Effective UPSC Preparation: Planning, Notes, and Mental Health Insights

[Music] and nobody made a sales call to me from CI it was me who researched and did a

conscious call to them and I reached out to them and then I was onboarded first two thing that you see right plan and

progress those were the I think most two most important pillars of UAP let's say lakshmikant is their onstep solution for

polity for prelims but with lakshmikant you can't will not be able to solve Mains answers

anything that I was getting from samachar Manan the weekly current affair magazine I was making notes topic-wise

notes from there I used to make this one pager notes in an answer format which I used to most of the content I used to

pick from samachar man so organically that became a process of making notes doing current affairs and writing tests

it is okay that even you're writing bad answers take don't write in the first week take a month get into the grind for

you to uh wait key you'll complete the syllabus and then you will write or after prels you will write you are uh I

mean there's a lot of effort that would take so I'll tell you also essay notes the are the one pager notes that I have

which I was making organically from samachar Manan those were mostly GS2 and GS3 a lot of people have been saying

it's not practically possible week one not but I have no incentive to lie so uh even there was then I will not lie but

uh this these are your only notes there's no other Draft before this which you had made yeah there is so there is

internal security notes as well which are like 50 60 Pages those 50 60 pages I made either half of them from most like

75 80% from SAR Manan and 20% Which was left out from the yearly compilation magazine just giving you a sneak peek

into how we have reimagined the revision ready books which you should be having and some

people asked that were you reading newspaper or had you committed totally to the samachar month and

time no started but month I realized I can't find time absolutely not possible okay awesome we're starting on time so

what I'll do is I'll quickly tell you the pacing of this webinar so we've already asked animage five things and

we've kind of inverted the problem which is usually a thing which is deployed by all the big wigs Warren Buffet and

Charlie monger and who not problem solve in if you want to crack upsc in the first attempt all the good stuff won't

come to you right away but it's better to know what should I do to screw up my first attempt and then you should know

that in thorough details once you know that then you are completely aware of what not to do and then starts the

process of rebuilding yourself or building for the first time in the right spirit

so on things that you should do to you know lay waste to your first attempt and I think those are pretty simple and uh

I'll just give the floor to animish please have your videos on guys we'll give priority to people who have their

videos on for asking questions it's always better to put a you know a face to the

name uh okay so great animish this is your first ever webinar here uh largely the janta is 2026 but there are few 2025

folks as well because they wanted to hear from you so there are five things that you mentioned that you know if you

do that you ga guante that you'll fail the first attempt unless some luck you luck out Max okay one other thing is you

don't have a plan and you said that your teacher once said that you know if you don't have the plan then someone else

has a plan and you know you'll be a puppet to that something you'll be working on something else or what was

the code to fail to plan then you plan to fail yeah if you fail to plan then you plan to fail second is if you do not

measure your progress then you don't even know the kpi you won't know what to correct then it was pyq then revision

notes and then the last important topic is your mental and physical health so what we'll do is you start with your

as better as you can go back in your memories when you joined us and you know you were allocated Randi sir as a mentor

what was the initial ideas you came with and what were the things that Randi sir or would have told you over the first

months and what was your plan looking like so let have this freeing chat then we'll measure your progress and I'll

show some of your answer copies so that if you can jog your memory and you know remember gain pyqs may we will show you

guys some of the actual pyqs and the reason why you should see some recurring themes and accordingly plan better

anim did that superbly well for the mains he could do it for the prelims with that much rigor on the revision

notes I have requested anim to share his own notes so he will open up them up and you know take you through the process of

making them then I'll show you some of the ncrt notes and the annotated versions that we come out with this year

we have you know increased the UAP the mentorship program Tempo to 10x to and then finally at length anim will

talk about the mental and physical health because you know you know he's the best person to talk about that so

ansh the floor is open to you let's start hello thank you Ro sir thank you so much uh hello everyone I hope

everyone is doing well everyone is doing is healthy both physically mentally and otherwise and uh yeah so before I speak

anything uh it is important to know that there is no absolute truth in anything so it's

it's what if I say and what if I had followed as that is the only way to achieve this in first attempt is not the

right way to approach this but with the limited experience I have and with the general observations and general

conversations I have with my peers seniors and people who are preparing there are few things that I have noticed

and I think for you to keep in mind that would help you to streamline your preparation so any of these things that

I say you can take liberally uh which you think will help you and can liberally also discard which you think

does not suit you and uh second most important thing is uh before you dive into like these five aspects initially

it is important for you to understand what kind of help you require while you are starting your UPC preparation and

while you're continuing through the same some few of the preparation few of the help are very common no matter if

you're excellent you were a Topper in bu with the humanities background with having the similar syllabus even though

let's say you're optional subject is where you had where a gold medalist in the University or coming from a uh

engineering background like me and having different paths like not the the humanities you have like a lot of

departure from the humanities still there are common aspects which are important with the H kind of help you

would require but a lot of your background would determine what kind of help you would require at least in the

initial phases like for me I understood that I might not require Foundation courses for two things that

um I had a full-time job so I could not attend classes and second is that I felt that I'll be able to manage

understanding things um from here and there from books from internet and here and there basically and what I I needed

help so when I joined U UAP it was not that that like I joined UAP with CD in February

2022 and um it was not like I like talked to my mentor being absolutely clueless I was like obviously that's

when I started my full-fledged preparation obviously I was toess about thousand other things but it's not as if

