Preparation Strategy by Aparajita: AIR 40, CSE 2017

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Preparation Strategy by Aparajita: AIR 40, CSE 2017

Every year UPSC conducts civil services examination for the recruitment of various civil services like Indian Administrative Services (IAS), Indian Police Services (IPS), and Indian Revenue Services (IRS) etc. The result of UPSC Civil Services Examination was declared in May. This year result came with some interesting stories of toppers.

Anudeep Durishetty an IRS Officer secured 1st rank & becomes the topper of CSE 2017. 2nd rank is secured by Anu Kumari who started her career after her marriage. Sachin Gupta has secured 3rd rank with his dedication & hard work.

Aparajita has secured 40th rank in CSE 2017. So let’s begin his journey.

Also read: The journey of Tapasya Parihar: 2017 UPSC Topper

About Aparajita

Name: Aparajita
Birthplace: Banaras
Hometown: Varanasi
Rank: AIR 40
Year: CSE 2017
Optional Subject: History
Medium: English
No. of Attempts: 3
Nationality: Indian
Work Experience: ACC Ltd for 1 year
Roll No.: 0005945

This was her 3rd attempt in CSE. At her first attempt, she was not able to clear the prelims examination. She again gave the exam and this time she was able to clear the prelims but unfortunately she was not able to clear the mains examination and couldn’t make it to the CSE.

Also read: The journey of Rishi Raj: 2017 UPSC Topper

Essay Preparation Strategy

She was able to secure nicely in the previous attempts in 2016 and even though she didn’t specifically prepare for it. She loves to read a novel since her school time. She used to read good books and quotes to develop a spherical though process. At school time she was an active participant in the article or essay writing, which helped her a lot in the CSE essay exam. Then at college, she started writing her own blogs so, she didn’t face a lot of problems for the essay exam. But it is necessary to practice the essays before the exam. This will help you to develop writing skills.

Also read: The journey of Ankit Pannu: 2017 UPSC Topper good essay writing skills.

Ethics Preparation Strategy

She used to study ethics from Lexicon book and tries to cover all the topics in the syllabus. She covered most topics in ethics. To gain more clarity in this field she used to watch youtube videos on Michael Sandel (Harvard Frame). She made a rule of writing once GS- 4 answers per day and after writing an answer she used to take feedback from her friends and try to improve her answer if needed.

Notes Management

While making notes take care that “The lesser the better.” You will have a specific time to revise the entire syllabus. So make your notes shorts so that it will be easy for you at the time of revision. To cut out the writing portion she used to insert pictures in between her notes for better understanding. She started marking or adding the information to the previous notes she made. She didn’t make news notes every time, she read the previous notes and update them whenever it is needed. So the things which you have to take care while making notes are:

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For the handwritten or hard copy notes, she had like the optional notes, economics and geography notes etc. From these notes, she cut out the important answers from the solution booklets of different sources. She used to staple them on the pages of these notes and try to make everything in one place.

For the electronic notes which were very less in her case. She used to take screenshots of important things she found on interest and saved them in the different folders according to the subjects. She saved the notes on the phone so that she can go through them anywhere she wanted. This helped her in 2016 and 2017 exams.

During the last month of the Mains examination when reading several newspapers became a little tougher, she kept current affairs highlights notes on OneNote, which she compiled from different websites.

Apart from this, she used to find answers from the booklets also. If she found anything important in the booklet then she used to keep that page or insert that page into her notes and throw away the rest of the booklet. Later on, she fastened all the important answers together for a quick revision.

Also read: The journey of Apurva Pandey: 2017 UPSC Topper

Study Material for Optional

She had opted the history as her optional subject and the main thing in your preparation is the smart choice of optional subject as well as study material. So the books she used to refer during her preparation are given below.

Ancient History:

A history of Ancient and Early Medieval India – Upinder Singh (Base book)
IGNOU M.A. (Selective reading)
NCERTs (Old and New)
Baliyan notes
GS Score solution papers + Internet (Fillers)

Medieval:

Satish Chandra (Base book)
IGNOU B.A., M.A. (Selective Reading)
NCERTs (New)
Baliyan notes
GS Score solution papers + Internet (Fillers)

Modern:

Sekhar Bandopadhyay (Base book: Very insightful but very lengthy)
A New Look at Modern Indian History – B.L. Grover
India since Independence – Bipan Chandra
Baliyan Class notes
GS Score solution papers + Internet (Fillers)

World History:

Baliyan Notes (Base)
L Mukherjee (Selective reading)
GS Score solution papers + Internet + Mrunal.com (Fillers)
Maps: History (website) + Baliyan Notes

Also read: The journey of Aparajita: 2017 UPSC Topper

GS 2 and GS 3 Sources

In addition to the newspapers, NCERTs, Forum solution papers and monthly current affairs handouts-
The Polity part was covered with the help of M Laxmikanth, Vision handouts, PIB, and other government websites. I jotted down as many relevant Supreme Court cases, and committees I could find and used them in my answers when required.

Governance, Role of civil service from Excerpts from the 2nd ARC report. Welfare Schemes, Health, Education etc from the internet and PIB, PRS, Civils daily etc
International relations Observer Research Foundation and IDSA websites (As and when required) + The Diplomat (as and when required).
Economy, Security, and Science and Technology depended largely on the internet-based study, Mrunal lectures, and revising the static portion covered during prelims (Economic surveys of the last 2 years etc).

Also read: The journey of Bipasha Kalita: 2017 UPSC Topper

List of 2017 Toppers

If you have any doubt or need guidance you can comment below, our team will try to answer it.

Preparation Strategy by Aparajita: AIR 40, CSE 2017