Author: Root

IMP: Civilsdaily IAS Prelims 2017 Test Series Module Launched – Click here

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If traditional wisdom is anything to go by, we should be writing a post on:

• “How Civilsdaily cracked 70+ hits on this IAS Prelims”,
• “How our detailed and unwavering focus on current affairs via newscards got was bang on the bucks this year” OR
• “How some 100+ Test series users mailed us with gratitude on scoring a 120+ in this year’s Prelims” (+ their email snapshots)

Such a declaration is usually followed by a compilation of the said questions and irrelevant links to support the claim.

In fact, truth be told, since this year was bullish on current affairs (which has been the raisond’etre of Civilsdaily Newscards) we were inevitably drawn to do so here, here, here and here before we stopped and realised that it’s time to end this madness of hits and misses and call a spade a spade.

No coaching can predict 70-80 questions in any IAS Prelims Exam. That’s a marketing gimmick and it’s time that senior players come out transparent.

Here’s how you should actually divide and analyse the IAS Prelims questions:

1. The Good questions which are so easy even RG can attempt them
2. The Bad(ass) questions but very much doable via tikdams!
3. The Ugly questions and hug your TS makers if they helped you retain them!

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#1. The Good (Pappu Sawal):

Senior players of the UPSC game would concur with us that every year, there are about 30-35 questions which are easily doable for a sincere student. Anyone who has done his/ her static syllabus even once will be able to solve these questions easily (with or without a Test Series)

Also, if you haven’t completed the course and are not up to date with the current affairs, joining any number of test series with tall claims to producing 60-80 questions is fruitless. It is not going to pan out for you.

Don’t believe us? Look at these set of questions from the IAS Prelims 2016:

Very straight forward questions from history. Available in all the sources. 

[History] What was the main reason for the split in the Indian National Congress at Surat in 1907?

1. Introduction of communalism into Indian politics by Lord Minto.
2. Extremists’ lack of faith in the capacity of the moderates to negotiate with the British Government.
3. Foundation of Muslim League.
4. Aurobindo Ghosh’s inability to be elected as the President of the Indian National Congress.

 [History] The plan of Sir Stafford Cripps envisaged that after the Second World War

1. India should be granted complete independence.
2. India should be partitioned into two before granting independence.
3. India should be made a republic with the condition that she will join the Commonwealth.
4. India should be given Dominion status.

[History] The ‘Swadeshi’ and ‘Boycott’ were adopted as methods of struggle for the first time during the

1. Agitation against the Partition of Bengal
2. Home-Rule Movement
3. Non-Cooperation Movement
4. Visit of the Simon Commission to India

Easy questions from Polity. The other questions are also straight from the book but were hidden. Some of them may qualify in the ‘bad category’ but that’s where tikdams come to rescue!

[Polity] The Parliament of India acquires the power to legislate on any item in the State List in the national interest if a resolution to that effect is passed by the

1. Lok Sabha by a simple majority of its total membership.
2. Lok Sabha by a majority of not less than two-thirds of its total membership.
3. Rajya Sabha by a simple majority of its total membership.
4. Rajya Sabha by a majority of not less than two-thirds of its members present and voting.

[Polity] Consider the following statements:

1. The minimum age prescribed for any person to be a member of Panchayat is 25 years.
2. A Panchayat reconstituted after premature dissolution continues only for the remainder period.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

1. 1 only
2. 2 only
3. Both 1 and 2
4. Neither 1 nor 2

Easy questions on simple economics concepts. Even the options were not confusing. Only 4 really conceptual, rest on current happenings.

[Economics] There has been a persistent deficit budget year after year. Which action/ actions of the following can be taken by the Government to reduce the deficit?

1. Reducing revenue expenditure
2. Introducing new welfare schemes
3. Rationalizing subsidies
4. Reducing import duty

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

1. 1 only
2. 2 and 3 only
3. 1 and 3 only
4. 1, 2, 3 and 4

[Economics] Which of the following is/are included in the capital budget of the Government of India?

1. Expenditure on acquisition of assets like roads, buildings, machinery, etc.
2. Loans received from foreign governments.
3. Loans and advances granted to the States and Union Territories.