I did not know the syllabus or I did not know the pattern some background I had and as a person I was well aware with

the current happenings and the usual thing that an aware citizen should know so I'll just give that background so

that it does not mislead anybody and but me enrolling I enrolling into CD was

a very conscious decision because I figured out that kind of help I require and in my opinion that is the kind of

help which should be given by the industry and not the conventional help that has been going for so many years

now and nobody made a sales call to me from CI it was me who researched and did a conscious call to them and I reached

out to them and then I was onboarded and I got a mentor I got randis as my mentor so uh because UAP is a program uh

I was why I wanted to enroll in something because I wanted an accountability I was pring all alone

without a peer group although I was in DHI but I was in DHI only because I was posted in Indian oil in DHI headquarters

far far away from orn far far away from mukar nagar kbag uh I was I had visited the place couple of times but to

purchase notes and stuff like that all of my preparation has been online and I was a full-time uh like I had a

full-time job uh throughout the exams um so yeah so I felt that I needed an accountability which U was giving me

and second this there a second the first two thing that you see right plan and progress those were the I think most two

most important pillars of UAP that I felt that there will be an plan and an accountability with the plan so that

I'll be execute I will be able to execute that and second there will be an integrated test that will help me to

measure my progress and that I felt was more important for me rather than somebody

giving me a three-hour lecture on what is on Hy and what is integrity and ethics which I felt that will take a lot

of my time I anyway did not have more than 5 hours on a good day because I was working

full-time so but but having said that some of you might need uh Foundation quotes because of coming coming from

different backgrounds you might be full-time aspirant so you might have the liberty of time so it's up to you I can

just speak about myself I felt I do not require Foundation course in certain subjects I felt that I was weak I needed

conceptual Clarity but I just did not have time and to make the best use of my time I had enrolled into UAP which was a

wonderful program yeah so coming back to the deck first it is as I mentioned you'll have

to have a plan uh I have now seen and interact with a lot of people who do not have a plan like what would their next

six months would look like or when will they will start optional a lot of people have been in the like four months five

months of the preparation and in will be appearing 2025 they would not have started optional which is a huge blunder

or if let's say you are consciously not doing optional then you should have an answer that why are you not doing

optional now maybe you have a different approach I will respect that but you cannot be clueless about why and how it

is important to discover a lot of new things while you're preparing you will do a lot of additions a lot of dels but

a generalized plan is something that you should have so first point if you don't have a plan then you are literally self

Sab sabotaging yourself and your plan should be both a shortterm and a long-term plan how does your entire one

year look like it might not have to be a part day basis I do not Advocate a part day basis uh timetable but what I would

Advocate is a weekly or let's say monthly or a bonly uh timetable where you would know that okay this is what I

will complete so I would know by so and so my poity will be completed then my economy will be complet completed then

my history would be completed and along with that my optional this portion will be completed and along with that this is

how I'll attend my test Series so while making my plan I'll keep three things in mind my syllabus completion my along

with my optional and my test series and a progress report to understand if I'm back there are backlogs then I'll have

to insert that somewhere so syllabus as well as both your GS and optional as well as your test series plan you should

be aware when are you giving this test series and your plan should also include that okay all my notes building has to

be also made by when when will I make these notes all these things at least a broader perspective should have as you

progress um this Clarity will come you your plan will become more foolproof your plan will become more matur but

from at least from the start take around one week two week before you're starting your preparation and make a whole plan

and the plan is not just about um your study right you have thousand other important things in your life there

could be um someone's marriage there could be someone's health issues there could be issues with personal and

professional life take that into consideration as well I knew that my sister would get married um while I

would be preparing so that was so my plan integrated all those aspects as well uh

so having a world view is important but also work on the integrities that is important that you don't re your attempt

by not having a plan the second if you could just you know give a sense of what was your

working day looking like on any given day or a week because you were working I'm assuming 6 to 8 hours your commute

was hardly 15 minutes what was the what was a good work day like for your preparation so for me the work was a

mandat eight plus hours um I uh had a good time with iOS where I was very productive with my work it was

headquarters was very timeline driven you cannot miss work even by a minute less than 8 hours so eight hours were a

must obviously there were days in which you would work for more longer hours so my day would look like uh I had I used

to study in three slots one slot was for my standard books uh ncrs or lakmi Khan Spectrum all these books that everyone

reads which in my opinion CED mostly to the prelims and conceptual Clarity and the

second part was my optional sociology being my optional that was my second slot um and third was I was reading

samachar man magazine because I had to uh give a test on for samachar Manan every Sunday so I was making notes out

of samachar Manan but I realized this would be my source major source of making notes from Main's perspective s

man is the current of Affairs module within the UAP I mean just for everyone's sake of understanding we do

weekly weekend classes and animes used to write a test on every weekend you know tempt a question and they would be

marked which is the part of the second big bullet point measuring the progress yeah Fair Fair Point okay so so the

