned in the question) but it didn't add anything to my preparation.Give or take, I had 14 months to Mains 2017 but also college’s last year alongside. I reached interviews back then and missed out on final list by 20 marks.Overall it took me 4 years (at the very minimum) to clear the examination. Having said this, I can at least have you think certain approaches: (Views very personal)For prelims, try to avoid reading books like a novel. The exam has a very specific purpose. If you're reading economics, try to have economics previous year questions (PYQs) by your side. If you're reading history, try to see what was asked previously. If you could do this for micro topics, like after reading inflation or Harappan period, it would open your mind up to possibilities. In my case, I wasted a lot of time initially as I studied without prelims in mind. We at least need to know what can be asked from the text in front of us. There are many websites that have subject specific small mocks/coachings with subject specific papers.For mains, you can refer to PYQs again, the questions look easy but when we get to doing them in an exam like setting, it comes to us that it's not entirely about knowledge but approach, especially in GS.For both the stages, test series can be referred to, my approach was test-centric. But take these tests etc with a grain of salt. They are only a crude reflection of reality, hence don't focus on score but only on direction. Also don't wait till too late, syllabus is never finished. You can give tests early, just that don't get too demotivated or too excited with the scores.It is a good time to prepare optional at the beginning. In 2017, I touched geography optional after prelims and only scored 245, Geography topper had around 330 marks. So while it may have worked for some people, most of the selected candidates have given due respect to optional.It is my very personal opinion that NCERTs are not required to be done for all subjects. Since we read Laxmikanth for polity anyway, we can skip polity ncert for exam or at least not give way too much time to it. Of course a question might arise from it, but then that's true for every book we don't do. This also brings me to my next point.One book for one subject can be a good approach, especially for prelims. For mains, I never referred to books but Mains modules/lots of Google search/newspaper etc. Exam is about wide reading but more than that a lot of revision (in my humble opinion). Effective notemaking (underlining/margins/loose sheets/copy) helps in revision. How effective is this notemaking and other efforts? You can gauge by tests.Make good use of online resources. There's a flood these days, don't get too distracted. Select a site or two and stick with it, same with coaching modules. Don't get attracted to new initiatives. Similarly don't get too entangled with self doubts, once you've started to prepare, you'll have to do it anyway. So give your best and good luck :)If you have just started and do not have a lot of background, you may refer to prelims/mains modules of coaching/websites of current exam cycle. Example, if you are preparing for 2021, you may refer to Insights Prelims modules/Vision PT-365 for Prelims 2020 and Vision Mains 365 for Mains 2020. The idea is to have a feel of these so that you can build a base/read newspaper accordingly. You will come to know what these modules have and maybe if you are starting Mains answer writing, you will have content from Mains 365 with you. This can be improved upon over the next year until your next Mains. (Mains 2021 in current example.)Rest booklist etc is known to aspirants mostly, yet I've shared mine at my blog (under my profile link)(Everyone is a product of their experiences, everyone has a different journey. Hence the above is only indicative to make you think more and develop your own strategy. I had to keep evolving as I didn't have much guidance except Internet and tests.)