Hi dear,

Hope you are doing well!

Now let's go through your question, as you know the only possible way, to have a success shot at clearing the CSE is giving it a wholehearted preparation attempt.

The best is to follow some of the known study materials and brush up on your high school texts, and follow daily current affairs in India and the world in daily newspapers. Its essential to keep a regular reading , and writing habit. It develops a focused effort towards training your brain to understand and analyze all information.

One of the biggest roadblocks for the CSE is the time management. The exam is conducted over three stages – the Preliminary, Main and the Interview . Each has a pretty large syllabus and the exam extends over a year. Most aspirants are full-time students or office-goers who have to schedule their preparation within the time they can manage outside of their regular routine.

Being serious about the exam requires a steady focus, and thus a separate time-table to ensure a consistent approach towards assimilating the vast amount of information for the exam.

Always remember that the UPSC states the intention of their test. It is to find individuals who need not have a specialized in-depth understanding of the topics but rather a comprehensive awareness of the history, culture, geography, and other functional aspects of India and a bit of the world.

The volume of information, towards an exhaustive preparation, may seem intimidating. Therefore, it is easier to structure the study plan concentrating on building on the basic concepts.

Highly recommended NCERT books.

The length and breadth of the CSE exam requires regular revisits to the study material. Your preparation schedule should cover the time needed to revise the read topics multiple times.

Remember:

The UPSC CSE exam is designed so that a candidate’s efforts, dedication, strategizing, planning, logic, analytical powers, and overall quick thinking, are rewarded. In that sense, every candidate’s life experiences also play a role in their preparation.

Though lakhs of aspirants apply and write this exam, the real competition is between only 2000-3000 serious aspirants. Those who study systematically and consistently, get into service. If you do the same, you will be one among them. Don’t have fears even before you start. You must enter the race and work hard to win it.

And I will conclude with this that it's just a another exam. The mother of all exams is Life. You can afford to fail in IAS, but not in Life. So, take IAS preparation as a phase in Life, not as your Life.

All the best!