Samar man was a part of the UAP as RIT s said so there I understood that I have to there was like let's say lakshmikant

is their onstep solution for politics for prelims but with lakshmikant you can't will not be able to solve Main's

answers and there is I'm not sure but I have not gotten any qualitative onstop book for all the subjects of meain or

even subjectwise there are few compilations here and there but I felt I'll have to make my own notes so

anything that I was getting from samachar Manan the weekly current affair magazine I was making notes topic-wise

notes from there so I had these four booklets for GS 1 2 3 4 but samachar Manan obviously CED mostly

to GS2 and GS3 and few portion of gs1 because it's current affairs GS4 is ethics so leave that aside and the

static subject obviously geography history won't be covered as elaborately uh as compar to other so GSA whatever

the syllabus topics were there if let's say the topic there's a topic called federalism so any thing that came up in

the magazine from federalism I would note that in a federalism part and I used to make this one pager notes in an

answer format which I used to most of the content I used to pick from samachar man so organically that became a process

of making notes doing current affairs and writing tests because I was writing test on Satur uh on every Sunday based

on what I was reading for that from that current affair magazine this became one thing which I think was the most wisest

uh plan that I had because I've seen a lot of people doing current affairs writing tests and making Mains notes

separately but for me all of these three things were one thing because it was the same magazine I was following majorly

for main uh notes was that was my current affairs source and I was making uh writing tests on that as well so that

squeezed a lot of my time and made me very productive I would say and since I had written around 48 50 tests samachar

Manan test so uh I had insane answer Writing Practice in a test environment I was writing within the time limit okay

I'll just segue to your actual test copies which we had and you know we we scanned it out for everyone to see so

you joined us on February this was probably your first week samachar month and attempt and in my separate webinars

I tell people you know that you don't have to be like a a grade answer writer from the day one in fact most of us are

not so I don't know if you remember this but this is a question on anti-dumping duty and counterveiling Duty and you

couldn't even finish the answer in this particular question right and then then I take them to the answer which you

wrote after the pr uh yeah this one wherein because you had

done your pyqs properly and you had made all the enriches you went beyond the demand of the question and you were able

to then introduce diagrams and all that so it's I think one of the things which stands out and which I'm I I I'm I

remember you also telling me that when you talk to your peers people who are kind of trying to improve upon their

rank is that not all of them started answer writing from day one because we're apprehensive about writing a bad

answer so somehow convinced the 26 janta and 25 J to start writing answers and that it's okay to write poor answers do

you remember your bad days and what kept you going to write answers yeah yeah absolutely so if you see my first answer

that was in February probably one of the first week I would have written answer when you're starting

I don't even know what is anti- duing duty but this is something that was there in the current affair magazine

then I studied so maybe I was not studying economy during that time I was studying let's say lakshmikant I started

with that let's say uh but I had not studied economics by that time but I got anti-dumping duty countering duty that

you read in Indian economy but this is a part of current affairs so it was explained in current affairs I

understood okay this is but I could not reproduce even in the paper I did not have that Clarity how to put it that in

paper as well so two things a lot of people say key how do you write if you do not have content so the content is

what is given in the current affairs magazine right I'm not writing content like I'm not answering pyqs in the first

week I'm attempting only the things that I've read about and uh secondly it is okay that even you're writing bad

answers take don't write in the first week take a month get into the grind one one and half month and then start

writing for you to uh wait key you'll complete the syllabus and then you'll write or after prelims you will write

you are uh I mean there's a lot of effort that would take I'm not saying it is not doable there are examples who

have done that but you would see the difference somebody who has done for weeks as compared to someone doing after

prelims you will see a lot of difference in their answers so yeah I think that's the question which most people ask that

they want to start prepared like they want to start with that much finess the answer writing that they end up spending

a lot of time just you know trying to get 100% cabus done like you rightly said right you probably would be doing

lakmi Khan but a current countering duty pay so okay if I were to ask you this what is the focus on the first three

months which anyone who's starting should have first three months who Focus first of for somebody like me who

was like out of college uh did not have that uh patience to sit for 1 hour to study so first few weeks will be that to

at least gain your composer that you'll get into the grind of studying so that's what my first uh at least few weeks

where that I could not study for longer hours or I just did not could not like and that will take time but be patient

with that and then also a lot of figuring out was required like I was also confused now I'm saying my daily

thing happened in three slots optional standard books and current affairs magazine but it was not as simple as it

is sounding I used to also like a why I'm not reading that how I read that so all of these things happened in the

initial few weeks and few months then I G gain Clarity if I Orient my daily uh schedule like this then it would help me

and that's where also like Rand s came into picture where he used to say okay you can start this you can start that

you can start so and so so since I had no one else to ask to neither a friend was preparing so there I felt and this

is a cons I needed a mentor that's why I I was looking not like when I was making calls I just did not look for CD I look

for I I'm somebody who research a lot so I researched a lot of institutes too and I saw who are having these mentorship

programs and now there are many options available but back then there were not and the CD was doing this a lot of years

before I joined as well since 26 2017 so I saw that okay maybe and maybe they had uh like mastered this and they

did so yeah so that's why also uh in initial few weeks would be to like gain your composer to study and to figuring

out things a lot of things I could not understand like now uh it's very easy for me to say that anti-dumping duty but

was also very weird yeah what what is this and I used to Google or YouTube video but I kept my momentum and I think

what kept myself going at initial weeks and also after that also exam point of view say was this tests I am somebody

who loved seeing a Mark I was I love quantifying things to see this week I'm writing that

and what I'm getting soest I was so for me the Samaran test were 125 marks and here I would have gotten

probably in 30s May and then I progressed like 50s 55 or so or see exam few when I'll get 60s as well and 60 was

like the top thing to get so uh I used to measure myself see my progress and that kept me going ke AA if I'm checking

my I'm quantifying my progress in a way that kept me going okay and just on the same note so animes was like I said like

like we all know right only 2% of the aspirants are actually able to take this consistent activity week on week month

on month right from the start and so what we've done from this year on in UAP is that the mentor which is assigned to

you and you know he'll have let's say 100 more students you'll all sit together in attempted life because

otherwise you will not attempt it chances are that you would avoid these things as much as you can till you think

