Can any1 suggest me some good site for preparation of UPSC..??
Hello all, I am trying to collect some information for future preparation. Can anyone tell me about the test duration for every paper of mains i.e. Eng, Local Lang, Essay, GS1, GS2, GS3, GS4, Opt-1 and opt-2? Plus, do we have one test per day?
Friends, I am trying to prepare for UPSC on my own.. To gauge my prep on a regular basis, which test material, correspondence coaching should I choose??
Hello everyone,
I am a techie who works in the field of Machine Learning and Text Analytics. I always aspired to clear the UPSC, but never had the guts. However, I'd like to use these technical skills to help the people who are trying to make our country a better place in the long run.
I'm conceptualizing an online research tool for all the UPSC aspirants, and would like to collect some preliminary feedback on it. This tool would help you save your time, and make your research far more comprehensive. It would be great if you could take 2 minutes of your time to answer few questions in the following survey.
Survey link: http://goo.gl/forms/MK4uoOYNN2
Thanks a lot for your help. It's greatly appreciated.
And yes, all the very best!
Kindly guide me in selecting the coaching institute for preparation of UPSC Civil services exam.I am a working professional looking for coaching on weekends in Delhi.Plz share your feedbacks.Thankyou in anticipation.
is there some sort of a study group here ?
guys who are from bhopal preparing for upsc?
I am a working professional from pune and have decided to write upsc this year.
I will not be able to join any coaching classes.
How can I keep a track of my preparation? How to give a direction to my preparation as in focus on the relevant syllabus?
Hey everyone!
Could you please help me out with a query? With reference to Test Series for Prelims for CSAT Paper -1:
1. How good are the Test Series offered by various institutes?
2. Which are the best ones that we can opt for?
3. When should these test series be taken? Feb onwards or April onwards? Or some other suitable time?
4. Are the discussions post test useful?
I thank you for a swift reply, and all the best with your preparations!
How to start with upsc preparations?
With no full time coaching. Is it possible for a working professional to continue with job and clear upsc exam?
Which test series is preferred?
Is the gs manual from tmh worth buying?
what else is recommended?
Please guide.....
This Post might help you for civil services exam
Tip 1. Do not read books from cover to cover.
When I had just started preparing for the UPSC exams, I would pick up a book and start reading it from the first page. I would read till like the 30th page, get bored, and then put the book aside for a while. When I picked it up later, I would forget what I read earlier. This went on for a while till I realized there was no progress.
Instead, here is what I suggest you do- read a book with a specific purpose. Before you pick up the book, you should have an answer to this question- "what do I expect to learn from this book today?". This will help you navigate the book better. Go straight to the pages that will give you what you need, read selectively, write notes and stash the book away till you need it for a different topic!
For example, don't just pick up Spectrum Modern India and start reading it from the preface till the last page (that's exactly what I tried to do the first time). Instead, first figure out a list of topics that you need to cover in modern Indian history. Then pick up your book to tackle a specific topic, like "Causes and Consequences of the 1857 Revolt". That way, you spend your time more purposefully. You will be able to better track what you have read and what you have yet to cover.
Tip 2. Laxmikanth's Indian Polity is an exception.
All rules have exceptions. Laxmikanth is one book that you could read from cover to cover. This book is organized as per the requirements of the prelims exam
But two important things to note here: read this book repeatedly, and pay attention to detail.
UPSC likes to ask us "edge case" questions and questions that we could easily mark wrong if we read the book only superficially. For example, 2013 Prelims had a question on whether the Attorney General can be a member of a Parliamentary Committee. It is difficult to remember this if you only read Laxmikanth once. Another question was on whether nominated members of the Rajya Sabha can vote in Vice Presidential elections. The one-time-reader is susceptible to marking this incorrectly unless attention was paid to the detail that nominated members cannot vote in Presidential elections, but can vote in VP elections.
*Note: I am recommending Laxmikanth just because that is the book that I used for Polity. If you have an equivalent book by another author, that should do as well. I also read DD Basu, but found that a) it was more analytical/dense, b) not as well organized as Laxmikanth (it is good for Mains, though).
