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UPSC Civil Service Exam consists of three stages-

Preliminary
Mains
Interview

To give you a brief about the exam;

Preliminary consists of 200 Marks for each paper. It mainly consists of GS Paper-I consists of the following topic such as History of India and Indian national movement, Indian and World geography, Economic and social development- sustainable development, poverty,inclusion demographics, social sector initiatives etc,Indian polity and governance-constitution,political system,Current Events nationally and Internationally, General Science,General Issues on environmental ecology,biodiversity and climate change. you just need to score the required cut offs against your category.

And then we have qualifying CSAT(you need to score 33% which is 66 Mark's only) which includes topics such as basic numeracy, comprehension, logical reasoning and analytical ability, general mental ability, decision making and problem solving, interpersonal skills including communication skills. Both consists of 200 marks, MCQs based. Prelims is mcq based, but still it requires knowledge coupled with speed in order to ace it, it's numbers are not added in the final list,


Coming to Mains it's more of a subjective type, one needs to write answer for Four General Studies Paper such as

GS-I includes Indian Heritage and Culture,History and Geography of the World and Society,
GS-II includes Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International Relations,
GS-III includes Technology, Economic Development, Bio-Diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management,
GS-IV includes Ethics, Integrity, and Aptitude
Two Optionals, One Essay, two language paper, there are total nine papers here. 250 marks for each paper, total is 1750 marks followed by Personality Test of 275 marks.


You can go through the following steps in order to start your preparation;


The first and most important step is to be well acquainted with UPSC Syllabus , learn it by heart, that's the most crucial step to crack this exam, to know what to read and what to skip.

Always have an integrated approach for both, that is Preliminary and Mains because nowadays what's happening is even in prelims, UPSC frame questions based on Mains syllabus,

Make a timetable,set targets on a daily,weekly and monthly basis,that's the only way to complete this extensive syllabus.

Equally vital step is to start reading any newspaper like The Hindu, or Indian Express on a regular basis to be updated as well as gaining knowledge which shall be highly useful to you in future exam preparation part. Put a more emphasis on editorial part, it will not only broaden your perspective but help a lot in answer writing,and make sure whatever opinion you form it should be well balanced. You can also make notes of this,it'll be very useful in answer writing.

When it comes to reading books ,start with basics, for each subject, you can do with NCERTs for this. This will build your foundation strong,as you progress, move on to other relevant books as mentioned below;

For Prelims, you can refer the following books:

History ;

NCERT Class XI and XII
India's Struggle for Independence by Bipin Chandra
For Indian Culture, refer art and culture by Nitin Singhania

Geography ;

NCERT Class VI to XII
GC Leong's Physical Geography
World Atlas

Economics ;

NCERT Class XI
Indian Economy by Ramesh Singh

International Relations & Polity ;

NCERT XII Political Science with current affairs
Indian Polity by Laxmikanth

CSAT ;

Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning by RS Agarwal
M Tyra's Quicker Maths

Coming to Mains Exam, you can refer the following books for four General Studies Paper;

GS I - For History , Class XI NCERT book with India's struggle for Independence by Bipin Chandra,India after Independence by Bipan Chandra,History of Medieval India by Satish Chandra

For Geography refer World Geography and Geography of India by Majid Hussain, GC Leong's Physical and Human Geography with NCERT Class XI book.

For GS II - Polity and International Relations , refer Indian Polity by Lamikanth,India's Foreign Policy by Rajiv Sikri

For GS III - For Economics refer Indian Economy by Ramesh Singh, read ARC report along with Economic Survey and Fiscal Budget.

For GS IV - For Ethics refer a book named Lexicon by Niraj Kumar, also you can go through study material of IGNOU.

Always keep resources minimal, read one book many a times instead of many a book one time

Writing mains is a huge task, for nine paper it requires immense practice along with knowledge. So, you have to start practicing answer writing in advance, even in a little way, There are many sites which provide questions on daily basis you can avail that. Try to give a holistic viewpoint while answer writing by providing political,economical and social aspect. You can get topper's answer sheet from various sites, try to analyze and study them minutely, you'll get an ideas about what to write, how to Express and present viewpoint in organized manner.

Practice previous year question paper which you can get from the site of UPSC,in addition mock papers, and test series which you can get it from any of the sites exclusively dedicated to UPSC, it's highly important to evaluate your performance while doing so.

If you have any other query regarding this, you can mention in the comment box below.

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