Prelims Exam: How to clear the first hurdle

UPSC Prelims paper is a very important stage of CSE exam as we only get to write ‘Main’ exam if clear the cutoff of Prelims exam. Prelims exam can be daunting at times. It is the most toughest stage of this exam where competition is between lakhs of candidates. Many candidates fail to clear Prelims exam multiple times. Having cleared Prelims exam many times, I have come to realise that there are certain Do’s and Don’t that you can apply to increase your chances of clearing Prelims exam. Once you get the Basics right, you will most likely clear the Prelims cutoffs and get to write the Mains exam.

My Experiences and Suggestions: Kindly take my suggestions with a pinch of salt. These are my experiences. You should apply them in your Mocks and see if they work for you or not.

• Timeframe for Prelims: Prelims needs atleast 3-4 months to prepare well (Don’t get confused here. Your actual UPSC Preparation should begin atleast 10-12 months before Prelims paper. You should do integrated preparation all along till 3-4 months before Prelims when your entire focus should shift to Prelims exam). I have seen aspirants preparing for Mains exam like the Optional paper even during this time and then they are not able to clear Prelims exam. Unless and until you are very good with objective papers, you should respect UPSC’s mandate and give the requisite time to Prelims paper. Remember, No one ever wrote the Mains exam by flunking in the Prelims paper. 1 whole year is wasted if you do not clear Prelims. So, never be casual here. Candidates who failed to clear Prelims in previous attempts should give extra focus on Prelims. You can give 1 month extra than you would normally do. When I did not clear 2 Prelims in 2015 and 2016, I almost always gave about 3 months to Prelims preparation exclusively. Preparation for Mains should be done much before Prelims. Remember, Prelims is the most competitive stage of this exam going by number of candidates and few marks here and there can stop our UPSC campaign.
• Static is Kingmaker in Prelims: One should revise Static sources so much that one should never get an Easy/Moderate level question that came directly from the Book wrong in actual exam. Revise the same Static source again and again. Even if you are getting as less as 25-30 questions directly (or indirectly) from Static books, your aim should be to get all the easy and moderate level questions correct. There is no scope to get a question wrong that was sourced directly from the books we have read. If you can bet that you can get all static questions directly sourced from your books right, clearing Prelims will not be difficult. But this is easier said than done. It needs a lot of revisions to reach this stage.
• Cover 1 source for Current affairs: Newspapers as regular reading + Any monthly magazine (I did Vision). I don’t recommend PT 365 booklets. Your aim should be get easier and moderate level questions correct from Current affairs section. Now, see the following question asked in 2020 Prelims. If you are regular with newspaper, you can easily solve questions like following as asked in 2020 Prelims. At most, you can be confused between 2 options i.e. between option (a) and (b) in this question. If you have been reading newspapers, then you will know that West Texas is something related to Crude Oil.

