Deep Shikha, cleared mains 2015-first attempt

1. Have a strong reason- If one is preparing for this exam, it means s/he has solid reason, but need is to know what is it. Otherwise sustaining around one and half year is difficult.
2. Prepare long term, short term and one day plan- it doesn’t mean u must stick to each plan. There can be delay in daily plans but somehow u must attain short term goals closely and certainly long term goals.
3. Get time to chill out- I decided to spend each sec when I don’t study with family. Because only here I forgetl stress, I talk things apart from books. So find your own. It’s not possible to stay in routine daily from 6–10. So try to maintain it maximum, when u can’t maintain, don’t waste rest day thinking about it.

Be confident- throughout preparation and specially on day of exam, you must be sure that you know it all. Questions are same for all. From my experience I can say that confidence matters the most, if you are confident with good preparation, then day is yours.
Do not compare your life with others- when we prepare for exam, everyone else is doing job, doing PhD, marrying etc etc. I would suggest to be away from social networking sites so that you don’t keep seeing what others are doing in their life. Please don’t compare yourself with others. Believe in yourself. For getting great things in life, one must have patience.

Atul Roy, Preparing for the UPSC Civil Services Examination is probably one of the most difficult things I have done in my life, if not the most difficult. I wasted (if you look at it that way) almost 6 years of life for a dream that after a certain time no one could see except me and my father. There were times when I couldn’t see light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. If I had to choose the five important things that kept me going through my preparation phase, they will be:

Hope: Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. – Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption. Since I had read reached interview in my attempts, I felt that I would be successful in the next attempt. I had read the same books almost 10 times, there was no area of syllabus that I hadn’t covered, I had done copious amounts of answer practice. I missed the final selection by 17 marks and that was tantalizingly close. There were times when I felt utterly dejected and depressed. I didn’t have any motivation to touch the same books again. But I never lost hope. The hope to see my name in the list.
A strong Self Belief: As I have described in another of my answers, I was not born privileged. I come from a small town in West Bengal. I studied in Hindi medium till class 12. My parents are illiterate. Till graduation I attended practically no classes because I studied in govt schools and colleges where no classes were held. I am practically self taught (even during preparation I didn’t attend coaching because I couldn’t afford it). I didn’t receive the exposure of convents or the ivy league colleges. But I always believed that I belonged to that big stage. I always had faith in myself that even though I might not have the skills or knowledge to be there at the moment, I would reach there eventually by the dint of my hardwork. I have had a single minded devotion to making myself better. To learning new things. And I kept striving towards excellence. I still do.
Support & Expectations of my family & friends: My family and some of my friends stood beside me like a rock. I remember when I didn’t make it in my 2014 attempt, I called up my father and said that I was giving up. He told me that as long as he was alive, I didn’t have to give up on my dreams. He told me that when he being so old and still working in the the such difficult conditions hadn’t given up, how could I? And I didn’t have anything to counter that. Whenever I needed money for my expenses my friends gave me that money without even asking anything. They even paid for my cab rents and restaurant bills when we were eating out. After a while it didn’t remain my dream only, It became theirs. And I couldn’t give up on them, even though I gave up on me.
Perseverance and the ability to work hard: I can really work hard. I studied for 12 hours for days on end. And I rarely lose sight of my goals. These two attributes always motivated me to keep going.
A burning desire to help the needy: I was never after the Pelf & Patronage or the power. I was never after the money. Even today I can survive in bare minimum. I am a small town middle class guy. I traveled in sleeper class. For me it doesn’t matter. The only thing that mattered to me was helping others. I had so many ideas as to how I could take initiatives to make the lives of poor easier. How we could solve the educational inequities of the country. Being from a small town I could relate to them so easily. I am not your arm chair theorist or activist who go with “savior mindset” to the “communities”. I am one of the people. And I wanted to desperately make it so that I could inspire students from small towns and from the not so privileged backgrounds that they could do it too. And whatever regret I have today is of letting them down.

Christopher Anand, You may or may not have a great idea of the kind of stuff you will be tested with, for UPSC CSE. For a novice like you, that might be a decent place to start.

You have the option of signing up for a course, checking their materials or test series’ but that involves some hassle. Instead, you could start with Tickscore UPSC Prelims – Android Apps on Google Play (Tickscore UPSC Prelims – Android Apps on Google Play)

All you need is to sign up with your mobile number for an OTP, and you’re good to go. You can answer questions on all the topics, thereby getting a good idea of your ground level performance.

Thousands of questions, detailed explanations, personal performance reports and many more features await you with this App.

Answering questions also can build up some interest to learn further, as well as build confidence as you see getting more “tick scores”. You can do all this from the comfort of your Android phone.

And once you get the lay of the land, you can move onto bigger plans and strategies. Even in the future, as you start preparing with loads of course material, try to always test yourself from time time. Self-testing is a neglected aspect of preparation, and it has proven to be greatly beneficial.

All The Best..

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