in your head that you're perfectly suited to not now write a good answer and get best marks because that's how

generally we are wired so because of the importance of this thing we are making live sessions where you'll write the

answers no matter what no matter how bad it is anyway so with that as a backdrop let's jump on to the kind of current

affairs notes or the general static notes that you were you know making and uh why don't you like open up your PDF

uh I'll stop sharing from this and uh you share some of your notes which we scanned for you so that and

take the students through the evolution of those notes so that notes could be after referring to

our notes they should be like something okay awesome so I'll show you some uh notes

that are made in different layers yeah yeah so these uh is my screen

visible yeah yeah yeah it's visible so we'll provide all these notes for free the ank scan that can also be

obtained from his own telegram group uh The X Factor notes which you guys are talking about on the chat are the are

for main specifically so that is something we worked with animation the last two months before he goes to laasa

but those would be separate animes go ahead so so these are let's say mostly GS3 K notes economic K notes this I was

making from this is where my one notes look like this this were basically taken out from

Samar Manan issue about da sector to they would have given Indian Dairy sector uh things and all of these the

current affairs magazine the things were like this let's say there is a significance of that

constants of that government initiatives and Way Forward ESS may or may not like there are some topics s uh under this uh

like headings they used to give but I understood that I saw a lot of topper copies answer sheets and I saw key

everybody like more or less your answer is that what is the significance what are the challenges what are the steps

taken and what is the way forward and in introduction you have to write data and all so while making notes these were my

week one week two notes by which I was making from Samar man fishery sector there is an issue so I'll make my notes

in a way starting only I will put two three data points and that is how my answer would also look like when I'm

writing an answer if there is an like topic on Fisheries sector So my answer starting would also be on these data

points and schemes and everything are there but you see my first layer would have been made in Black pin but let's

say after 3 four months another certain things came in fishery sector for example so whatever the new things that

I gotten I had added here and there and maybe something after reading from somewhere else I would have gotten do3

committees where in the last I've written Mina Kumari committee and asok delai committee so I would I used to

make add-ons to that but whatever was coming from s man I was try to make this like a word p see so this is how my

answer also looked like food security and line I would give livelihoods and then I would give a one line but I would

ensure that in every of my argument there would be value addition material a data a court judgment a statistics an

example um any of these things so this is how you write your answers also right you give an argument and explain it so I

was not writing a five page notes on fishery sector I was comp like uh compressing that which which is

replicable in my answers and I was comfortable at this but I was able to understand ke food security how it is

helping because this is protein rich and all and this can we ask from the J if they want to see notes from particular

theme so that they can relate with the stuff that students who are out here just give me the topic which you want to

see the notes from so that you can relate that's the that's the thing yeah mentorship is all about very very

practical stuff so what you've done versus what ranker does how far you are how can you bridge the gap fastest

that's the thing anim you can read the chat and maybe history okay anything from history let's

let's pick up okay so history I'll tell because uh one

second so I'll tell you also essay notes the are one page of notes that I have which was making organically from

samachar Manan those were mostly GS2 and GS3 because in current affairs magazine you will not get history right apart

from that there somebody some uh UNESCO world heritage site as thing otherwise you'll not get so this is how

my samachar man notes looked like which was also one pager because a lot of people have been saying it's not

practically possible week once notes but I have no incentive to lie so uh even there was then I will not lie

but uh but I'm seeing you uh I'll explain my note making process that it becomes so this is what was my

organ like GS2 and GS3 major stuffs and just zoom out your notes okay so that you know we able to see the

screen just this is my governance notes for example this protecting tribes

cooperatives ssgs issues of pressure groups so on and so forth a lot of beach beach value addition you can see in

different pen pens but let's say these like somebody asking quality federalism and all

this this is what also for example I would have one pager note of federalism as well which would I would have gotten

out of SAR Manan but in the month I started in February but in the month of uh October November December I sat down

with the syllabus and saw in what topics I do not have uh notes for because apart from saman Manan I also wrote something

called MEP which which is part of UAP as well Mains evaluation program where I was writing main tests before I started

my full fleder preparation for prelims so in the month of October November December I wrote few tests again here at

CD so for that I Was preparing AA next test is so see and reved that but the one what

would I do so couple of things I had used U the main 65 for only Those

portions I had not gotten uh notes organically from samachar Manan the yearly of

compilation and second of so few of the things that you see here now might be from there but this is where I made end

only those topics which I felt only and I used to match with the syllabus so that was my second aspect of

not making I consciously sat down with the syllabus and ured everything in the syllabus is covered in my notes so as

say federalism Judiciary I covered few of them would have been covered judicia you see this might have been covered

from Samar Manan itself and few I added from the yearly compilation but for history for example

I'll have to check my history notes uh I'll have to check I'll share

reshare my screen I'll just check my history notes okay some people while you're

doing that uh are asking that if you could take through a process of how do you pick up

a topic and then notes basic level then as you add more advanced level stuff or the you know the X Factor stuff which we

have used in the mains Evolution like most of us out here are beginners right so imagine like

starting there and having the legit doubts and then how do you gain that Insight

ke because this is all about cracking the exam with the best possible marks right you got one of the highest I think

in Mains 473 so a be example if you remember because I will also Share three answers uh which I got from

which is a beginner answer a let's say veteran answer and a ranker level answer and Ma so I'll also make that very

apparent but yeah so my history notes are getting download I also don't have my notes I'm

downloading for my own telegram channel so yeah we'll give the link of animam Channel towards the end okay everyone uh

yeah but uh you asking like how how did I so yes a lot of that came organically did not come in day one but I saw a lot

of Toppers copies freely available on internet and so how they're writing and they understood like the max they can

write are two pages and three pages and S minute you have to write a two pager 10 marker and 11 minutes May three pager

