I failed the UPSC Prelims twice (scores 80 & 85). This is an autopsy of exactly what went wrong, what went right to get close to cutoff, and the scientific method I found that changed my life for good.

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Let’s start with a hard truth: I never cleared the UPSC Civil Services Exam.

Here’s the frustrating part: despite getting close in my first attempt (in prelims), I was unable to clear it comfortably in my 2nd attempt

• 2021 Prelims: Scored 80 against a cutoff of 87.5
• 2022 Prelims: Scored 85 against a cutoff of 88

Above stats might look pathetic to someone who cleared upsc cse in their 1st attempt, but to someone unable to get close to prelims cutoff even after multiple attempts, they might look decent

It’s a spectrum and most of you will be somewhere in between

Below is the critical analysis that I did on my prelims prep, reasons for inability to clear despite getting close in 1st attempt, and the lessons I derived (along with a new way of approaching things, after that)

But before I start, let me just show you my marksheets, so that you know I am not speaking out of my ass.

Now that we might have established some trust, let us begin.

The Autopsy : 5 Hard-Won Lessons

Lesson 1

(main reason for getting close to cutoff) :

Master Paper Attempting Strategy before anything else

The main reason which enabled me to get close to prelims cutoff, in my 1st attempt itself, was a good paper attempting strategy

NOTE: As shown in Prelims 2024 paper images below, prelims papers have around 5 questions per sheet

Attempting paper in 3 rounds :

ROUND 1

WHICH TYPES OF QUESTIONS TO ATTEMPT

1. 100% sure of answer
2. almost sure (90-95%)
3. questions and options themselves giving answers (almost sure)
4. If you came up with some tactic from analysing prelims PYQs which consistently results in right answers, then these types of questions
   • Eg. Till few years back, in S&T questions one common tactic was based on the logic that it is very hard to say something is false with 100% surety, so if a statement says something is false, then that statement is probably not true; questions were attempted using this

BEWARE : be substantially sure your tactic works + despite that, there is a risk it might not work as upsc really gets unpredictable every few years

MISCELLANEOUS

• Count the number of questions attempted from omr; note it down at last page(will help in next rounds), then based on total no. of questions attempted in R1 and your experience of judging difficulty of paper from mocks practice based on your R1 total attempts, judge difficulty of paper and decide a range among these 3 for total no. of questions to attempt: 81-85 OR 86-90 OR 91-95
• During R1 itself, cross the questions you know you wont be able to attempt no matter what as you have 0 idea about them and answer cant be deduced from question itself (this saves valuable time during R2 and R3; every minute counts in prelims paper)
• If a question taking much time, leave for R2
• consciously read familiar topics questions to subconsciously retrieve data for use in R2

ROUND 2

WHICH TYPES OF QUESTIONS TO ATTEMPT

• Questions where eliminated 2 options(50-50) and are reasonably sure about finalized answer
• Topics you know about or have studied but have to recall so time consuming

MISCELLANEOUS

• Count total no. of questions attempted from omr, subtract them from the range you decided after R1, calculate the range of questions to attempt in R3, note down at last page
• If some question taking too much time, leave for R3

ROUND 3

Mark parallelly in OMR in this round as marking just before paper collection can be risky (and incorrect option marking in hurry risk high)

WHICH TYPES OF QUESTIONS TO ATTEMPT

• (goal is to reach the pre decided range of total no. of attempted questions)
• (the reading done of unattempted questions done during previous rounds must have gathered needed info from your subconscious)
• Try to arrive at answer using some logic

BEWARE : do not do random guessing or stupid logic just to increase no. of attempts

MISCELLANEOUS

• After attempting every question in this round, make a mark at last page, to be able to easily count every 5-7 mins how many questions attempted in this round and how many remaining to reach the decided range

EXTRA POINTERS

• Exposing yourself to ALL questions in R1 itself puts your subconscious to work to retrieve needed related info from your brain; then R2 this things happens again, and by R3, when you NEED to attempt questions to increase attempts, the info (and hence little confidence) needed to attempt the lesser known questions using educated guesses builds up
• Order of attempting R1 can be from Q.100 to Q.1 then R2 from Q1 to Q.100; this slightly improves efficiency while moving from R1 to R2 as the last questions in R1 are your starting questions for R2 so less processing power of mind exhausted
• Practicing this strategy more and more with mocks will help strengthen it, especially R3 (R2 also); as a result, accuracy for R2 and R3 will increase gradually with more practice
• Try to keep total no. of questions attempted preferably near upper end of decided range (or towards lower if you think paper was extremely difficult)
  

I polished this strategy more during my 2nd attempt by attempting many more mock tests (pen-paper based with omr filling), which I think contributed to moving me even closer to cutoff in 2nd attempt (score 85 vs cutoff 88)

I honestly think, if you have done enough basic reading/studies of standard books, this paper attempting skill is the number 1 thing you should master even before mastering static content, in order to boost you prelims score.