Select the correct answer using the code given below.

1. 1 only
2. 2 and 3 only
3. 1 and 3 only
4. 1, 2 and 3

Geography had a drastic reduction this year but still – who wouldn’t know the tributaries of a major river!

[Geography] Which of the following is/are tributary/tributaries of Brahmaputra?

1. Dibang
2. Kameng
3. Lohit

Select the correct answer using the code given below.

1. 1 only
2. 2 and 3 only
3. 1 and 3 only
4. 1, 2 and 3

Even if you were not thorough with current affairs but would have just skimmed through daily newscards, you should be able to solve the ones listed below.

[CA] A recent movie titled The Man Who Knew Infinity is based on the biography of (a) S. Ramanujan (b) S. Chandrasekhar (c) S.N. Bose (d) C.V. Raman 

[CA] ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ is sometimes mentioned in the news in the context of the affairs of (a) African Union (b) Brazil (c) European Union (d) China 

[CA] The term ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’ is sometimes seen in the news in the context of:

1. Pledges made by the European countries to rehabilitate refugees from the war-affected Middle East.
2. Plan of action outlined by the countries of the world to combat climate change.
3. Capital contributed by the member countries in the establishment of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
4. Plan of action outlined by the countries of the world regarding Sustainable Development Goals.

[CA] In the context of which of the following do you sometimes find the terms ‘amber box, blue box and green box’ in the news? (a) WTO affairs (b) SAARC affairs (c) UNFCCC affairs (d) India-EU negotiations on FTA 

Then there would be a selection of current affairs questions that you’ll find in every test series because they were the most contested and discussed topics of the year!

For example:

• The question on Stand Up India Scheme
• NGBRA has always been a favorite topic hence a question picked by every respected TS
• Mission Indradhanush, Project Loon, Agenda 21, Gadgil Committee report, Bitcoins and so on and many more!

Bottom line? The list above goes on and on and covers some ~35 odd questions. To claim that our platform got these ones correct and cross reference some links (with tangential content) to back the claims is an insult to a serious aspirants’ study habits. If you are a newbie – be very cautious of such tall claims.

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And this brings us to the next set of questions:

#2. The Bad(ass) questions:

What differentiates UPSC from other exams are these questions which are not tough but tricky. Dr. V has demonstrated so many times that questions can be solved by tikdams and in fact this is one of the most important series which can be developed over time.

Read here, for getting a taste of it and then read the comments of the users who benefitted after cultivating this hack for themselves.

We have made sure that questions in our FLTs and Mock tests do make you think twice and take educated guesses. Not sure what we mean? Read on: 

[Economics/ CA] With reference to the ‘Trans-Pacific Partnership’, consider the following statements:

1. It is an agreement among all the Pacific Rim countries except China and Russia.
2. It is a strategic alliance for the purpose of maritime security only.

Tikdam: Notice the red flags? Would you not automatically cross 1 and 2. It’s a trade partnership and “all” countries really? Where is colombia? Where is papua new guinea?

We can provide you the links of TPP when we covered it but think again. What would really help you become a PRELIMS KILLER? The fact that we overdosed you with tonnes of questions and content OR the fact that we requested and made sure you develop this knack of thinking?

Still not convinced?

[Environment/ CA] With reference to an initiative called ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)’, which of the following statements is/are correct?

1. It is initiative hosted by UNEP, IMF and World Economic Forum.
2. It is a global initiative that focuses on drawing attention to the economic benefits of biodiversity.
3. It presents an approach that can help decision-makers recognize, demonstrate and capture the value of ecosystems and biodiversity.

Tikdam: It’s a difficult question but think over this fact – Organizations with different mandates won’t work together. What has IMF got to do with E&B stuff? Do you see the red flag? IMF mostly concerns itself with Banking institutions.

Take one more, shall we?

[World/ CA] With reference to ‘Organization for the prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)’ consider the following statements:

1. It is an organization of European Union in working relation with NATO and WHO
2. It monitors chemical industry to prevent new weapons free emerging
3. It provides assistance and protection to Stated Parties against chemical weapons threats.