15 marker so what is the point to have these elaborate notes when you'll be able to

write so and it is important compress notes because I'll be able to revise them properly as well jly so any topic

that I was choosing any topic came in current affairs magazine tomorrow you'll get like somebody was writing the notes

there is an issue about judicial appointment High courtman something so then judicial appointment is an issue so

I'll make one page of note for judicial appointments and current magazine there is an issue about particular incident

about high court judge issue they will give a background of entire judici appointment articles what should be done

International best practices so on and so forth so that was made uh given in the current AFF magazine so USIS I was

putting up up and I was compressing it up like heading smaller Lo phrases cing and an argument but what I understood

what is X Factor and what I like framework for for every argument I've given I will

have to give a value addition material it can't be my opinion it has to be backed up by something so a data a

committee recommendation or a court judgment a case study an example anything that was the idea so I was

consciously adding things data materials while I was making notes later correct right so was there a

separate compilation then for all the court judgments on this yes I'm assuming this happened very late so that also I

was showing I'll show also which way made uh sub notes I mean this is important for everyone to

understand right notes upgrade step by step answer writing better step by step and it's important to keep this in mind

so that you don't get overwhelmed by the process because you know I can I can only nudge animage to go back to his

memory and tell you only so much right you'll have to take the leap of faith and actually follow what he's saying uh

are your history notes downloaded I I don't know my telegram is swing connecting is there anybody who

could download my history notes to my telegram Channel wait uh let me share the let me share the next thing download

okay so but I'll share my uh notes uh the one that you was saying now can I are you sharing should I I'll

stop sharing then uh for examp those GS3 I showed polity Governor show my history as well but for example

this yeah so this is a compilation I made let's say after prelims this is for quick

revision like I can only understand I can't even make you understand what is this but this is everything that I had

to revise for internal security so all the data at one place the committee recommendations what they saying I mean

I can completely understand what I had written but might be difficult for so this is these are your only notes

there's no other Draft before for this which you had made yeah there is so there is internal security notes as well

which are like 50 60 Pages those 50 60 pages I made either half of them from most like 75 80% from Samar Manan and

20% Which was left out from the yearly compilation magazine okay on top of that I did this

and also also after prelims I had used a value addition quent material during my time there was no X Factor notes so I

had to rely on a other compilation for this uh content enrichment stuff as well where have had one places a lot of

things like the court judgments data statistics but also notes everything that was there that also was putting at

one place even for example my polity notes I'll show you like

this this is all my court judgments at one place and like one committee is this one side but every this six pages or so

uh like four pages or five pages are my uh all all of these things similarly F to my

Society uh yeah

yeah this is something I had done after uh prelims like women everything in a

compressed manner because now you would be done with your content conceptual Clarity

would have done you'll just have to yeah this is for last minute notes so this done very late but one theme one page

was happening organically week one say better maybe structure uh on top of that October

November December I ensured I enriched my notes notes from yearly magazine yearly

magazine of previous year because yearly magazines are released this time after prelims but I was doing that in October

November December so yearly magazine of previous year and after prelims I did yes sub last minute

notes okay I have a I have a question which mostly people have an so you also studied the pyqs at least

for the mains yes meticulously right at least in so what we do what we've done from this year onwards is given all the

wisdom that you've shared like you've been sharing for six months now we've to syus upsc the one which they give by the

book P last what are some of the themes which come out as the PRI one themes from that like those we call Micro

themes this year and it's important that you prioritize those micro themes above anything else and you try to see how

much already has been exploited by upsc and how much is still to exploit because it's a subjective exam set by some

examiner so you have you get some bent of mind so let's say for

example when I'm oob dece mid when I consciously started top because I have to give a me test now so

I used to let say internal security I sat down with internal security and say okay these are the

portions have been done by Manan and these are portions which are left so I would go back and see Mains uh pyq topic

wise free telegram topic wise means pyqs so I just go about let's say India and its borders these are the type of

questions so Orient my notes also these are the topics so I'll make my notes also that

way for example federalism I'll check what are the different types of questions are asked in federalism so

I'll ensure everything I will put that that way because Federalism is a bro concept federalism there are

asymmetrical federalism symmetrical federalism competitive federalism intered water

disputes I would see this is the way they are coming like bre or topic they asking and that

is how I'll prepare for subject like dis management I found out every year they're

asking more like General so then I did not do that in a lot of depth that Clarity I got by seeing pyqs kitna depth

and kitna breadth and also what are this themes as they mentioning this are different themes that is being asked

I'll ensure governance where they're asking Education Health tribes pressure groups ssgs micro Finance so I'll ensure

I have notes on this hm sense makes sense let me share a few slides you know just to put more things into

perspective um so I mean looking at your notes and this

is what we made so one of the things which you get now are flash notes from us wherein