• Revision: Revision is Key in entire UPSC exam. More so for Prelims. Once you have narrowed down on your sources, revise as much as possible. In humanities dominated exam like this, reading a book once or twice does not count as ‘revision’. One only gets abreast of the subject in first or second revision. It is only after 3-4 readings of a book/notes that you can start to master a subject. This is the bare minimum. If we take ‘Spectrum’ for ‘Modern India’, you should have went through this book minimum 3-4 times before Prelims to be confident and to be able to identify the correct answer or eliminate a wrong statement in exam hall. I would recommend reading it more number of times. In last 15-20 days of Prelims exam, one should be revising Static books/Current affairs vertically and not horizontally. Meaning, one need not read line by line in last one month. One should have revised books many times and highlighted important information. In last few weeks, focus more on vertical revision of pages help. We can’t read word by word at this stage, but go jump from paragraph to paragraph revising highlighted information quickly. See highlighted information including keywords or key events mentioned on that page. This vertical revision helps in more number of revisions and going through important information more number of times. It also boosts confidence. This will not work in certain portions like while going through “Parliament” Chapter in Laxmikanth, which must be revised word by word as 2-3 questions come from that chapter every year.
• Create a List of Important topics: that UPSC asks from each segment of syllabus repeatedly and do more revisions of those segments. You can easily create this list by going through past 5-10 years UPSC Prelims papers. While you are revising a particular source, keep this list handy and give it more focus. You should not get a question wrong from these important topics. For instance, in Medieval India, Vijaynagar Empire, Bhakti & Sufi Movements and Foreign Travellers are important topics. Similarly, from Environment section, National parks, Tiger reserves and International Organisations are important. (You will realise after going through PYQs that UPSC has its favourite National parks which it asks. If a question on National parks come and you are thorough with PYQs, then even if you don’t get to the answer directly, you can easily eliminate 1 or 2 options from the question statements). We had questions on ‘Kalyana Mandapaas’ in 2019 Prelims, Government of India act 1919 and 1935 in Prelims 2021 etc that are important topics which should not be marked wrong. You are expected to know whether or not Government of India act 1935 gave women reserved seats in legislature as it is directly given in Laxmikanth. From Laxmikanth, Chapters like Historical background, preamble, Fundamental rights, Fundamental duties, DPSPs, Parliament, Parliamentary Committees, Panchayati Raj, Schedules, Supreme Court of India, President, Prime Minister etc very important. Likewise for other segments of syllabus.
• Notemaking?-> I don’t recommend this for Current Affairs but You can make topicwise Notes of certain High Yield/Most Important topics for Static portions. For instance, plotting National parks on one Map.(See Dhananjay Singh Yadav IFS, post here attaching his Maps on Tiger reserves, National parks etc. Well researched. Try plotting same with pencil on your own). Making Charts/tables of Constitutional and Non-Constitutional bodies(polity) finishing this bulky topic in few pages. (See Shreyans Kumat Sir note for reference here). Making a note on Rivers (refer Shreyans Kumat Sir’s note here for reference). Likewise for major topics. This helps in quick revision and you are bound to find few questions from our notes in actual exam. You can do this for High Yield/Most important topics of Static Syllabus were information is segregated at multiple places and having consolidates notes can help. (Don’t do this for all topics. You donot have that much time. Do this selectively for very important topics that frequently come in exam).
• Focus more on UPSC PYQs than coaching Test Series:
  1. UPSC PYQs are the go to source for practicing for prelims. Candidates should atleast solve past 10 CSE Prelims papers. Give them as Mock Tests sitting for 2 hours. Naturally there will be few current affairs questions in previous PYQs which will not be relevant for you. You can eliminate them and practice rest of Static questions. The quality of PYQ questions will never be matched by any coaching.
  2. You can even give Recent UPSC Papers of other exams as Mocks for more practice. If you are giving CSE 2022 Prelims paper, you can look at other papers conducted by Upsc recently like CAPF, NDA, CDS etc. Don’t bother about specific questions that are relevant for that exam. But Static questions will remain the same. Plus, you will understand which current affairs UPSC Examiner is considering important and asking in these papers, helping you to keep close to requirement of Prelims exam.