Tikdam: NATO a defence alliance working with WHO. Highly unlikely! See the red flag there? Also – an international organisation of EU? That’s an oxymoron!

There are more such examples – Read here to get a taste of it.

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Bottom line? There is no dearth of content. If it were up to us, we would have given you every damn CA on earth and made you guilty of not going through all of them by pitching with a 100% strike rate on this year’s PRELIMS. But that’s not going to help you, right?

Prepare Smart: If you are paying online for a TS, we take it that you are sincere with your money and efforts. Pick the platform which has the ability to uplift your game to the next level by reinforcing all the titbits and tikdams. Pick a platform which makes learning easy and rewarding to your senses. 

Believe us, there is just no other effective way to prepare for daily current affairs THAN our daily newscards on Civilsdaily App. It’s short, crisp, clutter free and narrows your focus to the very relevant news.

Since we have a zen like focus on CA, we even got the UGLY questions bang on the target for this year’s PRELIMS (except a few) but to be very honest:

1. They were quite difficult to be retained and revised by an aspirant
2. You only have to make sure you clear the Prelims by a comfortable margin as the numbers are not carried forward

You want to know the ugly ones?

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#3. The Ugly:

• Most of the coaching/ test series did not have any passing reference to these factual questions
• Even if they do, it’s difficult for a student to pick it up unless the content is explained in a lucid and interesting way
• Imagine giving 3000+ questions to an aspirants – you are bound to land a few in your kitty but trust us, you are far better off with developing a knack of titbits + tikdams

Some of the ugly ones are – 

[Environment/ CA] Recently, our scientists have discovered a new and distinct species of banana plant which attains a height of about 11 metres and has orange-coloured fruit pulp. In which part of India has it been discovered? (a) Andaman Islands (b) Anaimalai Forests (c) Maikala Hills (d) Tropical rain forests of northeast 

Most of you would have seen that banana’s pic but cuhhmoon, how are we supposed to remember every state’s discovery!

[CA] With reference to pre-packaged items in India, it is mandatory to the manufacturer to put which of the following information on the main label, as per the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011?

1. List of ingredients including additives
2. Nutrition information
3. Recommendations, if any, made by the medical profession about the possibility of any allergic reactions
4. Vegetarian/non-vegetarian

Select the correct answer using the code given below: (a) 1, 2 and 3 (b) 2, 3 and 4 (c) 1, 2 and 4 (d) 1 and 4 only 

This issue came up in the Maggie controversy. We had run a whole story + CD explains (click here) but we never thought that UPSC would go this detailed and neither did we impress upon you.

[CA] SWAYAM’, an initiative of the Government of India, aims at
(a) promoting the Self Help Groups in rural areas
(b) providing financial and technical assistance to young start-up entrepreneurs
(c) promoting the education and health of adolescent girls
(d) providing affordable and quality education to the citizens for free

This was a one off event and we had covered it in our newscards but again, not much mention in the year that followed. Those of you who would have read this, would have retained it – 

https://www.civilsdaily.com/what-is-swayam/

[CA] Some question on a specie of butterfly discovered in Maharashtra. We missed this one for you 🙁

[CA]  With reference to the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), consider the following statements :
1. IMFC discusses matters of concern affecting the global economy, and advises the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the direction of its work.
2. The World Bank participates as observer in IMFC’s meetings.

Really! How is someone supposed to go this detailed! As if other organisations are not enough, we go and fetch IMFC as well!

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So, what’s to be expected of Civilsdaily for IAS 2017 aspirants?

1. We are slowly going to intensify our newscards – Make sure that atleast you have enough material to bookmark and revise while you take those metro rides and chai sutta breaks
2. We are going to launch 3 different test series. It will start sometime in second week of september 2016. We believe that different segments of users need different level or preparation and peer group – 
   • The Beginners [Flagship Program] – Click here
   • The Senior players [Advanced Program] – Click here
   • Current Affairs focus only – Click here
3. Complete revamp of the CivilsDigest magazine [details soon]
4. Weekend Webinars to reinforce the weekly current affairs in case you missed them. This will help us reinforce the probably UGLY questions and also take up the most discussed topics on Forum OR the stories! [details soon]
5. More of Titbits and Tikdams in explanations and static content so that you are rest assured of being taken care of in Prelims
6. AQAD (A question a day): Starting mains level discussions with model answers at the end of the day – This is specially targeted for the IAS 2016 Mains junta.