Tip 3. Economy questions are the easiest to get right
Economy may be daunting to some, but the questions are based on your conceptual understanding of macroeconomics. If you have this conceptual clarity, you can answer every single question accurately, without having to memorize boatloads of data! So invest time in understanding the concepts and analyzing how all the parts fit together.
What to study in economy?
1*. GDP (factor cost/production method, market price/expenditure method, income method. Don't just read definitions, analyze! When do we use one method vs. another? How will each method give us a different value?) 2. GNP (compare with GDP. When are the two different?) 3. NNP/NDP (why deduct depreciation?) 4*. Inflation (demand pull and cost push. Structural. Headline and core. CPI and WPI. Phillips curve, stagflation and skewflation. Why has inflation remained persistently high in India?) 5*. Monetary tools to combat inflation (there is always a question from this area) - CRR, SLR, Repo, open market operations, government securities and treasury bills. 6. Nominal vs real GDP/GNP/Net National Income etc. (i.e., current prices vs constant prices.) 6a. Base year selection (why does this matter? Why did we recently update to 2004-05 and are now planning to update to 2011-12? Aren't we eroding the value of "constant" prices if we keeping changing the base year frequently?) 6b. GDP deflator. Just the definition here. 7*. MSME industries- also just the definition and current thresholds 8*. Budget process (you may have this covered in Polity already. Look at FRBMA goals also) 9*. Deficits in the budget- fiscal, primary, revenue, primary revenue, effective revenue 9a. Deficit financing (monetizing vs borrowing) 10. Balance of Payments- current account and capital account. 11*. Current Account Deficit. Financing it with capital inflows. 12. FDI, FII, ECBs. 13. Capital account convertibility 14. Currency- fixed vs floating. LERMS (Liberalized Exchange Rate Management System). 15. Why is the rupee in a free fall? How is this good/bad for India? Why are some countries competitively devaluing their currencies ("currency war")? NEER and REER if you have the time. 16*. Demographic Transition Theory (another area which frequently shows up in the exam) 17. Banking: all the stuff under #5 above + base rate, priority sector lending, NPAs, SARFAESI Act. No need to go into excessive detail. Read any conceptual stuff that shows up in the newspapers. 18*. National Manufacturing Policy (asked in both Prelims and Mains last year). Maybe also look at the National Minerals Policy this year. 19. Savings and investment rates (both expressed as % of GDP). First understanding how they are different. India has a higher investment rate than savings rate. How is that possible? 20*. Taxation- may be important this year due to GST. (direct and indirect. progressive and regressive. Pigovian. VAT, GST) 21*. RGESS may show up this year. Keep on the lookout for such current-affairs related topics. 22*. Inclusive growth. Maybe focus on gender inclusion. 23. Agricultural subsidies, PDS, Food Security.
Now, whenever you pick up any book on Economy, instead of reading it cover to cover, you can use this list to study according to Tip 1 above. I would recommend Ramesh Singh's book, just because it is organized better than other Economy books.
After reading all the above concepts, understand how things link up. How are growth-inflation-fiscal deficit-poverty-rupee value-current account deficit etc. all related? If RBI increases the CRR, for example, what effect would it have on all of these?
There were around 10 questions from Economy in both 2012 and 2013!
Note: I have left out several things you find in Economy books, like Planning, details on Indian Agriculture and Industry etc. I do not think these are as important, but you can cover them if you like Economy, or if you have a lot of time in your hands.
Tip 4. Tackle History smartly
I did not read Ancient history. I feel like it is too vast with a ton of facts to memorize, plus only 1-2 questions ever show up. So the return on investment is low.
Rather, focus on Modern India and study it thoroughly. By thoroughly, I do not mean picking up a History book and reading it cover to cover. Instead, split the syllabus into chunks and read+revise each chunk smartly.
What to study in History?
