How to Crack IAS Exam? 10 Tips for IAS Preparation

Candidates often find difficult how to crack IAS Exam not due to lack of hard-work or potential, but due to lack of right start up. Civil Service exam tries to select candidates who are creative and innovative and aware of day to day life. Civil Service exam never wants one to be ideal. For cracking these exam take guidance from others but make your own strategy and follow it. So, evaluate yourself before UPSC evaluates you.

These 11 points explains How to Crack IAS Exam?

• Before starting the preparation, it is very important to have a complete understanding about the exam process.The syllabus is huge but remind yourself that it is something that you have already studied before! Brush up your past knowledge to give your IAS vision a start.

• Start by simply jotting down the entire syllabus into points and divide them into sections according to your strengths and weaknesses, and then proceed with designing a study plan.

• For Civil Services Exam only studying is not important. But here important is how one is using his knowledge to write particular paper within three hours counts the most. What one writes during these three hours makes one topper and anther failure. Here how much you studied it doesn’t matter, but how you are using your knowledge to write particular answer matters a lot. Hence having regular practice of answer writing is highly necessary.

• One who is able to make Mains exam never counts the hours and how many books he/she has read. But they know what to read, what not to read, how much to read, how to use when required writing the answers. Before starting the preparation find out properly what to read, what not to read, what types of question are asked from particular topics.

• Do not make a timetable how to crack IAS Exam rather than study for more than 4-5 hours of your day to dedicate to your IAS preparations. Once you have decided on the amount of time you will put in everyday and what topics you will cover when, make sure you follow it religiously and you shall step closer to cracking IAS in the first attempt itself.

• Make sure you solve enough number of mock papers for both Prelims and Mains; this is a must before you step into the UPSC exam for your first attempt. Regular evaluations will help you keep a track of your progress and help you keep yourself motivated.

• Keep a habit of discussing all important developments that take place in India and or has an impact on her diaspora. This is a tip given by all former IAS toppers who have cleared the exam in their first attempt itself. Informed discussions will give you an edge over others – not just in Prelims and Mains, but in interviews as well.

• The focus should be on gaining basic clarity in each topic, which will come only through lot of logical questioning. This is most important for clearing the prelims stage.

• For any topic, try to do a horizontal and vertical reading of all the related current topics which will definitely help to cover any topic holistically.

• A thorough analysis of the previous year’s question papers and the recent trends so that one is in tune with UPSC recent trends.

• For General Studies read Newspapers, Magazines, Journals, Internet (Most Important), and books of general reading. NCERT school books of history, geography, polity, economics, sociology and all humanities and arts (excluding languages, mathematics and science) from class 7th to 12th. Must read Science NCERT school books of only class 9th and 10th.