We will release detailed timetable and fee structure in a day or two. 

PS: We hope you were able to appreciate our analysis on Prelims. This is true for every year. The only way we can hope to train you is by reinforcing the joy of learning the boring parts of a subject and making you expert in tikdams and titbits! Rest is all mithya.

PPS: If you feel that this helped, that this actually makes sense, please do share and circulate it among your peer group. We did actually covered most of the current affairs in our newscards but since we did not have a Test Series or weekend webinars to reinforce them to you, we could not help you retain them.

This year, we will with you right from start. We are opening a dedicated wing in CD which will take care of all the academic needs. 

Read Next: CD launches 3 Prelims Modules + FAQs

Previous part – Analysis IAS Prelims 2016 Q21-30

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#31. International Solar Alliance and its structure

This should be easy. Also – read upon the Dr.V’s tikdams that you could have easily excluded the second statement (which boasts of including all UN countries)

IAS pre 2016 by Tikdams

https://www.civilsdaily.com/modi-launches-international-solar-alliance/

https://www.civilsdaily.com/b2b-lets-know-more-about-international-solar-alliance/

#32. What do you know about the European Stability Mechanism?

This should be easy – remember greek bailout! We got it covered under the greece crisis.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/greece-proposes-a-3rd-bailout/

#33. Practicing Drip Irrigation. Advantages?

Pretty standard static question

#34. Statements regarding Digilocker. How much did you know?

An aadhar based initiative launched as a part of Digital India

https://www.civilsdaily.com/digilocker-another-giant-leap/

#35. Recently which of the following river were interlinked?

Krishna – Godavari it is. Here’s the newscard eulogising the move.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/river-linking-to-address-drought-water-scarcity/

#36. Which of these gases are considered while calculating the Air Quality Index?

A straight-forward question –

1. Mentioned by Dr. V many times in his Prelims titbits
2. Here’s a newscard dedicated to it, anyway –

https://www.civilsdaily.com/what-is-aqi/

#37. How much do you know about AstroStat?

We covered this word by word here but many of you could have got it wrong. How many remember the weight? OR the other countries who have achieved thsi feat?

Both statements put forward by UPSC were wrong!

https://www.civilsdaily.com/astrosat-launch-india-reaches-stars/

#38. “Araghatta” – what does this word mean?

Static question but looks quite difficult to guess!

#39. Wrt. cultural history of india, who memorised chronicles?

Static question but looks quite difficult to guess!

#40. For the first time in Indian history, which state has declared a state butterfly?

Nope. We did not get this one for you. The news dates back to June 2015. Here’s The Hindu clip.

 

Previous part – Analysis IAS Prelims 2016 Q11-20

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#21. Purpose of Gold Bond Scheme/ Gold Monetisation Scheme?

This should be doable for someone who has studied the scheme. Look up the infograph on CD Explains

https://www.civilsdaily.com/story/gold-monetisation-scheme-all-you-need-to-know-about-it/

#22. Belt and road initiative is sometimes mentioned in news in context of which country

There shouldn’t be a single soul who would have got this one wrong. It has china written all over it.

#23. Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojna. What about it?

Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana: Funding the unfunded

#24. Shale gas reserves found in which region?

It’s a static question – relates to resources and distribution but do you remember one related question being asked a few years back – gaur gum exports to US (for shale gas).

Wait for the answer keys by Dr. V

#25. Global Financial Stability Report is prepared by?

Hope you got this one. IMF does it. We had pushed a timely blog on this because UPSC is invariably putting one such question every year.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/international-organizations-reports/

#26. Regarding Atal Pension Yojna – which of the following statements are correct?

We covered the scheme categorically here but to be fair, some of you might have found this one difficult (to affirm the statements, line by line). We will wait for Dr. V to comment more.

From Jan Dhan to Jan Suraksha: A Journey towards Financial Inclusion and Security

#27. RCEP appears in context of which group of countries?

ASEAN, what else?

