The much awaited UPSC CSE Prelims 2022 is around the corner. Since the last one and a half year every serious aspirant would have waited for this day. Anxiety level amongst the aspirants will be at peak. This a very natural thing. In these uncertain times, it’s hard to focus on the preparation and keep preparation on track.

A natural human tendency is to spend a lot of time thinking about the past or the future. As the exam approaches aspirants spend much time thinking about what more could have done or repent on the amount of time wasted. And they spend this time left in projecting future and wondering about what may happen.

But remember these are very precious days before the prelims and one should relax and focus on preparation and revision. Always remember every aspirant who has prepared seriously has studied almost identical sources. However, the difference lies in the way one does revision and approaches the exam date.

One should always prepare in such a way that you peak just before the exam and carry the momentum with yourself.

What should be the do’s and don’ts for these last 15 days?

DOs

• Focus on what you think is your weak area.
• After giving two-three tests, do one analysis of the paper. Segregate the areas where you score and also highlight your weak areas. Out of the weak areas see what all can be covered and what is difficult to correct. E.g. if you are scoring less in economy and environment, revise them and score can be improved.
• Be confident that you know and you will remember what you have studied.
• In exam nobody is absolutely certain and remember everything they have studied, so you will be equally well placed to clear the exam.
• Students should revise polity history and geography to ensure that static portions are definitely correct to ensure 80-90 marks. In order to check the progress, keep giving test of any of the premier civil services institutes.
• While revising, one has to keep in mind that students need not read every source exhaustively. Only topics which are underlined or highlighted during first round of reading should be focused on.
• Guesses which you take during revision test should be taken on a calculated basis. Avoid wild guesses and at the same time have the confidence of taking guesses in questions where you strongly feel is correct.

DON’Ts

• Avoid reading any new source which you have not read at least once already.
• Don’t try to cover everything and revise everything, instead prioritize.
• Don’t get worked up and think the time for preparation is gone and this attempt is going to be wasted.
• Don’t worry about what will happen if you don’t clear the prelims stage.
• Don’t waste your time in thinking about what to do in next year of preparation.

One day before exam:

• Try to relax by meditating and praying.
• Spend some time with family and friends.
• Check your centre, admit card, black ball point pen.
• Take timely dinner and adequate sleep.
• Don’t sleep during the day as it may create difficulty in the night.
• Don’t discuss about exam as it will increase anxiety level.

Tips for the exam:

• Educated guessing: There will be questions where the aspirant will feel confused between options and will have difficulty in zeroing in on the right answer. And thus, Guessing becomes very important in this MCQ examination. However, aspirants should never go for wild guessing.
• Pay attention to the keywords: Questions in the prelims are tricky. And thus, reading of the question becomes very important.
• Relating the information given is important: Sometimes the aspirants feel that they have not read on a particular topic and thus, that question they cannot answer. However, some such questions can be solved easily by relating the information given to your knowledge base. Aspirants should try to solve questions through this thinking in mocks so that by the time of prelims they have mastered on the art of reading between the lines.
• Time management in the exam: To stay ahead of time, aspirants should prepare time targets while attempting mocks.
• Always keep in mind that there is a provision of negative marking in prelims and hence one has to be careful while marking the right answer in the OMR sheet.

Certain tips on how to reduce negative marking in paper 1 are as follows:

• FIRST STEP: attempt the questions in the given order. Simultaneously, mark the answers for the questions whose answers you are 100% sure of in the OMR sheet.
• At the same time, cross the question number of such questions in the question booklet so that you know that this question is done and dusted.
• Take extreme care that the answers of these questions are marked correctly in the OMR sheet.
• SECOND STEP: now after completing the first step start the question paper again and start attempting the questions which have not been crossed. While attempting you might come across three categories of questions now-

1. You are able to eliminate two answer choices
2. You are able to eliminate only one answer choice
3. You have never read about the topic

For the 1^st category questions if suppose you have eliminated choices a) and b) but are unsure about c) and d) choices. Then choose the choice you are more inclined towards. Say that is choice d). Mark a circle on that choice in the question booklet and proceed to the next question. For the 2^nd and 3^rd  category questions do not waste time and move on.

• THIRD STEP: go through the questions on which you have circled the inclined choices. Analyse again and if still confused over the correct answer, mark the choice which you circled in the OMR sheet and cross the question number in the question booklet. In this case you are not guessing blindly in this case but are taking a calculated risk.
• FOURTH STEP: if you still have time left then again go through all the uncrossed questions. If you are able to eliminate two choices now, employ the strategy mentioned in last point. However, if you are not able to brainstorm to the same, the last resort is to make a wild guess.

**Please ensure that you do not wild guess a lot of questions. Try to keep the number of such questions in single digits.

Tips for paper 2 are as follows:

CSAT containing 80 questions on aptitude carrying a total of 200 marks

**Paper 2 is of qualifying nature and the aspirants need to get a minimum of 33% marks in order to qualify for the evaluation of the GS Paper 1.

• FIRST STEP:Attempt the questions in the given order. Simultaneously, mark the answers for the questions whose answers you are 100% sure of in the OMR sheet. At the same time, cross the question number of such questions in the question booklet so that you know that this question is done and dusted.
• SECOND STEP: Now after completing the first step start the question paper again and start attempting the questions which have not been crossed. While attempting you might come across three categories of questions now-

1. you are able to eliminate two choices(in English based questions),

**For this category questions, mark the inclined choice in the OMR sheet and cross the question in the question booklet.

1. you know the approach but are taking time to solve(mathematics based questions),

** Here, if time permits, try to attempt passage based questions over single based questions. However, do not try to take a calculated risk in the passage based questions because they are inter-related.

• you do not recall the approach/formula, are not able to solve a passage or have no clue of the question.

**Here, if time permits and if you feel you are not reaching the 33% qualifying mark in the attempted questions, then you can guess only the English based questions.

Prelims is the first step in a three-stage process and the first application of your year-long preparation. So do not spoil it by undue nervousness. Remaining calm and composed is very important.

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