Hi,

Yes, Even if you start preparing now – if you adopt the right strategies, do the smart-work , learn what is needed, and don’t go behind everything under the Sun – yes, you can clear UPSC CSE Prelims with just 6 months of preparation.

The right strategy should be a mix of online mock exams , study materials , and the recommended books.

Don’t worry. You can clear the Preliminary Exam within this short time frame – provided you follow the right strategy.

Remember, there is no UPSC Mains unless you clear UPSC Prelims.

Never underestimate the importance of UPSC Prelims. Only 3 out of 100 candidates who sit for Prelims, clear the cut-off score. Yes, the ‘Prelims Hurdle’ is more difficult to cross than Mains.

I have seen many bright candidates lose out in UPSC Prelims due to their over-focus on the UPSC Mains stage

Concentrate more on Prelims.

To crack IAS in the first shot, you need the right strategy. Candidates often find Civil Services Exam a hard nut to crack not due to lack of hard work or potential, but due to lack of the right strategy.

Here are some important strategy you must have to follow :-

1. Winning Strategy 1 – The Reverse Approach

Start by analysing previous year UPSC prelims question papers. Though the UPSC syllabus has mentioned many areas, you can see that more questions come from certain areas.

Not sure how to get previous year UPSC question papers? There are two ways.

Download UPSC prelims question papers (PDF) from the official UPSC website.

Practise UPSC prelims question papers (online) in the  Mock Exam platform.

Let us look at a sample UPSC CSE Prelims Question Paper of General Studies Paper 1. See the weightage of questions asked from each section.

General Studies Paper-I (Sample Question Paper) – Syllabus Area vs Number of Questions

2. Winning Strategy 2 – Follow a Test-Based Approach

There is no strategy that can beat Test-based approach .

This approach has the following advantages:

It will help you cover all the recommended textbooks and online study materials within a timeframe.

You will get proper exam practice . You can analyse your performance, find your strong and weak areas, compare your marks with peer across India, and avoid mistakes in the actual exam hall.

You can learn a lot from the mock exam questions as well. This method is much faster than learning from textbooks.

And if you are lucky, many questions in actual UPSC prelims may be directly or indirectly answered from the mock questions .

3. Winning Strategy 3 – Learn how to cover NCERT Texts Faster

NCERT Textbooks (from Class 6-12) are very fundamental in UPSC Preparation. However, do you have time to read and revise all of them – in the next 6 months?

Remember that NCERT Textbooks are not the ‘end’ of UPSC CSE, and you have a lot of other books and materials to cover as well . NCERTs are just the basic texts.  Also use easy-to-learn free online study materials, which will help you learn even faster than NCERTs at times.

4. Winning Strategy 4 – Learn from  Current Affairs Capsules

IAS Current Affairs Capsules (CCC) are eBooks that contain all important questions (MCQs) based on the Current Affairs for each month.

As it provide Current Affairs in an MCQ format (with reference links), it makes learning interesting and faster. Moreover, you will get many questions in actual UPSC Prelims from the CCCs and ClearIAS Prelims Test Series – directly or indirectly.

Though CCCs are designed for Prelims, the Learning Zone in the PDFs is equally useful for Mains as well.

5. Winning Strategy 5 – Don’t neglect CSAT Paper!

To clear IAS prelims, you need at least 66 marks out of 200 for CSAT (GS Paper 2) , however high are your marks in GS Paper 1.

Don’t be over-confident about General Studies Paper 2 (CSAT) paper unless you are consistently scoring above 100 marks in CSAT Mocks .

Analyse previous year CSAT Papers . See if there is any pattern. Find the priority areas. See a sample below.

General Studies Paper-II (Sample Question Paper) – Syllabus Area vs Number of Questions

If you think that scoring 66 marks out of 200 for CSAT is not a big deal, you may be mistaken. I have seen many candidates who end up worrying after the exam.

The difficulty level of this paper is steadily increasing. You need to take this paper seriously.

6. Winning Strategy 6 – Follow the 80-20 Principle

The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, is a management theory which states that 80 percent of the output from a given situation is determined by 20 percent of the input.

So prioritise your time, effort, and study materials.

Put effort into the 20% area which can bring 80% results.

Hope this information helps you.

Good Luck.