What is the significance of RCEP for India?

#28. Where can you find BEE Star ratings?

This is a common sense question – You would find these ratings in everything that uses electricity (Small or big labels). But still – should you be curious as to why UPSC veered towards it – here’s a hint from a newly established EESL

https://www.civilsdaily.com/learn-about-energy-efficiency-services-limited-eesl/

#29. India and the significance of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor

We did not cover this – but this news has its root dating back to 2014

Ref: NDTV

#30. A match the following question on Indian Heritage

Static stuff.

Hey guys,

This is the link to the scanned paper – Click to download from Google Drive

Now, for Dr.V to give you solutions and detailed explanations for the same – we would need some help in scribbling these scanned papers into a word doc!

If we can have 20 of you guys to type out 5 questions each and send in a word doc to the email address – drvcivilsdaily@gmail.com – It would help us take this task soon!

1. The scanned paper is of IAS Pre 2016 – Paper 1 – Set A
2. Please comment out here of the questions you plan to take – Pick 5 questions each
3. The next guy/ girl can pick up the next and put in the comments to avoid any confusion
4. Please name the document correctly and mail it to drvcivilsdaily@gmail.com

Can we bank on 20 of you guys to help us do this!

Let us know 🙂

PS: Till we have detailed solutions – we are trying to analyse the current affairs specific questions here –

1. Part 1
2. Part 2

 

Previous part – Analysis IAS Prelims 2016 Q1-10

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#11. India’s first National Investment and Manufacturing Zone set up in?

Ah! This is too much – we had nothing for you here. And we wonder if anyone did remember the states in order?

We did briefly touched upon NIMZ while we were discussing TADF here – But no mention of states in any order.

Technology Acquisition and Development Fund (TADF)

• Latest in news is the mention of 3rd such investment – Business Standard
• The first one was launched in AP per this Eco Times article

#12. What’s the purpose of District mineral Foundations in India?

This news came way back in May, 2015

https://www.civilsdaily.com/know-district-mineral-foundation/

The context was this –

https://www.civilsdaily.com/op-ed-snap-a-glass-half-empty-for-adivasis/

#13. SWAYAM – an initiative of GOI aims at what?

This should have been very easy

https://www.civilsdaily.com/what-is-swayam/

#14. Montague – Chelmsford proposals?

History – Static syllabus

#15. What’s common among Ajanta and Mahabalipuram?

History – Static syllabus

#16. What do you know about Bitcoins?

This should be easy to attempt. Central Banks are clueless. Not all of them have acknowledged it as a currency and so they can’t track it officially.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/what-are-bitcoins/

#17. New Development Bank – All about its establishment

Again an easy question – was covered under the BRICS story

https://www.civilsdaily.com/learn-about-new-development-bankndb/

#18. Gadgil committee report and KAsturirangan committee report. What’s the common link?

This is super easy – western ghats. We have been hearing about this all these years.

#19. Keshab Chandra Sen’s association with 3 organisations. Match the correct ones?

History – Static syllabus

#20. Which of the following is not a member of GCC?

GCC has been in news but it also forms an important part of International Organisations to lookout for. Hope you had read this one –

International Org. | Part 8 | Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

Hello,

This is a very quick analysis of the Paper 1 – IAS Prelims 2016 which just went by. A Civilsdaily user tipped us about the heavily current affairs inclined IAS Prelims this year and we couldn’t stop digging into the Civilsdaily archives.

We haven’t heard from most of you guys but we hope that if you kept up with daily newscards – you should have remembered context regarding most of these factual questions asked out from daily news.

NOTE: This is not a blog post on answer keys. We will wait for Dr. V or UW to come up with detailed solutions and analysis. This is only an analysis of current affairs questions.

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#1. What’s Doctors without borders or Médecins Sans Frontières?

• Context: Issue of pharma IPRs in ongoing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations
• Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned India that it will no more remain ‘the pharmacy of the developing world’ if the proposals in the pact are adopted
• An international humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization (NGO) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Scroll down this story link:

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

#2. The initiative called TEEB. What’s that?