  3. What are benefits of solving PYQs?-> One, you understand which areas are important and which are not. Two, 2-3 questions minimum come directly and indirectly in Prelims from past prelims papers and these 4-5 marks make huge difference in the end. Third, you develop an intuition of arriving at correct answer. You understand how examiner traps you with certain extreme words. Fourth, you develop an exam temperament by solving actual UPSC questions. When you go in exam hall, Prelims paper will not seem like a bouncer but just another ‘UPSC’ paper many of which you have already solved.
  4. I am not suggesting that you should not go for Coaching Mock Test series. You should give these mocks too. They help us check our knowledge for a particular segment of syllabus and give us 2 hour practice. But stop giving Coaching Mocks 10-15 days before Prelims. You may revise the mocks you have already given. But try doing it as early as possible. At this time, you should only give UPSC Previous Year Prelims papers as Mocks (or otherwise). Solving PYQs should become a part of our routine closer to the exams (Aim at solving last 10 year Prelims Papers starting from most recent paper. If you have less time, solve atleast last 5 years. This is Must do). You can even give same UPSC Prelims mock test to boost your confidence and refresh PYQs. Coming to coaching mocks, if one can get hold of a test series which covers Static syllabus in a holistic manner chapter-wise and book wise, giving you certain syllabus to cover from let’s say laxmikanth for a particular day and then taking a mock very next day from that part of syllabus, that would be great. I had enrolled for Forumias SFG programme while i was in Delhi and found it useful (I have no tie up with them). There may be other alternatives out in market. Don’t go for a test series that has very difficult questions and make lot of changes in question language just to outsmart you and get your answers wrong. Such test series are useless. This leads to a suspicious mindset. Once you realise a particular test series is doing this to you, stop giving it. Always focus more on UPSC PYQs, Static books and any 1 Current Affairs source.
  5. I also found Edsarrthi platform’s (Varun Jain) Logical Guessing programme to be quite useful (I have no tie up with them). Candidates who are finding it difficult to clear Prelims can go through it.
• Give mocks in actual exam like conditions. I never turned on my AC during Mock test practice, period. UPSC exam centres do not have such comforts that we have at home. I also used to simulate by wearing same clothes, shoes, pens, practicing with same watch I would be using in exam and even kept my doors open so that some noise is coming from outside (In actual exam, you will not have pin drop silence). Do bubble filling practice in mocks. I even used to wear Mask and give mocks like that in both Prelims and Mains. Point is, you should try to simulate exam conditions as much as possible. On Sundays, Give back to back Mocks for both papers at same time as actual Prelims paper (Do this on at least 2-3 Weekends, the more the better).
• Don’t have suspicious mindset in exam hall: Candidates often take lot of mock tests from coachings. Coachings in my experience put a lot of ‘exception’ based and very difficult level questions in a mock test and mocks are also not of very good quality (no one can compete with quality of UPSC Paper naturally). Candidates get lot of these ‘exception’ based & difficult questions wrong and develop suspicious mindset. In exam hall, a candidate with such mindset will overthink in many questions and many times change the original answer he/she has tickmarked. This results in loss of marks. UPSC puts a very simple paper in prelims exam and candidates should not overthink their answers. You have read so much for Prelims exam and your mind will invariably tell you the right answer on reading the options. Just tick mark the option that you arrive at initial stage. 7-8 times out of 10 that will be the right answer. Ofcourse, in some questions your hunch and memory may be wrong, but then that is the game of prelims. by overthinking your sum total will be on the lower side. How to avoid this suspicious nature? Practice lot of UPSC Questions. Think Basic and use Commonsense in exam hall. Lets see with a simple example. See this question below asked in 2020 Prelims paper. We have all known and read that Ashoka was the ruler in Indian history who used inscriptions to reach out & send his message to common people. Atleast he was the Most famous ruler who did so. Now, a candidate with a suspicious mindset will overthink and mark another option. He/She would think that ‘UPSC would not ask such an easy question. There must be some trap in this question’. In exam hall, have a straight forward approach. You know Ashoka is the most likely answer to this question, then simply mark it and move on. It may happen that our answer is wrong, but in actual exam hall this is how we must think in a simple commonsensical manner. On balance, we will have a better net score. Don’t over think. We can also see from this question which 4 rulers are important for UPSC. We see mention of Krishnadeva Raya of Vijaynagar Empire which is one very important topic. Now if you prepare basics about these 4 rulers, and suppose if a question comes around them, our basic information will help us reach an answer directly or help eliminate an option reaching an answer indirectly.