Political developments: starting from the Regulating Act of 1773 to Indian Independence Act of 1947. Pay attention to detail because this is another area where "edge-case" type questions are asked. Sample questions- when did Communal Electorates begin? When was the Central Assembly made bicameral? And you can have multiple options questions like- Which of the following were introduced in the Minto-Morley reforms? You will be given some 5-6 options, and given permutations of those to pick from. 1857 to Pre-congress: there are some facts here about early political organizations etc. Pre-Gandhian INC: Bengal Partition and Swadeshi movement, Moderate vs. Extremist Debate Early Gandhian: Champaran, Ahmedabad Mill Strike, Kheda Gandhian INC: this is the biggest chunk. Non-Cooperation Movement, Civil Disobedience Movement, Round Table Conferences, Quit India Movement etc. Non-INC / "parallel threads" in the Freedom struggle: revolutionary movements, tribal and Peasant uprisings, Ambedkar, INA etc. Pay special attention to the participation of women and Indians abroad. Also go through social reforms that were happening in parallel, cover all religions. How to study History?
Don't just read through Spectrum like a novel. Read purposefully. Make a one-page note for each event, where you note Causes-Consequences-Important Personalities. At the end, you will have around 40 pages of these which will make revision more efficient. Revise often.
Studying Indian History this way should help you answer another 8-10 questions.
Tip 5. Focus on the basics for Geography
Study physical geography well, because it is conceptual and therefore will not fail you during the exam. You should be able to get at least 5 physical geo questions on the exam if you study the "Fundamentals of Physical Geography" NCERT XI textbook thoroughly.
Cover latitudes and longtitudes, layers of the atmosphere, pressure belts, types of rainfall (convection, orographic, frontal), monsoons, ocean currents, jet streams, different types of rainfall etc. Pretty basic stuff.
I know geography can be covered more thoroughly than that, but I hate memorizing stuff so I didn't go any deeper into things like names of dams, tributaries etc.
Tip 6. Study the above areas in depth, and the rest in breadth
The rest of the areas in Paper 1, like environment, culture, social issues etc. do not have a predictable base from which questions are asked. So you have to cast a wider net here. Don't stress out too much about these, just stay curious and read whatever you can lay your hands on. Like wikipedia articles, coaching centre notes, blogs etc.
For environment, Vajiram's booklet was nice and concise. I also searched online for endangered and critically endangered species in India. Then I looked up to see what the basic criteria are for classifying species as "endangered" or "vulnerable". I also searched for some government initiatives, like Project Tiger, Project Snow Leopard etc. There were some 4 questions I could attempt based on this.
Tip 7: Guess smartly, but not indiscriminately
After you have attempted all of your "sure shot" questions in Paper 1, you will have plenty of time left in your hands! Spend this time to go back to other questions.
Now, follow this process to smart guess: 1. Read the question carefully. More importantly, study the options carefully. 2. Can you confidently eliminate any of the options based on your preparation? 2. Can you eliminate any options based on common sense? 3. If you have eliminated at least 2 options, only then should you guess between the remaining two. Otherwise, leave the question. This restraint is essential, unless you want to end up with negative score.
I will upload some Civil services ebooks if Mods allow
go through the blog for GS
I am conducting an online video course for CSAT paper 2. It will cover everything and will be completed in 21 weeks. More details and demo video are at
www.csatprep.wordpress.com
Feel free to contact me and know more about the program
Hello brother's,
I'm creating a whatsapp group for UPSC prep, Kindly msg your nos...
Focus of the group will be -
1. Current Affairs & GK
2. General Studies discussion
3. Mains discussion
Dear friends
One of my friend is planning a complete online resource preparation for UPSC examination. He would like to know more about the coaching you are attending, etc. I am enclosing herein a survey form for your reference.It will be great if you can spare few minutes to fill this survey.This might help all the future aspirants in the form of cheap and effective coaching option.
http://goo.gl/forms/oBDga4vmP
It will be a great help!!!Thanks
Unemployment rate in INDIA is 8.8%, comment.
Question of the day:
If we have two equations 3x+2y = 10 & 9x + ky = c, such that have infinite number of solutions, what will be values of k & c?
Does any one have subscribed for E-current-affairs prelims
test series
HCF & LCM demystified:
https://csatprep.wordpress.com/basic-numeracy-concepts/hcf-lcm/
Does anyone know what is the status of Age Limit and No. of Attempts for Civil Services this year?
It has been fluctuating so much in the last few years with each government coming up with new norms that it becomes difficult to keep track of, especially for people in their late 20s.
Thanks