No idea. It was briefly mentioned in a pib release but such singular events are very hard to focus on and remember – http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=123641

#3. Red sanders in the news

We had extensively covered this theme under our #back2basic category.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/everything-you-want-to-know-about-the-red-sanders-12/

https://www.civilsdaily.com/everything-you-want-to-know-about-the-red-sanders-22/

To give you context into why red sanders were in news? This was the main card

https://www.civilsdaily.com/operation-sesha-dri-ropes-in-17-nations/

#4. Proper design and effective implementation of UN-REDD+ program can do what?

The difference between REDD and REDD+ should have helped you answer this question. It is a pretty static one but still, explained here by Dr. V

UNFCC to Paris Via Kyoto

#5. Greenhouse Gas Protocol. What’s that?

I think we missed this one. But this is what it is –

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) provides accounting and reporting standards, sector guidance, calculation tools, and trainings for business and government. It establishes a comprehensive, global, standardized framework for measuring and managing emissions from private and public sector operations, value chains, products, cities, and policies.

http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/greenhouse-gas-protocol

#6. Financial Stability and Development Council. What’s that?

We discussed about this very briefly when we were writing on Annual Budget articles (with infographics)

The context for discussion was the creation of a Financial Data management centre which was est. under FSDC

Remember this?

Discussing Budget 2016-17 | Financial Sector Reforms

#7. Agenda 21. Sometimes seen in news?

This form a part of static syllabus. A quick reference primer was written here by Dr. V

Primer To Environmental Issues

The summit also resulted in 3 non-binding documents

1. Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
2. Agenda 21 <21 is agenda for 21st century, UNCCD was the result of direct recommendation of Agenda 21>
3. Forest Principles

#8. Satya Shodhak Samaj

History – Static syllabus

#9. Virus can infect what?

S&T – Static syllabus

#10. Base erosion and profit shifting is heard in news. What’s the context?

BEPS was in news for two things – Black money and Themes and Index published by organisations around the world. We had it covered in two different stories.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/automatic-info-exchange-only-way-to-tackle-black-money/

https://www.civilsdaily.com/the-hidden-wealth-of-nations/

 

source

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Background: An engineer who graduated from Mangalayatan University, Agam Jain managed 133^rd rank in UPSC-2015. He lived in a village near Aligarh and that’s where it all started. In his first year of college, he used to go 4 km every day to teach poor children in another village and lived in adverse of the conditions.

There was lack of electricity, water, cooler and other basic amenities. Even the main road was nearly 2 km away from his room. With that he experienced something which most youth in present day doesn’t face. He saw people living together without formalities, festivals (though with many superstitions) celebrated in enjoyment, beauty of flora and fauna at their best, changing seasons to evening walks on the trails near agriculture fields.

He even saw some fights and deaths, ‘dangals’ as the best form of sports, people indulging in illegal activities and gender inequality.

By the third year, he found that his study tactics and his desire to work for nation could only be met with entering the civil services. After that he used to go to the library to understand an article of Hindu – in complete one hour!

Played volleyball a lot, analysed things more vividly and studied anything which came in his way. An average student, with a strong will power, he managed to climb the ladder of success, with perseverance.

His journey: After graduation, he went to Delhi, made the timetable for complete one and half year and prepared exactly according to that.

Short term strategy: One should make online as well as written notes. When you like any answer/topic from just copy (but selectively) them into your account under particular heading. These notes come handy everywhere like while travelling, sitting with some boring relatives etc.

Newspaper cuttings: When you read newspaper/yojana/kurukshetra, cut the selective portion and put in file. Write when you listen to particular topic from air news, RSTV programs, read any book etc.

Schedule: Make a schedule for 6 days a week. Reserve 7th day for revision of the on/offline notes. Don’t just revise them but minimise them, say from 2 pages to one and then to half by the time exams come.

Prelims Strategy: Don’t leave anything undone when it comes to prelims.

Besides preparing basics from the textbooks, one day he made a list of such vague things like name of national parks, rivers, GI tags, republic day tableau, international conventions and reports, recent Padma winners, UNESCO sites, programs under ministries etc.

However, he suggests not to make the list in a day, for it will be hectic and can’t be remembered. Rather, one should have an eye on newspaper when something comes related to it.

