It's that time of the year when a category-5 super-cyclone has made a landfall on us. The catastrophe has caused a lot of commotion, disbelief and uncertainty about the future course. But, there is always scope for the light at the end of the tunnel. There is always something to pick up and get going. It's time to focus on "Building Back Better". It's the moment to move one step ahead and re-strategize for the any eventuality in 2024.

Before I speak about what should be done, Let me first untangle the intertwined reasons from the debris and find out the causes for the disaster.

If you've watched the show "Seconds from Disaster", You may be familiar with this iconic intro - "Disasters don't just happen, They're triggered by a chain of critical events". And in our case, the Critical events started way back in 2018. There was a significant shift in the pattern of questions from 2018 and every year after that, the pattern was just getting more and more conspicuous. The questions of Prelims 2022 can perhaps be described as "Seconds from Disaster". We had seen a glimpse of what's going to be served on the fateful day of 28th May 2023 and yet, most of us failed to fortify against the storm.

One of the strongest reasons why most of us "Failed" to excel against the oncoming storm was our "Rigid Mindset" developed over time due to the "Herd Mentality". We were so occupied by the "Fear Of Missing Out - FOMO" that we barely had any time to anticipate the evolution of the pattern in UPSC CS Prelims.

Thanks to the every-year topper stories of "I solved 100 mock tests from various coaching" and the incessant publishing of "various modules" of test series by the coaching. A genuine fear of "Am i doing enough?" creeps up in the minds of the aspirants and as a result of which "mock tests" become such an integral part of the preparation from Jan/Feb. And when that happens, you'll never have to time to prepare anything by yourself. And if you don't prepare anything by yourself, you'll never have an edge over others in the competition. You'll just do what others do and you'll succumb as and when they succumb. Where and when will you find the time for the fundamentals, standard books and the analysis of PYQs? And if you don't have the analysis of the data from the past exams, then how can you be sure of the path on which you are walking?

We are time and again, failing to understand that the one of the most important factors to excel in a highly competitive exam is the thorough "analysis" of past data and developing an individual/personal strategy (based on our strengths/weaknesses). That analysis was not just "reading solutions of PYQs" and "Making notes of keywords from the PYQs". It is much more than just that.

PYQs give us a plethora of insights to build our strategies, and some of them are:

1. Why are the questions framed the way they are?
2. How can the questions be framed differently?
3. What kind of steps should we systematically follow in different types (structures/skeletons) of questions to solve in less than 72 seconds per question.
4. Is there a link between, How the questions are being framed, the number of such questions and the difficulty level of the question paper?
5. How to identify the "structure/skeleton" of the questions where the questions seemingly come across as difficult but with the right approach, become the low-hanging fruits?
6. Can the language used in the questions give us insights about the "context", "the intent of question-setter" and the kind of "knowledge/skill" that is being tested in the question? (Please note- The language here is not just words like "Only, All, None, Numbers, Names etc". These tricks and tips are just simple and plain quackery being peddled by inexperienced persons for exploiting the feeble/naive and to get commercial gains. These words cannot be generalized like those quacks do, but these words can perhaps give contextual insights into the questions and the minds of the question-paper setter, which hardly any such quack speaks about. Remember, there are no shortcuts to success.)
7. This does not mean that elimination doesn't work. Please paste this statement on your study-table "Elimination & Reasoning are the only scientific ways of solving any MCQ. But, Elimination & Reasoning cannot be applied using superficial or generalized tricks, but by understanding the context of question, by using the pre-existing knowledge and by understanding the intent of the question setter. If you cannot learn elimination and reasoning/if you show rigidity towards this, then Prelims will never be your cup of tea".
8. Can you train your mind with the structure/skeleton of the questions, so that you almost build a super-fast response to what needs to be done for a particular type of question?

The PYQs act like a guiding light and PYQs are living proof of the evolution of the exam. These are ignored by the FOMO of mock tests and other irrelevant things. As a result of which, we will never be prepared for the dynamics of the prelims.

If you sit down and spend time like days & weeks with PYQs, that you'll understand how complex and beautiful is the process behind this that it creates a level-playing field against those who can afford to take the coaching and those who cannot for some reason. There is a lot that goes into framing that question paper every year, which cannot be replicated by "mock tests set by a single human of a coaching institute". If you practice Elimination & Reasoning in mock tests, you'll just be ruining your mental wiring to deal with the real exam as the skill sets being tested in both type of exams are galaxies apart. Follow a middle path, mocks are needed, but not for building strategies for the real exam but to get going in the study mode and to finish your basic preparation. After that, it's just PYQs. It's a sin to solve mock tests instead of PYQs 2 to 3 months before the Prelims, you cannot be training your mind to play football when you need to play cricket in the real exam.

