UPSC CSE Prelims is the first elimination round of the Civil Service Examination. After you have qualified for the first hurdle of this coveted exam, begin the most crucial phase of your preparation journey which is for UPSC Mains. Since UPSC CSE Prelims is qualifying in nature, your score in that round will not determine your final selection. It is the IAS Mains exam whose score will be extremely crucial in determining your selection as well as rank.
Hence, it is imperative you devise a rock-solid UPSC Mains Strategy that will boost your score and enhance your chances of getting a good rank. The first step towards it to find a suitable approach on how to prepare for UPSC Mains!
While the experienced aspirants have a fair bit of idea of what should be done after prelims, many-a-times, the beginners or fresh aspirants are at sea. Hence, they look for a trusted source to find answers to their questions regarding UPSC Mains Strategy for beginners or how to prepare for UPSC Mains. Here in this article, we bring to you one such UPSC Mains Strategy that will surely help you plan yours efficiently.
How to prepare for UPSC Mains after Prelims
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Step 1: Give Yourself A Break After Prelims
It is very important to give yourself a break after prelims. You might have been preparing continuously for a year or more, so it’s important to take some time off of your studies. Take rest both physically and mentally for at least 10 days. Read newspapers or take a small vacation and prep yourself for another 3-4 months of exhaustive preparation. Contemplate about how your exam was, there might be three cases,
- You are 100% sure you will qualify for the prelims. Devise a suitable UPSC Mains Preparation strategy to ensure your success in Mains as well.
- You are unsure whether or not you’ll not qualify for the Prelims. Don’t get disheartened by the result. You can still get to start afresh as Prelims is qualifying in nature.
- You are 100% sure that you would not qualify for the Prelims. Don’t get discouraged. Reflect on your mistakes, try to learn from them, and devise a year-long strategy to follow for next year.
During this time, also read a lot about preparation strategies that can help you plan the best one for yourself. Take inspiration from your seniors or peers, toppers, or mentors who can guide you best in the most crucial phase of your UPSC mains preparation.
Step 2: Make A Detailed Study Plan For UPSC Mains Strategy
Once you’ve relaxed completely, come out of that zone, and devise a detailed study plan for your mains preparation. As you might already know that UPSC Mains consist of 9 theory papers of which 2 are language papers that are qualifying, 2 are your optional subject papers, 1 is essay paper and the other four are general studies paper. So, you should have a clear-cut strategy on how to go about revising each of the subjects and preparing the ones you’ve not even started hitherto.
Step 3: Schedule The Time You Need To Invest In Each Paper (Here Is What Our Experts Say)
Now, most fresh aspirants get confused about how to revise everything in 2-3 months that they get between Prelims and Mains. Here’s what you can do:
- Have a monthly goal, weekly goal, and daily goal. Stick to that and ensure that you complete each goal. Make small targets so that they seem achievable.
- Even if your preparation get’s disturbed for 1-2 days, don’t wreck the whole plan, rather, divide the portions you have missed across the week.
- Always keep 2 hours for revising what you’ve read daily. Also, keep the weekends free for answer writing practice revising what you’ve learned in the week.
Step 4: Enhance Your Answer Writing Practice
Since the Mains paper is descriptive in nature, it is important that you give due time to answer writing in your UPSC Mains Preparation strategy. Whatever that you read, try to summarise in your own words at the end of the day. Dedicate an hour each day to practice answer writing. Get your answers evaluated by your mentors or seniors to get a fair bit of idea of where you stand. Don’t fret about writing bad answers in the beginning. Practice does make one perfect, hence practice answer writing as much as you can.
Step 5: Give Regular Mock Tests.
Now, mock tests are important because it gives you an exam-feel, it prepares you to write your best answers in a stressful-exam situation. Hence, never take mocks for granted. Think of it as an opportunity to understand the answer-writing process, to write brief succinct answers considering the demand of the questions.
So, this is how to prepare for UPSC Mains using the 5-step UPSC Mains Preparation strategy that we recommend. We have touched upon the UPSC Mains strategy for preparing before and after Prelims. Take inspiration to prepare your own strategy to crack the exam. You can rely on our courses and study material for your preparation. Get in touch with our course counselors to get more information about our courses.