Polity gives edge in prelims, so one should not lose any mark in that portion. Read Laxmikanth as many times. Geography can be done easily too. One can check science monitor program of RSTV for current scientific developments.

Mains Strategy: Writing practice is must. It gives an extra margin of few seconds per question which is very important.

Tips regarding writing: Write answer in morning and evaluate yourself in evening. Don’t evaluate immediately. In evening, check the answer with the mind-set of teacher and do strict marking. This way, you will realise what teacher wants.

Make list of some international conventions/charters etc., they help in beautifying the answer. Example, if one student writes, ‘India is trying best to stop child trafficking’, and another writes according to so and so convention, India is signatory to stop child trafficking on global level, it will make a significant remark on the examiner.

Follow balanced approach.

Tips to aspirants: Always keep a small paper with you. At times, while reading, we don’t know something and we think that we will search it later. But later, we used to forget that. That small paper could be used to note all those doubts which are to be resolved later.

Don’t fool yourself. At times, we watch documentaries or other war related movies and tell ourselves that we are doing something related to studies. They might be related but vaguely and consuming precious time.

Choose your material carefully and stick to that. If it is Laxmikanth, then don’t give damn to D D Basu. If it is Guha, then don’t care of Bipin Chandra and so on.

If time permits, read some non-fictions (not directly related to upsc) in leisure time. He read Pax Indica by Shashi Tharoor; Makers of modern India by Guha; Brief History of time by Hawking etc. These will give you an extra edge somewhere unknowingly.

Don’t spread the word of your preparation a lot. It might bring extra pressure on you.

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Have you explored our stories off late?

Over the last month, along with making the FLTs for the IAS 2016 aspirants (prelims.civilsdaily.com), we have been meticulously upgrading all our stories from NEWSCARDS -> CD Explains -> Selected Questions. 

If you haven’t yet explored the feature (look at the animated image), we would request you to click on the story tab and explore the stories better!

• Story Tab – Click here
• News Tab – Click here

The idea is to make all things related to a particular theme under one roof so that it is easy for you all to revisit and revise everything on the go.

The CD explains have been meticulously researched by our team with references put towards the end.

The selected questions are there to help you understand and analyse the story from multiple angles.

Hope you like it? Let us know!

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There’s a chapter you have left on the backburner – probably it’s one on the endangered flora and fauna and you had promised yourself to cover it as soon as you could. And there’s an optional subject that you needed to quickly revise on lest you forget the basics – after all IAS prelims is not the end of the game, right? Wait, weren’t you going to stick to the rule of reading daily news on the app or web and make quick short notes, daily?

Can you imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just make yourself do the things you don’t want to do when you are actually supposed to do them? Not to mention how much confident and pumped up you might just feel?

The good news here is that we are bringing in 2 effective solutions to help you overcome the lethargy and procrastination and skyrocket your preparation to the optimum level. For any of these strategies to be effective, figure out the correct set of reason-solution for your case: 

Reason #1: You are putting something off because you don’t “feel” like doing it

Solution: Ignore your feelings. They’re getting in your way.

When we say things like “I just can’t get out of bed early in the morning, ” or “I just can’t get myself to study polity and cram environment,” what we really mean is that we can’t get ourselves to feel like doing these things. After all, no one is tying you to bed every morning. The books are not some 1000 page mythological tomes that you need a sage to initiate you into reading them.

Physically, nothing prevents you to get up early and dive into the complex problems but mentally, you need that ‘kick’, that ‘feel’ to drive you, right?

Swami Vivekananda famously said,

Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste.

Think about that for a minute, because it’s really important. Somewhere along the way, we’ve all bought into the idea – without consciously realizing it – that to be motivated and effective we need to feel like we want to take action. 

This is 100% nonsense. Need another inspirational quote?

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.

The quote above is from painter Chuck Close, who says he’s never had “painter’s block” in his life. The “just show up and get to work” motto is a great creed to live by, especially if you are up against a daunting task of clearing the IAS exam.

Reason #2: You are putting something off because it’s hard, boring, or otherwise unpleasant

Solution: Use if-then planning

Next time, I will make myself start working on this sooner. Next time, I will start with the boring subject first and then go on to the easy revision modules. Next time, I will make sure that I don’t sleep before revising the daily news.