Jo we've cated an notes and last year ranker who were part of UAP as well plus the whole team sat down and

these are the stuff that we give to you after you would have read your lakmi an now these are the ways in which this is

how an engineering mind which kind of objectifies things and put them into structures and tables this is how we go

about so just giving you a sneak peek into how we have reimagined the revision ready books

which you should be having to notes that is the highest priority every ranker worth his salt or her salt has their own

notes written down I'll sh share the I'll ask the team to share the link to download this for free to you guys but

this is where you know we're comparing something which otherwise will be just linear lines on books and you know it'll

become cumbersome now let me share with you my by the way this was not there during my time so I had to with this

things too the comparison Constitution better yeah so yeah this we made with because last year also

mentioned the same thing he also showed his one pager and you also had the same notes and we thought let's just put it

into a nicely designed stuff uh not just that it's C interesting and then this is so comparing the Constitution across

then it's like this fundamental right these are like you take the print out of this

or so this is what I had done myself last polity the are the this notes that you

see are my main notes I have my pre note which I have not shed anywhere because nobody understand that because this were

like this only which I made like three months before actual prelims when I had read lakshmikant like six seven times

and uh only those things which I feel felt is I'll forget or requests last minute revision or like things that you

have to keep in your mind for sure those things so which were like this okay but not as structured but

compress yeah because there's a lot in politic now not only they've gone philosophical in some parts especially

prelims is like very difficult now even for repeat rankers to attempt and clear but they compare a lot of things from

one chapter to another and you need to have that back and forth back and forth sorted out in your

head yeah also one thing I would say uh I would uh any day thank uh like UAP and radir sir but also it is a conscious

like I I saw read a lot of chat that's why I'm addressing this don't be very very very very dependable on anybody not

just any Mentor that you're enrolling with but anybody somebody said okay give daily wise plan schedule no I nobody can

give you and if anybody's giving you daily plan also a

one that is something good but in general if there's one essay it is not possible you should not

depend even the people let's say who are already a part of U I would advise do not make your mentors your therapists or

like somebody dependent you have to do something on your own as well yeah yeah

and I think I think post your selection a lot of almost everyone is like waking up to mentorship and they have just

reduced mentorship to a one siiz fitall AO plan and they're just talking generic things or it's doubt solving which is

what is not mentoring all about uh it it's a very fine balance between being assertive and getting to do things and

not being therapist to let you just pour out everything because that's not the part of the job mentors are like you

know your your GPS navigator essentially because they've seen hundreds of rankers before you who've

gone and you know committed on the wrong part on that note let me give you a live example of three kind of answers for a

single question question before you do that I'll just share my history notes like you were

done with the notes so for stating subject like especially geography art and culture and history what I did is

that since these are not current affairs heavy things so for that I sat down with the model answers of both the MEPS that

I was s writing and also with other freely available previous year means uh because there a static subject no matter

what test series would have asked in 2021 also that is valid so I used to download them and then I used and they

would have covered let's say do if you see the test series they would have covered everything themes because

sectional and full length test will check they would have covered everything about history so I ensured model testers

like I prepar this geography history and art culture notes for means for prelims I was reading modern history by uh

spectrum and the ncrt is for ancient so this is how my means notes look like which were from the model answers of the

test series similarly my geographies are also similar

this like this is how my Mains so see and few of the things let's say you can see smash

prel ANS which I to do value additions to SM test MCH test yeah my God these are very

dense yep see last Gandhi versus Arin tagur but so I made Gandhi versus BOS so this structure also helped me to answer

that question this last question Gandhi versus RAB tagur you do that yeah yeah yeah correct I mean to most of

us your notes will look like like I was telling you your notes look like a dense foliage of trees you know an aial view

of just heavy densy to you it looks like connected Islands this connect this is something I did late in

October November December I understand movement is topic Trade union mov because this is

after I would have read uh uh Spectrum twice but yeah so this is easy way I can also

revise oh these are like very can you zoom on like zoom in on this yeah

okay how many pages must these be crunched in like so uh these are Beach which also

facts and they like very prelims heavy stuff history I I have prelims and means modern history this is only modern

history I have separate notes for art and culture this is like I think 110 pages but again I with I can't say with

confidence I would rather say not to follow my notes this were not made so that anyone else would take inspiration

from this was made for myself you can the irony that you did not make digital notes I tried uh also I thought get

making digital notes would be helpful because I was commuting I was office my breaks I would be able to uh study but I

needed that pen I had tried I just did digital notes for essay

for and some people ask that were you reading newspaper or had you committed totally to the samachar month

and no started but month I realized I can't find time absolutely not possible but that does not mean I'll will

discourage you reading I would say read it uh but I just did not have time that's why I could not but during

interview I read extensively and means sociologically I was reading few columnist from Indian Express which I

would strongly Advocate as well uh but I did not sh share their names like the ones Nita men Christopher jeffre lot

sanj sasta Dean Gupta these people continue to write C Rajon writes very frequently on

intern relations every other day okay hey animes I'll move to the next section but I think are there any

college students here in their final year just give a yes on the chat College final year

students okay so now these guys would I'm assuming be attempting in 2026 there are lot many college see I was telling

you finally your students even in engineering colleges they bunk their placements they want to appear for UPS

but if somebody is preparing from the second year please don't guys go and join a society join give focus on

academics try to explore whether if you want to do civil services or not say I'll not Advocate doing this in your

first year second year end of third year when you have Clarity will not set for placement and

so fourth year you're starting that's a different story but second year third year folks also mid third year I will

not advise okay but you always wanted to clear upsc right that I was in from the childhood right so did you do something

in your here at College nothing not at all nothing okay but but a lot of things

that I did in uh College heal because I was an active debater I was a journalist and led the student media body and I I

was writing article every week continuously for two years so me answer Writing Practice I think now in

hindsight but nothing up this is out of fun that I had no obviously but I think this that matters right I was speaking

with zenen last year he got 210 in his interview which is like highest back then and I asked him okay like you know

what did you do to get there so his sister is a psychologist and I mean the these two guys they had this thing that

whenever they used to debate they used to debate from everyone's perspective every possible perspective he you know

what would this guy say what would that say which used to give them so many perspectives that he went to the interv

could almost figure out what does this chairperson or the member to hear from me like you know make out from their and

you know kind of understand their inclination that's how you order stuff which even the mock final cannnot teach

you it has to be coming from your best practices so that's what I'm saying you cannot be like dependent as

structure it cannot be you'll have to framework structure you'll have to prepare and I always say

this exam is more about preparation and less about learning but you have to intuitively gain