There were few glaringly obvious things in the past prelims questions papers:

1. The pattern of questions were changing and evolving.
2. Since 2018, It was very clear that you needed skills that went beyond the horizon of your knowledge gained from standard books and reference materials. There were statements in the questions that you must have read for the first time and looked seemingly unsolvable, but those who could give a deeper look were able to link it with various things to arrive at answers. If you had to pass prelims from 2018, you needed more than just knowing answers to questions, it was indispensable to take risks to solve the unseen questions and arrive at the answers. Without this skill, it was almost impossible to clear prelims. And this year, it just got the status of a law. It is mandatory now.
3. You need "Knowledge + Ability to apply that Knowledge + Ability to use Logical Reasoning" to solve MCQs in Prelims. UPSC wants people who work hard and think quick+smart, hard-work alone won't suffice.

It must be vividly clear by now that you were lost in "mock tests" and "content terrorism of various compilation", whereas the exam needs "standard knowledge" and the "fine skills to apply that knowledge". Those who never spent time developing those skills, were the ones to bear the maximum brunt of the catastrophe.

Therefore, the new strategy is not to add resources and join more courses, but to understand the path on which you need to walk to reach your destination.

The cause has been addressed, let's now focus on what needs to be done from now.

I'll share the Nine-Jewels or Navaratnas required for UPSC CS Prelims. Use these as your personal tools to carve out your destiny. They are:

1. Building Fundamentals - One needs to be very thorough with concepts and facts. There's no escape from anything. You need to sit down and learn everything that you find difficult until you master them. Without this, there's no path. This is the first step to success.
2. Vast Coverage for Vast Knowledge - This is simple - The more you read, the more you get a comparative advantage in the exam. More reading doesn't mean that you read things which are not relevant. One has to cover all the subjects (this one is for those lazy souls who skip ancient India, medieval India, art & culture etc. - if you keep doing this, you'll encounter darker days, my friend). After this, you also need to broaden your knowledge base through the Themes/Topics that are in the PYQs (There are hundreds of such themes). There are many themes that get repeated every year and are not covered in the standard books. Please don't rely on third-party compilations. Do you own hard-work and make things from scratch because that will help you remember things for a very long time.
3. Once you have an edge in the Knowledge. We can move to the third Jewel, that is, "Application of Knowledge" - You need to practice solving unseen questions on unseen topics where you can apply your pre-existing knowledge. There are thousand of PYQs of UPSC, Practice on these and devise your own understanding of how to apply knowledge.
4. Logical Reasoning - There will be questions where you will need to apply more than just knowledge. You will need to weed out things using Logical Reasoning. Again, practice this in PYQs.
5. Elimination - You have to understand how this works. It's not just something is false and something is true, but deeper observation of the entire question, the language of the question and the way the question/options are framed.
6. Probability - This is indispensable. If you don't understand how to use probability then you will never have a definite answer to "How many questions you need to attempt for different types of question paper". If you don't know how many questions to attempt, then you'll be always taking a blind attempt with Prelims. Your attempt would just be as good as gambling, being reduced to luck.
7. Time Management - By quitting needless "mock tests" and useless "compilations", you can invest time in developing skills (as explained above) to be able to solve MCQs in less than 60 seconds. Because, remember you just have 72 seconds per question and you need time for other things like marking the answer on the question paper for your future reference and bubbling in the OMR sheet. You have to finish the paper 5 minutes before 11:30 am, there's no other way. You have to master doing this.
8. Instant Ability to Adapt - If you have paid careful attention to what's mentioned above, then you'll find instant ways to adapt in the exam. Again, spend time with PYQs and think deeply when you spend time. (Will explain this on a future date with reference to the new types of question skeletons in Prelims 2023).
9. Clarity & Calmness - If you have clarity over how the question paper is set every year and how the difficulty level is spread in different sections, then you'll be able to remain calm and think better. If not, you'll be reduced to ashes by a spell of just 5 unsolvable questions, sending you down the lane of spiraling panic attacks. And this clarity can only and only be obtained through PYQs. It will help you to understand how you need to tackle/approach the paper even if you are not able to solve 30 MCQs in a stretch, in the first instance.

It's time to muster courage and find out what you need to do, instead of ending helpless in every attempt due to the FOMO and Herd Mentality. Do things on an individual level and don't pay heed to the distractions. Get clarity and walk the journey towards your success.

I can explain more and make things really easy for you to understand, but that won't serve the purpose, because spoon feeding will never enable anyone to develop analytical skills that is required for this exam. You have the guidance in front of you, now it's time for you put in the hard-work and race ahead. It has never been a competition among equals.