And the “next time” never comes…

Studies show that people routinely overestimate their capacity for self-control and IAS aspirants are no exceptions to the rule. Don’t think of yourselves as Iron man/ Wonder woman as yet. You are not going to wake up one day and assume a machine like focus and complete the geography backlog in one sitting.

Do yourself a favor, and embrace the fact that your willpower is limited, and that it may not always match your fictitious challenges and whims. Instead build some if-then loops for yourself to force yourself into some rewarding habits.

Write down your own 10 commandments.

• If it is 2pm, then I will stop what I’m doing and start revising the articles and FR, FD module of Indian Polity
• If my economics teacher evades my doubt, I am going to put up a written request in his hand to resolve it the first thing in next class
• If it is 11 pm and I feel like sleeping, I will make sure to revise the news nuggets in next 10 minutes and then hit the bed
• If it’s an off day at coaching, I will give at least 3 hours to the optional paper revision and not drift off to meaningless prattle

You can make more If-then modules and stick them up on your wall for quick reinforcements.

If-then modules help to rescue your willpower dilemmas by ensuring that you’ve made the right decision way ahead of the critical moment. Hopefully, this will help you increase your productivity and goal attainment hit rate more than what it used to be.

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References: Harvard Business Review | Lifehacker

Time for some serious study? Visit these collections to get yourself started

How to Clear IAS? Ias exam preparation tips and Tutorials


Toppers Speak – Civilsdaily


The Constitution of India| Constitutional Provisions In India


To know how to best use Civilsdaily for your IAS Prep,
How to best use Civilsdaily for my IAS Prep? – Civilsdaily

As of now, out of the 1,000+ registered aspirants, 761 have attempted the Full Length Tests offered by Civilsdaily at prelims.civilsdaily.full.length.tests

 

Full Length – Prelims 2016 from Civilsdaily

With almost a 100% certainty, we can assure that students who consistently improved their scores and hovered around 95+ marks in these FLTs should sail through the Prelims easily.

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We make this observations basis the paper setting and the trends on score improvement shown by our test takers. Within a span of 4 tests, we have seen students going up from mid 70s to 110+ and that is incredible.

The Final FLT (Test #4) has a mix bag of questions, closest to 2015’s UPSC Prelims so if you get to score 110+ in that, consider yourself blessed 🙂

With that confidence, we want to offer everyone (including the original subscribers) a sweet surprise

1. Join in the Full Length Mocks by paying up the module fee of Rs. 499. For the registered users, this step is done 🙂
2. If you average out 95+ in the 4 tests – trust us, you are going to sail through the PRE. Keep going through the explanations and Dr. V’s tikdams
3. In a rarest of rare case that it does not happen, we will take care of your trust shown in us by adjusting the Rs. 499 in our grand FLTs package for IAS 2017 and make sure you get the best of the prep, all year round
4. All those who do get to clear the prelims, do write back to us and we will send you one of these 7 memoirs of ex-civil servants or an equally motivating novel as a gift of our appreciation towards your sincere, hard work 🙂

Why are we doing this?

1. We saw a lot of junta joining us for the Open Mocks but not continuing for the FLTs
2. This is understandable that if you have subscribed to some other TS, you might not want to spend more
3. But we received a lot of emails/ comments from students joining other well known TS/ writing Open tests and still not feeling confident with the outcomes
4. Hence, this offer – If you are a sincere test taker and you can average out 95+ in our FLTs – you be assured of your success
5. We would want 100% of you to benefit from the efforts put from our side. We took care of the paper setting – you take care of the attempts now
6. Your relative ranks are gonna be out in the open. See how you perform and elevate your test scores vis-a-vis the other guys who have already taken the tests

• FLTs #1 Ranks
• FLTs #2 Ranks
• FLTs #3 Ranks
• FLTs #4 Ranks

Keep 4 days aside and give these 4 tests. You will love us for pushing this over to you 🙂

Full Length – Prelims 2016 from Civilsdaily

And of course, there will be an amazing book waiting for you at the end of your victory lap.