Is There Any Possible Way To Prepare For The IAS Prelims In 1 Month?

When the nation is still listening to the success stories of the candidates who cleared Civil Services 2017, their successors have entered the last-month preparation. The year-long Civil Services examination will be starting the selection process with the preliminary exam scheduled on June 2, 2019.

Civil Services, conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), is believed to be the toughest examination in the country. Every individual knows that preparing for Civil Services is a challenging task and requires a lot of strategies and hard work. When the aspirants feel that it's high time, many enthusiasts ask for any possible way to crack the preliminary exam in one month. To be honest, cracking the UPSC preliminary exam in one month is hard. However, one can make it when they can devote all the time for the preparations.

As the date for the preliminary exam is approaching, aspirants should focus only on this screening round this month. Here's the best way to prepare for the UPSC Civil Services in one month.

Identify Your Strengths

Attempting the toughest exam in the country is not a joke. It asks the aspirants to switch between the concepts in seconds besides testing their positive attitude. Everyone will have a hidden talent in them such as memorising facts in less time and their approach towards questions. Try to identify them with a SWOT analysis. This will give you a better result. One can use this SWOT analysis to know where they stand in the Civil Services preparation. They should also use this analysis individually for the general awareness subjects such as history, geography and politics.

How SWOT Analysis Will Help You Succeed In The Civil Services Exam?

Acquaint Yourself With Everything

Being strong with the facts and theoretical concepts alone will not cook the rice in Civil Services. Aspirants have to change their approach depending on the situation and question. In order to do this, they should know each and every aspect of the examination including the test format and syllabus. Due to time constraint or other reasons, never ignore these basics because it will cost you a lot in the exam. We suggest you acquaint yourself with the Civil Services syllabus, exam pattern, approach towards CSAT and general awareness questions.

Organise Your Studies

Once you have decided to prepare for the Civil Services preliminary exam in one month, the first task is to organise your studies. It's a great idea to start the preparation with the paper-II Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) because it hardly takes three days to cover the theoretical concepts which will boost your confidence. The syllabus for Civil Services is an ocean and there will be no end to the preparations. Hence, aspirants should work on perfection rather than simply covering the topics. Give at least two to three days for each subject in the general awareness paper.

Mock Tests

The IAS prelims are a time-consuming process. It includes two two-hour papers with a two-hour break in between. This indicates that you were at the location of the test all day, which can be tiring. Using the same structure for performing fake tests can additionally assist you develop a feel for the procedure. Tiredness and anxiousness frequently result in blunders in the test, but once you are familiar with the exam's structure, this may be prevented because you already have yourself well-prepared for a 6-hour procedure.

Negative Marking

Since there is a negative marking in UPSC IAS, applicants must answer the paper thoughtfully and with assurance. Instead of guessing, make it a practice of omitting questions you are unable to recall or have no idea anything about. A lot of applicants receive high negative marks because they've been unable to disregard such questions in the expectation of getting them right. Additionally, attempting more questions means receiving more marks.

Stop Over Burdening with a lot of Study Materials

There is no scarcity of materials - both online and offline - in the contemporary era. Each of your hard drives may contain numerous study resources. Many people will be present on Google Drive or Telegram. Materials will continue to flow. Manage to limit your sources to a select number of high quality. You may feel overloaded elsewhere.

Adhere to a Dynamic Revision Strategy

If applicants go over an array of stationary topics first, they must later try to continue catching up with Current Affairs on identical topics. This will be especially useful for courses like politics and economics. It is critical to compress and simplify the entire content.

Focus Extensively On Prelims

We understand that clearing the prelims will not make you a civil servant. You need to prepare for the main examination, which will be followed by an interview. Reading the main examination concepts parallelly with the prelims is encouraged but not at this stage due to the time factor. Many students complain that they are not able to answer the questions because of ambiguity. We suggest you focus only on the preliminary exam this last month. We have addressed every subject in the general awareness section individually. Explore them here.

Give Importance To General Studies Paper-I

You should all be aware of the fact that the general awareness paper is only considered for shortlisting the candidates for the next stage of selection process, i.e., the main examination. This itself proves that the primary focus should be on general studies. The CSAT paper is a qualifying paper and four to five days of preparation is more than enough besides regular practise.

How To Prepare For The CSAT Paper In Civil Services?

Action Plan For Tackling GS Paper-I

Aspirants are suggested to start the preparation for the current affairs section. Subsequently, they can focus on history or politics depending upon their interest. Put geography and economics at the middle because they require a lot of revision. While practising the CSAT questions, try to cover all the basic concepts which will save time. Give importance to science and technology and facts in environmental studies. However, never compromise and take mock tests.

Civil Service 2019: You Can't Expect A Question Paper Without These Topics