- Newspapers are very imp for preparation. You all should read Indian express (explained page)and the Hindu daily.
- Follow one current affairs magazine (it will help you if not in prelims at least in mains)
- I used to read newspapers digitaly and took screenshots of most imp articles and revised that before prelims.
- Go through PYQ of last 8 years and bring out the most common themes asked by UPSC in each subject. for e.g., flora and fauna in environment ,Ashokan inscriptions ,Jainism and buddhism.
I will give you all the themes that I had segregated for prelims. I think they must be around 40 in number.
For those of you who might have given prelims
- Keep aside your prelims paper even though you may not clear it this year, it doesnot matter.
- Start with mains, when you holisticaly cover mains ,you will be also ready for prelims next year.
- Those of you who might be at the verge of clearing prelims, donot waste your time in speculating cut off and start for mains, very less tym in between.
Just off the record, plz keep an eye on whatever projects, food items or products the honourable PM himself promotes. Eg-Moringa tree,gucchi mushroom,Kashi Vishwanath, Somnath, Ramanujam statue,sankaracharya,central vistas.
For next year shankaracharya and Viswanath temple may become imp.
Few points for CSAT.
- It is clear that it is now a complete paper in itself. Just like you read GS daily ,you should also practise csat daily for 1 hour.
- Donot practise comprehension from any other source apart from UPSC PYQ.
- Try to deduce the meaning of assumption,Inference,corollary by looking at past year papers only.
- I don't tend to promote any coaching here. But, I had no touch with maths and hence needed some help. I had joined online class of career launcher(Delhi) for csat. I found them useful. fortunately, I got that course only for 1900 rupees due to some discount.
- DONOT HESITATE TO TAKE HELP IN CASE YOUR CSAT IS WEAK. But at the same time DONOT GO OVERBOARD with some 120 hours of csat sort of taglines. MAINTAIN A BALANCE.
My sources for prelims.
- Polity- laxmikant
- Economy- Yellow coloured booklet of SRI RAM IAS(very good content)
- Environment- PMF IAS booklet(cover selected topics based on PYQ)
- Geography-PMF IAS booklet
- Science and tech- Biology(class 11th and 12th ncert-selected topics only.
- Art and culture-NItin singhania
- Ancient India-RS Sharma.
- Medieval india-made notes from YouTube +IAS HUB had shared a free PDF(would share with all of you.)
- Modern india-spectrum.
- International relations- made notes of mapping + Shankar IAS current PDF
- Current affairs-NEWSPAPER (never missed)+ vision ias monthly magazine.
- NCERT-imp ones.
- history;class 6 to12
- economy-only class 12
- geography;class 6 to 12
- polity-only class 11/12
- biology-11th ncert
- Basics +last 4 chapters of class 12.
Help of coaching.
- One year GS course in vajiram
- Mains test series in vision Ias
- Essay mentorship in Triumph Ias(vikas Ranjan sir)
- Medical science- Only Test series from UPSC MEDICO.
All other coaching displaying my photo-gave mock interview only.
View about coaching.
No need to land into Financial constraints in order to pay their hefty sums. If you can afford u may join online/offline for basic concepts .
Test series at mains stage is important. Feedback of vision and vikas sir helped me.