Innovation as was mentioning this for interview for sociology per se I used to discuss with my friend what is the

sociological perspectives of XY Z by are like in every Cafe is looking like literally the same sociological

perspective the CAF is in Bombay CAF is in DHI Cafe is in bunes are all looking the same why there is a sociology behind

that as well so open genuine interest things around you yeah yeah okay let me do this before

you know we run out of time I'll share with you because you know we want to make these sessions as

practical as they can so I'll share with you one question three different answers so you get a sense of how your Evolution

should look like when you prepare and you know these are the answers you get checked from your mentors and then they

discuss it with you the question is this development and Welfare schemes for the vulnerable by its nature are

discriminatory in approach AB I'm assuming you don't know anything about any and this you would give a very

generic answer and this is answer given by a beginner okay the thing to note here is

that there lot of what do you say vacuousness of speech right it happens sometimes that

you end up saying a lot but you're making hardly one or two points but you end up expending a lot of words for

that take some time read through this and once I show you the ranker level answer I'll tell you what an

introduction what a heavy introduction and a heavy conclusion should look like crisp when you attempting answers okay

so write on the chat if any anyone who even started preparing missing points

pointwise okay one what's the real Point

diagrams intro is too long so here's the thing this is what R told in the last audience already and that's a fun

analogy to tell you that you know you're not banging on with the core Crux of the problem I'll tell you the veteran answer

this is how a veteran writes still the introduction is slightly vas it's repeating the question

particularly in developing nations like India however the statement raises an important question all of this is

nonsense it's not an essay it's a GS question you have to hit it right argument in agreement with the statement

Tois ranker level answers this is how the economy and it's crisp you will see it

and you'll feel it and once you've seen this now if I take you to the beginner answer when you

seey up first level you'll give an average or less than average marks and you'll go on as an

examiner animes I want you to give a perspective to this like when do you get to this stage

of putting yes organically yes but this is something that I saw from toppest copies so notes also this is how when I

was s my one theme one page of notes also is the argument and then data judgment

because if you see lack of representation 14% women in Parliament charity based mindset 3% of public

building uh not like only being accessible to people with special abilities so I made my notes to but also

will say there is some improve uh you can improve upon is just I knew development on welfare scheme for

vulnerable Health I'll start with article 46 dpsp which talks about government has to make Provisions for

better so more or less this but so you'll have to this construct topic intruction conclusion so

a lot of my conclusion introductions were also made but not on day one this happened very late but I made I prepared

for that okay perfect cool uh there's something I do and I started doing this only in the

latest set of webinars because towards the end towards 45 minutes like now there 57 minutes into the webinar people

get overwhelmed and we tend to miss out on one point or the other how does this journey look

like now this is I've picked up from very famous uh podcaster SL writer Amit Varma

and he has this famous podcast called seen and the Unseen and anim is also a fan of it now that I've recommended to

him he once took a small session on the art of learning okay and I'll just take you to the two diagrams important for

everyone to understand this is forever in life not just upsc now whenever you start anything new your

no and you're unconscious about it so you just start this is where anim or anyone starts on the week one you start

writing and once you start writing you quickly go to the advanced beginner stage which is now you start becoming

conscious of your incompetencies with respect to whatever Target you want to achieve upsc whatever let's for the sake

of argument take upsc now during the mentorship stages mentors will not you know are not

palatable that way they will just sugarcoat everything they'll tell you hey this is what you're lacking you

completed your NC but you've done this but missing and you'll be made aware of all the things that you are that you

have to improve upon most of us stay in denial here only few of us are able to move to the conscious competence stage

where we've figured out these 10 things are lacking and someone has told us and you start moving towards that when you

are in conscious competent stage this is a diagram you know which your life kind of looks like this is a

Dunning ker effect diagram so you start on the leftmost bottom suddenly jolted to the reality you know let me do this

and you have this High esteem I know everything you start attempting one or two samachar month on paper and you get

it checked and you know kind of start realizing oh there's more to what I thought I think I'm not even able to

construct a proper grammatical sentence I'm not able to you know put my connected thoughts in a flow and you get

into a stage where you kind of feel the overwhelming weight of this all is where you know mentors come in

and they kind of tell you you break it into these promises and you start attempting this and then the

journey starts and once even when you're at the end of The Journey right that is the

reason why I ask anim to you know show their notes tell me what draft it is because it's a complicated

process even if once you this even if you have to tell in a webinar when you get the rang you'll tell it's

complicated yeah it doesn't happen on day one even after prelim you keep adding to the notes to keep making more

and more and you kind of keep augmenting the process stay put with this this is unlike the engineering and medical exams

this is a very different ball game upsc and you have to have a very different mindset these are the three phases with

which you study uh which is what we've told pyq you have have to make sure that your

ncrs and standard sources are covered those notes are revision ready they're augmented as you go and the third phase

