Upsc Preparation strategy for aspirants appearing in 2022

 Upsc civil services exam or thee ias exam is known as one of the toughest exams in the India and the second lengthiest exam in the world only behind the French civil services exam. The exam consists of 3 stages in its entirety and continues for about a year.The exam is conducted every year with the preliminary exam in june followed by the mains exam and in the end the personality test also known as the interview round.This article throws light on the stages of the exam, the preparation strategy and the books needed to cover the syllabus

The Stages Of Exam 

Preliminary Stage

The Preliminary exam or simply known as the prelims consists of 2 papers namely the general studies paper 1 and the civil services aptitude test or the csat. Both these papers are objective type and consists of negetive marking.

Paper 1 consists of questions from history, geography, polity, modern history , art and culture, science and technology , environment , economy, ancient history and medival history. While paper 2 consists of aptitude questions mainly testing candidates verbal, quatntitative and reasoning skills.For further information refer the upsc website.

The Mains Exam

The candidates clearing the cutoff score in the preliminary exam qualify for the mains examination. The exam is subjective type which requires the candidate to have sufficient answer writing skills.The exam has 9 papers ,2 of them being qualifying in nature while the scores of rest 7 are counted towards the final merit list.

The mains exam consists of the essay paper, the general studies 1,2,3,4 and 2 optional papers of 250 marks respectively.The syllabus for the mains exam roughly remains the same, it further tests the candidates knowledge of relating the contents of the syllabus to the related current affairs.The remaining 2 papers are of english and hindi respectivelt which are of qualifying nature. For further information refer to the upsc website.

The Personality Test

The third and final stage of the civil services exam is the personality test.The candidates getting through this final stage get into the final merit list, based on which they are alotted different services.The candidate is evaluated on his logical reasoning and the ability to handle pressure.

The Booklist

There are  a number of books available in the market for upsc preparatiion.Thus, shortlisting the required books for the preparation is must.Ideally it is often suggested that one should start reading the ncerts to get a hint of the subjects.After getting an essence of the subject through  ncerts the candidate can shortlist one book per subject. The suggested booklist is as follows

Polity: M Lakshmikant

Modern History: A Brief History Of Modern India by Rajiv Ahir

Geography: Ncerts of 11th and 12th and GC Leong for some parts

Economy:Ramesh Singh

Art and Culture: Nitin Singhania

Ethics: Lexicon

 For the remaining the candidate needs to gather relevant coaching notes and substantiate them with the related current affairs.