• Eliminate options: We know exact answers to only about 20-25 or lets say 35 questions (senior candidates). In rest questions, one has to eliminate options to arrive at the answer. It is rather easy to eliminate a wrong option, than to directly arrive at answer.
• Read question carefully. See if examiner has asked “correct” or “not correct” option. Many candidates get few questions wrong by just assuming examiner has asked “correct” option. When you are solving paper, circle such key terms in question for better clarity.
• Moderate language options have more chance of getting right than extreme options: Options with “major”, “an important”, “may”, “sometimes”, “can” etc have more chance of being correct. Extreme options like “totally”, “always”, “mandatory” etc or some weird statements and specific dates and facts have more chance of being wrong. This will not work in 100% cases but will give better score on balance. You have to practice PYQs to understand this.
• How many rounds?– This varies from person to person. This aspect is best developed while solving mock tests. Generally selected candidates recommend upto 3 rounds to solve Prelims paper. I don’t recommend 3 rounds. Prelims paper has been becoming lengthy and lengthy and in my wisdom, 2 rounds are good enough for decent attempt. In first round, solve whole paper by marking correct options in which you know answer straight away, eliminating 1 or 2 options in rest questions and also finding out questions where you have no clue. Cross-out such questions so that you do not waste time. But do read every question as sometimes we leave question just be reading question statement but actual options are very easy and correct answer can be figured out from options by using commonsense and basic thinking. In Second round, do bubble filling for questions you have know 100% (100% means not just the questions that you know the actual answer but also those questions where you have decided to mark a particular option. This means that you may not be fully confident that a particular option is correct one, but you have applied your mind and decided to mark it. Don’t leave every question for second round. You have to decide. Prelims is test of your decision making abilities. Remember, in second round also, it is you only who is going to solve that question you are leaving now. There is no phone-a-friend option in exam hall unlike in Kaun Banega Crorepati). Then solve questions where you have eliminated 1 or 2 options. Never leave a question where you have eliminated 2 options as we have 50-50 chance of being correct. You have to take some risk in those questions where you could eliminate only 1 option depending on how many questions you have attempted thus far.
• How many questions to attempt?– Often asked question. Well, it varies from candidate to candidate. you have arrive at your own optimum number of questions by practicing mock tests. I have a simple approach here. Until and unless your aim is to clear Forest service cutoff, you need not attempt more than 90 questions. There will be atleast 8-10 questions where you have no clue. Never make a blind guess/tukka. You don’t want to leave 1 year of your life to chance. Normally 80-90 questions are safe range where you can experiment depending on the paper. If paper is easy, attempt on higher side. If you find it difficult, attempt less in this range. My target in later attempts used to be 85 questions and i used to modify as per actual paper. Work out your own optimum number and use your own wisdom here. Keep in mind that Cutoff’s these days are hovering around 95-100 (general) and thus you need net 50 questions to clear cutoff. Of course any day your target should not be just 100 marks. Aim for 120 marks and you will have high chance to clear Prelims cutoff.
  • Don’t change your answer in subsequent iteration until and unless you have a very strong feeling that your original answer is absolutely wrong. Revision of answers usually result in loss of marks. Remember, you have already applied your mind in first round to mark a particular response. Your mind was under less pressure at that time. Then, you should ideally stick to the option that you marked in first round by applying all your knowledge.
• CSAT Paper: never take it lightly. People from humanities background should practice this section more. Solve actual CSAT papers of UPSC as mocks. No need to practice coaching mocks here. Have a strategy to attempt this paper. Students usually go in exam hall without a strategy to attempt it. Strategy means identify sections where you are good at and try attempting those sections first. you need to get 67 marks approx. to get to write Main exam. Aim to attempt 50 good questions in this section, leaving the difficult questions. Your aim should be to get 80+ marks ay day in this paper. Comprehension questions are getting more and more subjective and difficult, thus also practice some maths and reasoning questions from PYQs. Identify certain types of questions UPSC asks repeatedly and practice them. Never take a question on ego in actual paper. There are plenty of easy and moderate questions in whole paper. Your task is to sift through the paper, identify those easy/moderate questions and solve them. You need to clear the cut off only in this paper. Candidates are not awarded any trophies for solving a particular/difficult question.
• Fill OMR sheet particulars very carefully. Fill Bubbles very carefully. Never ever fill a bubble wrongly. I once filled 1 bubble wrongly in another question’s allotted space and thus got 2.66 marks loss. I made sure i never made this mistake again. In your mocks, try filling bubbles as actual exam paper. Its a skill and temperament you develop. Always respect these basic things. I do not recommend filling bubbles at the last. It is a very risky affair as pressure is high in exam. Fill bubbles once after first round or after you have solved half of paper to ease of pressure. Take your time filling bubbles. Normally 10-15 minutes are taking in just bubbling. Remember, it is bubble responses that get you selected in the end. Give it due respect.
• D-Day: Stay Calm and composed in exam hall. Try getting good sleep the night before (If you can’t get sleep, do some meditation and try to sleep again. if you can’t, don’t stress about it. Many candidates don’t get sleep on Prelims night. You have to just identify the answers, and not solve or produce an answer in exam hall. Be calm.). Have light food and reach exam hall in time. Take a few deep breaths and meditate on your breath or Pray as per your wish. Stay calm always. You have worked hard for this day and thus, Pray to almighty that you give your best today. Fill OMR responses like Roll number, exam centre etc very carefully. Ask the teachers if you have any confusion. If your table is unstable and moving, politely ask the teacher to either replace it or put some blank paper or your handkerchief (with permission) under the unstable leg of the table so that your table does not move while you give exam. Once the paper starts, see the initial few questions. Generally initial questions are difficult one’s. If this is so, then move over to either Question no. 26 or 51 and start solving from there. You want your mind to first solve few easy/moderate level questions boosting your confidence. Anyways, never judge the paper based on few questions. You have to solve the whole paper within time, fill bubbles carefully and hope for the best. Kindly Do not talk to anyone inbetween the break between both papers. Your exam is not over yet. I don’t understand why candidates waste their time finding out solutions of Paper 1 during break between both papers. You should rather have light lunch and let your brain rest. If you can have a 30 minute nap, nothing better than it. This is very crucial because in CSAT paper, lot of mental energy and alertness is required. Comprehension questions are very lengthy and one needs calm, collected and present mind to solve the paper. This is especially relevant for candidates who find CSAT paper slightly difficult. No matter what happens on this day, whether the paper is very tough or the fan is not working or the examiner is talking (request them politely to maintain silence) or you got first Bench Seat near the door or you have fever/cold etc disturb your mental peace and focus. Focus is all that matters. It’s your day. Own it. Once you clear the exam, these are the days/battles you will always cherish for years to come.

Other Useful Reads

Aspirants can go through my friend Satyabrat‘s blog post for his suggestions on Prelims exam. While he was giving CSE exam, he used to almost always get a mind-boggling score in 140s in Prelims. He had developed the skill to get to the right answer by lot of practice. People who score very good marks in Prelims develop an intuition for identifying the right answer and this is developed by a lot of practice, especially of UPSC PYQs. For his blog post Click here.

By applying these guidelines, you stand good chance to clear Prelims exam. All the very best!