IAS (Indian administrative services) is among the toughest exam in India conducted by Union public service commission (UPSC). You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. It demands one’s positive and timely efforts, who want to be an IAS officer.
Dedication is an important factor that helps the person to crack this examination. Consistency and regularity are the two keys one has to use for opening the lock of UPSC examination hence before starting the actual study you need to clear the below mention things psychologically:
- Be confident, you can do it.
- Don’t compare your starting with someone’s middle or finishing of preparation.
- Don’t waste a single minute.
- Be determined.
- You need to be focused.
- You will need self-motivation.
Academic preparations
The exam is conducted in three stages i.e. prelims, mains, and an interview. There is a different strategy for preparing each level. This article includes various ways, best competition books which you can count upon for your preparation of IAS exam.
Stage-1 Prelims:
This stage includes two papers, i.e. Paper1 which constitutes for General Studies and Paper2- CSAT (Civil services aptitude test). There are multiple choice papers in both the exams. Study material is the same with preliminary with a few additions. Here follows the list of important books that one may follow for preparing IAS and take help from Best IAS Coaching Institute
- NCERT books of and subjects from 6th to 12th standard
- For Modern History: Spectrum, India’s struggle for Independence by Bipin Chandra.
- For Art and culture: NCERT (Class XI).
- Geography: Atlas (very important: Orient Black Swann or Oxford) and C. Leong (Last 10 Chapters are mandatory).
- Polity: Laxmikant or DD Basu.
- For Economy: Ramesh Singh (for basic concepts), Economic Survey (Mandatory) and Current events Including schemes
- Environment studies and ecology: Environmental studies by Each Bharucha and Notes provided by the institute i.e. (Elite IAS).
- For current affairs: News Paper: (The Hindu or Indian Express) and Elite IAS monthly current affairs monthly magazine.
Stage-2 Mains:
There are total 9 subjective papers 2 of which are English and one regional language. Both are compulsory and only qualifying. Further 7 papers are General Studies 1,2,3,4, essay, optional 1 and 2. Mentioned below are the important instructions that can help better in preparing for an IAS exam.
- History: same as that of the preliminary stage.
- World History: NCERT by Arjun Dev.
- Geography: Same as that of preliminary exam.
- Additional notes on world resources to be studied via institute notes.
- Indian Society: Institute notes are more than enough.
- Polity & Governance- Laxmikant
- Social Justice- Institute notes
- International Relation- Institute notes
Stage-3 An Interview:
The interview is the last step to crack an IAS exam where your critical and logical thinking is analyzed. One simple and important tip is “Keep calm and be honest” throughout the interview.
As there always exists uncertainty in the difficulty level of the IAS exam, but one should be confident and determined in order to crack the paper.