A lot of students do not attempt paper optimally (though a strong majority of serious aspirants do, so this is kind of table stakes, if they don’t, then competitive advantage for you, in any case, do it!)

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Lesson 2

(main reason for failure):

Do not do Current Affairs at the expense of Static portion

I think, main reason for my failure is not mastering static content.

Knowing static portion well, really well, is table stakes. Many students don’t realise this until their couple of attempts are over (like the author of this article). They give disproportionately more importance to current affairs(CAs).

The amount of time I gave to CAs, if I had given 50% of that time to strengthening my static portion, I think, my chances of clearing prelims comfortably (by a margin of around 15-20 marks above cutoff) would have gone up drastically, I’d say by about at least 50-70 %.

Below are examples of my CA notes, you should not make notes like this (you shouldnt make any CAs notes for prelims for that matter)

The reason I wrote like this is because 1 days notes used to get covered in just 4-5 of those lines, then i would get a false sense of security; at the end, they add up and revision consumes time like anything. This is why I stopped making CAs notes.

I suggest not making prelims CAs notes, not until you have done above 2 things (paper attempt skills + static portion master)

NOTE: I am not telling not to study CAs (read The Hindu daily + study monthly magazines)

I know this is easier said than done; we have this tendency in mind to do things perfectly, so we think, today CAs notes take only 30-50 mins so I’ll make them, but this is a trap! This is unsustainable, and when under enough time pressure, you’ll stop doing this (Try to avoid doing any unsustainable things during prep, like making prelims CAs notes; you wont be able to do it in last months)

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Lesson 3

(Another big contributing reason to failure 2nd time) :

Don’t dedicate majority prep time to mains preparation until prelims mock scores are consistently good

Having reached slightly near expected cutoff in my 1st attempt, I became complacent towards prelims prep, thinking I will be able to cross cutoff in next attempt with slightly more studies, and dedicated the time I should have given to prelims prep, to mains preparation (optional(civil engineering) and answer writing); (around 70% of the time till before last 2 months before prelims)

While this might seem like a nice strategy to optimally use time, it was not.

All the mains prep goes down the drain if you never get to write it.

So before you start dedicating substantial time to mains prep, make sure you are relatively confident in clearing prelims (CAVEAT: make sure you aren’t fooling yourself like I did);

How do you know that ? By scoring consistently good marks in numerous full length mocks

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Lesson 4

(slightly cliché but evergreen) :

Previous Years Questions (PYQs) are your spectacles/compass; semi-memorize them !

These are the spectacles you need to clearly view & filter from all the info out there, what is relevant for exam and what is irrelevant.

I had PYQ sheets like above for all prelims subjects which i semi memorized.

I was semi-obsessed with PYQs, had a separate folder of them, with official answer keys from upsc printed (as PYQs books often have latest few years’ pre papers answers from unofficial answer keys; pre questions repeat, and, upsc considers their previous answer keys + ncert stuff to be correct, hence, official answer keys answers important)

Before studying any topic, used to try to put in brain, semi-memorize PYQs, to be able to filter stuff (specially CAs) correctly; I think this habit paid off immensely, as my Hindu newspaper reading time came down to 40 mins (read optimally for exam)

IMPORTANT NOTE : building this filter in your brain is extremely important; the way to do this is almost memorise the PYQs

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Lesson 5

(your X-factor) :

Being good with Current Affairs (CAs) can be your X-factor

In an exam as competitive, and having prelims CAs questions as uncertain as prelims has, having a slight edge/X-factor which can help you get that additional 2-3 questions right, matters.

I’d argue, reading Hindu daily, with PYQs filter in mind, and consciously putting in relevant info in brain, from the newspaper, by making associations with already known material (eg. Static content), will result in numerous more questions being correct, more than what an X-factor might provide.

