My UPSC Journey
I’m Kirthi Chekuri. I am fortunate enough to have cleared UPSC with 14th
rank in my third attempt (CSE-2015). My ranks in previous attempts were
440 in CSE-2013 and 512 in CSE-2014. I was preparing for the exam this
time while undergoing the training in academy.
I would try to tell what worked and
what didn’t work for me. I hope at least someone would benefit from
lessons of mistakes that I’ve committed and how I rectified them. These
inputs I’m putting across were the ones I gathered over the course of 4
years from many friends and seniors in services. Thanks to all of them
Essay
I am a consistently low performer in
Essay. I got 100 marks in CSE-2013 and 86 marks in CSE-2014. I lost in
my second attempt due to essay. The mistakes I committed in these
attempts were not to practice essays, over looking the importance of
essay, thinking content in essay would automatically give marks and
ignorance of what to be and what not be included in essay.
This year I got 125 which is again not a
great score but it didn’t pull my rank and my chances down drastically
as it happened last year. I brainstormed on many essay
topics(introductions/conclusions and flow of ideas)and discussed it with
my friends and asked for criticisms.
- We should clearly mention our stand in the essay initially after the introduction
- The essay should cover as many dimensions as possible and should have one dominant idea per paragraph
- The thought in the essay should be as simple as possible. Kids must be able to understand your essay. I used to make essays complicated which never gave good marks
- Choose the essay topic you’re most comfortable with. Don’t select the essay based on the perception of most written or least written topic. All that matters is how well are you able to do justice to the topic you’ve chosen
- Your essay should have justifications supporting your stand, also include some criticisms against your stand and end in a positive/hopeful way on how things can be bettered etc.
Prelims
All of us tend to
overestimate our potential and tend to neglect prelims thinking Prelims
marks wouldn’t count for the exam. Neglecting prelims can prove to be a
very costly mistake. Many toppers in the list cleared prelims with a
margin of 1-3 marks. One can understand that 1-2 questions in Prelims
can make or break your dreams.
I cleared the Prelims in CSE-2013 by 4
marks. It was a close margin. I got very lucky. In CSE-2014 I cleared
prelims with a comfortable margin. My reason for low performance in
Prelims 2013 was minimal practice in Quant and playing safe in Paper-1. I
knew 45 questions comfortably in paper-1 and I just guessed 10 more
there by attempting just 55 questions. Luckily I cleared Prelims that
year but after speaking to many successful people in Prelims, I realized
it was a very dangerous strategy. In prelims, one should mark the
questions in which one is 100% percent sure in the first round. In the
second round, one should also try to attempt those questions in which
one can eliminate two options. With this strategy, I comfortably cleared
prelims in CSE 2014, but in this CSE 2015, I cleared prelims only by 3
marks (110)
Mains
In my first two attempts, my mains
marks were marginally above the cut-off(10 marks) I cleared both the
attempts only because of my interview. However this attempt, there is a
drastic improvement in my mains marks. Here are the few changes I made
in my Mains answer writing approach and I think they helped me
enormously.
- Diagrams: I drew a lot of diagrams. India and World Maps for geography or International Relations. Also I prepared diagrams for Geo from NCERT books which I thought I would replicate in case Geo questions come in Paper-1.
- Side headings: In my first two attempts, my answer was just a flow of paragraphs/points or a mix of both. I realized the importance of side headings for an answer in this attempt. I included side headings in almost all the answers for paper-1,2 and 3 of GS. In paper-2 and paper-3, I used Way Forward as the last side heading for some of the answers.
- Flow Charts: I drew flow charts in Paper-3. I got 113 marks in Paper-3 and I think flow charts have a role to play along with side headings. People who got good marks in paper-1 drew flowcharts for society questions
- Breadth instead of Depth: Cover as many dimensions as possible in an answer rather than covering the issue in depth with quality analysis. UPSC prefers the no. of dimensions in an answer and I guess it penalizes an in-depth scholarly answer
- Introduction: Take the key words of the question and explain them. That becomes the introduction. Eg: An introduction for a question on Cooperative Federalism would mean explaining it
Though I gathered some of these points
here and there in my previous attempts, I didn’t internalize them in my
preparation. I didn’t integrate them while preparing for a particular
topic. This time whenever I read a topic or whenever I read a question
from InsightsonIndia (I have been following answer
writing challenges regularly), I give more importance to the above
mentioned points- what are the side-headings I can give, how can I draw
flow chart for this question, maximizing the dimensions etc. This way, I
internalized this way of answer writing during my preparation for GS or
Current Affairs, so I didn’t have to think afresh on the day of exam.
Due to training myself well before hand, I didn’t take much time on the
day of exam to draw diagrams, flow charts, side-headings etc.
One should try to attempt as many
questions as you can in the GS. Unless you are absolutely clueless and
can’t make an intelligent guess about what’s asked, you should not leave
questions.
Please go through the question paper in
first 2-3 minutes and select the questions you are good at(around 10)
and attempt them first. Only then go for the other questions on which
you’ll have little idea where you have to guess. In the last attempt, I
started attempting questions from the beginning without going through
the whole question paper and I realized I was left with all the
well-known International Relations Questions in the last minute to which
I couldn’t do enough justice. Do some test exams and if you’re not able
to finish paper in time, you’ll have to improve speed through giving
more and more tests and practicing with time limits. Ethics paper was
very lengthy and many were not able to finish the paper.
MARKS OBTAINED
|
SUBJECTS
|
MARKS
|
|
ESSAY (PAPER-I)
|
125
|
|
GENERAL STUDIES -I (PAPER-II)
|
120
|
|
GENERAL STUDIES -II (PAPER-III)
|
087
|
|
GENERAL STUDIES -III (PAPER-IV)
|
113
|
|
GENERAL STUDIES -IV (PAPER-V)
|
097
|
|
OPTIONAL-I (ANTHROPOLOGY) (PAPER-VI)
|
138
|
|
OPTIONAL-II (ANTHROPOLOGY) (PAPER-VII)
|
137
|
|
WRITTEN TOTAL
|
817
|
|
PERSONALITY TEST
|
161
|
|
FINAL TOTAL
|
978
|
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