Importance of having a study plan to crack the Civil Service Examination

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

The civil service examination, otherwise the most challenging examination in the country, requires a lot of commitment to crack. With a perfect strategy that should be created by every single aspirant, it becomes a smooth row to hoe.

• Why do you need a study plan?
• The exam competition exists among the country’s best minds, where around 8 to 10 lakh applications are received yearly. Among the 4 to 5 lakh aspirants who appear for the exam, only 10 to 15 thousand heads are screened through the prelims, which appear for the mains, and around 3000 get qualified for the personality test. The final rank list, topped by 800 candidates, has to appear between 100 and 150 for top all-India services.
• The syllabus, which is a vast one, requires a perfect study plan to explore. Since the exam provides a structured syllabus, it becomes easy to handle and cover-up within the limited time, only when you properly know about the content and create a route map just like a voyager does to reach his destination.
• Along with the knowledge you gain through this content, developing that particular skill that helps you easily deal with the questions is necessary. Moreover, there have been instances where you learn almost everything but need help to clear the exam. When it comes to prelims, the elimination skill is the one that helps to get the right option, and when it comes to mains, it is the analytical skill that articulates the ideas and explains an answer within the word limit.

Although these skills are not inbuilt, it has to be gained along with our preparation.

• A single topic requiring a limited reference can make you wander with the facts and mislead you. With a perfect study plan, you come to know the topics to be covered and approach only from the exam perspective, saving your time and effort.
• Even if you fail to clear on the first attempt for personal reasons, you get cleared by the next attempt only if you had a perfect strategy for the previous attempt.
• Things to keep in mind while making a study plan:
• Do not make an unrealistic study plan which becomes uneasy to follow and then drop in between. Analyze each of your calibers and make one that you can stick on with.
• Do not make a rigid study plan which you frame for almost a year and then have to leave in between since you cannot follow.
• Do not make an unbalanced study plan. Importance has to be given to both prelims and mains equally.
• How to make a study plan?

You can make a study plan by pushing your limits only logically. While making one, consider the following factors too.

• TIME: Although the preparation and the exam duration are long, the fact is that we have only limited time to cover up the portions. Considering ten months, eight months have to be invested to cover the syllabus and two months completely for revision.
• SYLLABUS: The syllabus, as well as the previous questions, if analyzed carefully, we can conclude that there are several core subjects (POLITY, ECONOMY, HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, ETHICS) and non-core subjects (ENVIRONMENT, IR, SCIENCE&TECHNOLOGY, ART & CULTURE) from which questions come from.

Spend 25 days for each core subject; by 100 days, core subjects will be covered, and for non-core subjects, you can keep aside ten days per subject.

• DAILY PLAN: Daily, keep aside 5 hrs for the core/non-core subject, 2 to 3 hrs for NCERTs, 3hrs for optional, and 2 hrs for current affairs. Revision has to be done daily or at the weekends. Even if you are taking classes for preparation, the time could be managed.

Normally, we, AMRITA IAS ACADEMY, used to interact with our students to structure a study plan according to their needs.

The policy here is to have a short-term strategy that leads you to accomplish a long-term one.

• How to squeeze it?

Time management is a crucial factor here. Following the above, you can easily cover up and get thorough with the portions. However, when it comes to answer writing practices for both prelims and mains, you have to adjust and bring about 2 hrs from spending for current affairs and static portions. It can only be brought by strictly following the study plan and maintaining consistency.

The end result will always be great!