With 60 days remaining for UPSC Civil Services Prelims 2022, your preparation must revolve around revision and attempting tests. At this stage, aspirants become more stressed and anxious than the early days of their preparation. Having a foolproof strategy for the last two months can work wonders — especially for those falling on the borderline, scoring between 80-90 marks in the mock test series. Now is the time to focus on improving your performance and boosting your scores.

– Maintain 8-10 hours of studies daily

Treat your UPSC preparation like it’s a full-time job. It would help if you covered your basic books atleast twice by April. Divide your daily schedule into three slots. The first part would be for your static portions. Spend five hours of your day revising specific target topics. Devote the next three hours for current affairs revision. The remaining two hours can be utilized to solve the test series. 40% of your prelims could be solved using current affairs knowledge. Hence, neglecting it is not advisable.

– Follow a Static-Dynamic revision plan

Excluding History and Geography, questions on other subjects might be related to your books or current affairs. Hence, if you are revising a list of static topics in the morning, try to trace the current affairs developments of the same topics in the evening. This can especially work wonders for particularly exhaustive subjects like Polity and Economy.

– Analyze the previous years’ questions once a week

Check the last five years ‘ question papers before taking up any subject. Note down the areas from which UPSC is asking questions and the type of questions UPSC asks from every subject. You will be able to note down and remember relevant facts once you do this.

– Learn to complete one subject in a week

With eight weeks remaining for the exam and eight subjects in hand, you can allot a week for each subject. You can cover the NCERTS, standard books, current affairs, and test series in that week. Take a print out of the syllabus and read 5-6 topics a day on that subject from NCERT and standard books. Then check the internet if there is any particular news on the topic. Prelims exam mainly tests one on conceptual clarity of the basics. Hence, you cannot afford to miss any subject. To complete this ambitious target, you need to learn the art of speed reading.

– Join as many test series as possible

Prelims exams have highly confusing and similar MCQ options. For every wrong answer, there is a negative marking. Whenever you realize that you cannot recollect the answer to a question, mark the question and revise the topic after the test. However, once you practice test series of different institutions and evaluate the paper with a trusted mentor, you will grasp the art of elimination techniques.

– Make micro notes and revise them in the last week.

The last seven days of the exam might seem like the shortest days ever, simply because you run out of time to do justice to all topics. That’s why it’s essential to make micro notes beforehand and revise them. The micro notes must define the meaning of the topic and highlight the relevant factual information like the dates, institutions, data under it. A trusted UPSC mentor will provide you with value-added notes.

– Relax and unwind but not with social media

If you are mentally tired and stressed out, the chances are that you won’t be able to maintain alertness in the exam. I recommend meditation to calm your nerves and avoid social media in the last week leading up to the exam. This is because meditation keeps you focused while social media distracts you. Never compromise on getting 8 hours of sleep as you don’t want to be answering the paper in a half-awake state.

(The author is the Founder of ed-tech platform, Civilsdaily)




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