I used to do this : consciously putting important prelims info in brain, thinking if and how will I be able to recall something during exam (using some learning tactic, associations, etc)

NOTE : this skill takes time to develop and improves with practice

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Facing one of life’s most difficult decisions:

Whether to continue and fight harder OR Move on

To say I was sad after failing prelims second time, would be a gross under statement. I was devastated. From the various answer keys, I was getting my marks in the range of 84-90. The general view was 2022 paper was difficult and cutoff would go low, around lower to mid 80s

So I was really anxious the whole time after prelims till the results came

When the results came, and I did not find my roll number in the list, I was devastated (did I say that already?)

I remember putting up an insane amount of courage to tell my mom, trying extremely hard not to cry in front of her(barely successful), saying ‘Agle saal pakka ho jayega aap pareshan mat hoiye’ (next year I will surely crack it please don’t worry) , to which she replied, ‘humko pata hai ye exam kitna tough hai 1-2 attempt men kisi ka Nahin nikalta beta tum pareshan mat ho agle saal ho jayega, nahin to uske agle saal’ (I know how tough this exam is, barely anyone is able to crack in 1-2 attempts, you’ll crack it next year or the year after that, don’t you worry)

Our mothers are the ultimate source of optimism for us; whenever you feel under confident, go to your mother and she might pump you up (though her reasoning might lack substance, which you should be acutely aware of (gotta be a rationalist first!))

I had to now make a big decision

I was not as stable financially as I would like to be at that stage, that I could continue with another attempt without a financial backup

After a lot of deliberation and soul crushing brainstorming over next couple of weeks, I took the decision to have a solid backup(software development) before committing to the prep again, so that I will be free from the mental anxiety related to my finances, that I was experiencing at that time.

Also a break from prep to something else sounded nice, after all, it had been 2.5 years of slogging

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New beginnings and the serendipitous/YouTube algo baba triggered encounter

After a couple of months after I started learning software development, I was on youtube for some coding tutorial or something and I got a suggestion of this video of a guy called ‘andrew huberman’; I opened it as I had seen him before somewhere on youtube

I don’t exactly remember which topic video was it (as I have seen a lot of his videos since then, a lot), but whatever he said just seemed to make a hell of a lot of sense to me, so I checked out more of his videos

In this way, I got exposed to his ‘dopamine theory’, and his ‘6 pillars’ theory, among other things

Discovering, understanding and applying these to my daily life, fundamentally changed my life for good.

Being consistent in learning software development, before that, was an uphill task, just like consistently studying was during upsc prep phase. But afterwards, it magically became a downhill task (I kid you not).

After a few months of consistently learning software development, I cracked a job as a full stack developer in a startup in Bangalore.

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Moving on

The experience of learning and applying Huberman’s tactics to staying consistent, improving daily mood, etc and their successful results motivated me to explore other proven, practical, usable scientific conclusions, tactics and strategies further, so I semi-binged through Huberman Lab podcast on youtube, read through blogs like farnam street, less wrong, read research backed books (‘Thinking Fast and Slow’, ‘Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger’, etc), so on and so forth.

After all this, my perspective, the way I think, the way I look at myself and the world, changed drastically

My new thought pattern and beliefs, made me feel satisfied with my career as a software developer, and feel financially secure.

I did not see civil services in the same shiny light I saw earlier (prestige, power, rarity, impact potential, fulfilment, etc), or rather, I started seeing my new job in a shiny light, giving me fulfilment

This is the reason I decided not to write the exam again a third time, despite my family and friends pushing me to write it

The emotional baggage of my hard work going to waste (sunk cost fallacy) that I experienced before regarding letting go off the exam and moving on, was drastically lightened by my new thoughts and beliefs

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Going Forward

After going through numerous scientific learnings and tactics from various podcasts, videos, blogs and books, I discovered one simple truth:

The solutions to most problems in an average person’s life already exist, and are already known, just not well known

The numerous ways I came across to tackle different types of challenges in life, in general, in hind sight, seemed to be perfectly applicable to the challenges a upsc aspirant faces during their preparation, like ‘consistency’ being a big one, and numerous others like it (forgetting what studied, switching study material frequently, etc)

‘Scientific Aspirant’, this blog, is my attempt to share those proven ways/tactSics with the aspirants who are struggling out there with the numerous different kinds of challenges that I faced during my upsc prep phase

I believe following these during my prep would have exponentially improved my efficiency and hence my odds of clearing the exam

If you would like to read more of my articles related to upsc prep, you can explore my blog (more articles coming up soon)

If you would like to talk to me, you can join me in my telegram group below :