with CD is that you know your everything is Hardcore exam prep nothing is just PhD let me see if we have anything

else yes now this something which animation didn't do for prelims but you know while we try to make sense of keep

recording themes can we also look for up p and Allied exams so not just civil services previous year questions but

also geoscientist papers and epfo because you kind of get a sense of where upsc is tilting towards and once you

have that sense and you will see common themes and I'll share the PDF of this webinar with you but once you share and

see the common themes if you have to prioritize your studies for whatever reasons you don't

have enough time you need to work on micro themes so once you figured out mm bravery and all

that not standard textbooks like you know like we just discussed yeah you have to go beyond the Call of Duty and

do some Google research and consolidate the notes The Flash notes that we have made for almost all the subjects now

will give you all this in one pager but it's always advisable up be research apart from that so this is it this is M

mot the most practical aspect of this webinar I'll open the floor to you guys type in your you know your questions on

chat we'll pick up four or five we'll consolidate the question and see if there's anything left which we haven't

addressed andish you can also read the chat and see if there's a question which is worth it

which we could have missed out on the webinar um could you please a lot of

things somebody asked could you tell me any extra Secrets like your article writing every week AA as in how my

background help I mean I said a lot of my upbringing my father and mother were

from Academia my PE Circle were all as said everybody they were not preparing for upsc but all into different kind of

politics social economic stuff so my upbringing has helped I would admit any day uh division strategy

uh like not reading anything on uh Sunday is new uh Sunday quit was all samachar month and test and uh revising

everything that I have studied uh from Monday to Saturday and uh I used to something I did but active helps like

once you are done let's say one hour of like any subject you're reading just then close your eyes for five minutes

and try to Recaps youate everything that you had studied at least the index of it that also helps for revision and track

your revision I used to tracky today is August 9 and I have read this so maybe is next Division I have to do in like

let's say after 35 40 days and as I was trying to make an Excel half partially successful partially

unsuccessful but I was measuring it some way ke this I'll have to next revise this so and also monthly revision this

Al this revision strategy my mentor has said me 100% credits to him he had also said ke up monthly also revise uh even

the SAR month and test that you're writing maintain an Excel sheet and see you are revising that coner dat so

measuring your revision was the key the most boring thing but the most crucial thing the most boring thing was

revising yeah okay uh one thing is just we did not talk

about but I will also emphasis on which has helped me is using Toppers notes in no way I'm telling use mine but I'm

saying you I had used two toppest notes jant Natata and Dyan Nigam because that suited me you can choose

anybody uh you want to but uh a lot of things is a rade things if you're getting then make the best use of it so

that is something I wanted to put out and for sociology also extensively had studied Niha B's notes uh that were my

base notes in fact so make use of topper notes as well as topper copies uh for both GS ethics essay essay ethics to for

sure uh take the best like make the best out of the topper answers for essay and ethics okay Fair Point there's someone

who asked a longer question and just scroll down while the process of consolidation of notes for Mains we

often faced with self-doubt if what I'm doing is right or is it sufficient leading to lack of consistency and

slacking how to overcome this and come out of the loop I'm assuming it has to do about getting yourself

assessed exactly so for me Samar man was every week so and then during the after uh 7 months

8 months I wrote uh F length test also subject wise full length test so that helped but as you saying I understand

and this self-doubt would happen till you also get all in rank one this will be a part of the process it's just that

uh you'll get be more comfortable with those selfs yeah and I mean I just to humanize

this whole thing I'll tell you what I while we have the shared screen I'll tell you even the rankers potential

rankers the people who've gotten their Rank and who are giving the re attempt process interesting upsc perf and there

still a lot to perfect so I'll tell you what the essays specifically have changed a lot over the last five years

the essay paper now it has become much much more reflective than what it used to be it used to be kind of an extension

to your GS studies it's nothing like that now you have to be having a good abstract thought and a good grasp and

philosophy of abstraction to attempt it I'll share an example the question so AB smash means animation is handling that

with us and smash me part is smash essay uh and you can start by the way essay preparation

start we gave a question to the X rank the rankers now the question is simple purpose of education is to turn mirrors

into Windows okay now you will see a lot of people might have interesting anecdotes but they will put a different

anecdote in a different place and they lose marks I mean if you know the I think

tsikiki you know he was a deco once and he used to loot people and then narad monei met with him and he said that you

know what whatever po you're acre do you think your family will share in that and he went back to the family and family

said whatever you're doing is your own Karm and he came back he became a you know a saint and then he wrote The Epic

but this example doesn't fit into this question what this question from essay is saying is ke if you're if you get on

the part of Education mirrors meaning your own ego something which keeps reflecting your own ego your own belief

your systems which is a very limited way of looking at things that will get transformed into Windows which is where

you let other ideas come in this you get it right you remember Gandhi G's famous quote open the windows and let the fresh

a come in let new ideas come in that is what the question is hinting towards but I have

seen even the best of the aspirants if they're not at their a game they'll end up misreading a question same question

another attempt here right on the verge of mahabarata Arjun was in the face of dilemma you know should I be fighting

this war or not and then SRI Krishna taught him the path of K

yoga now this is halfway correct because Arjun with his limited understanding of what DH is should he be fighting this

war or not is it violence or is it something else he was willing to qu quit the war and he put his gandh down this

is when kind of Krishna came in and gave him the Gita Kasa this is halfway there take another example same question

now this is an random hypothetical anecdote as Mano looked outside the window he could see rain clouds getting