UPSC Preparation: CSE preparation tips by Aman Mittal (AIR 20 CSE 2014) - Part 3

Aman Mittal (AIR 20 CSE 2014) shares his tips on preparing for the Mains examination by providing sources of study topic-wise for Essay and each General Studies paper below:

Mains: Essay

Q1. How did you prepare for the essay paper?

Try and write an essay every fortnight after the prelims. I took a test series with GS Score with essay component embedded in it. This proved to be quite useful during the preparation as a second person perspective on my essays was discussed with me in detail by Manoj Sir.

Q2. Which two essays did you write and what key points did you include in it?

1)      With great power comes greater responsibility.

2)   Was it policy paralysis or the paralysis of implementation that slowed the growth of the country?

I generally focused on covering multiple dimensions in the essay. Given the time lag, I only have vague memory of what I wrote in the essay and do not want to give wrong information.

From my personal experience and analysis, I believe that essay should be more interactive, cover multiple dimensions relevant to the topic as well as effectively utilize quotations and examples from the real world.

Mains General studies paper 1 to 4

I’ve created a table, so you can quickly point out what you referred. Alternatively you can write a separate standalone “Strategy” article in a wordfile.

General Studies (Mains) paper 1

1. apart from your book/resource list, also comment on your own strategy after mains-2014 (e.g. after exam I realized that I shouldn’t have prepared xyz topic in so much detail, I couldn’t finish xyz syllabus topics properly before exam, I had expected UPSC to ask xyz from but they asked abc……etc.etc.etc.) [Same request for each table given below for gs2, gs3, gs4]
2. If you used “internet” as source of preparation in xyz, then provide website name as and where possible.
3. Since mains-2013 had new syllabus and many people relied on Xerox of some coaching notes. so If you used such resource, please attest comment on quality e.g. “it was too deep, but I did only selective study/ It did not cover xyz. OR its quality was not upto the mark, so I suggest future players to avoid it and use ABC instead…..etc.."

Anyways, here starts the list:

Topic	How did you prepare?
Culture	Spectrum, Unacademy
Indian history	Samkalp Notes, NCERT
world history	NCERT
post-independence India	Pradhanmantri TV Series
Indian society	Practice
role of women, poverty etc.	Newspapers
globalization on Indian society	Newspapers
communalism, regionalism, secularism	Personal Notes
world geo physical	NCERT, Samkalp Notes
resource distribution	Mrunal
factors for industrial location	Mrunal
earthquake tsunami etc	Samkalp Notes
impact on flora-fauna	-

General studies (Mains) paper 2

Topic	How Did You Prepare?
Indian Constitution, devolution, dispute redressal etc.	Constitution of India App, DD Basu
comparing Constitution with world	DD Basu
parliament, state Legislatures	Newspapers
executive-judiciary	Nespapers, Samkalp Notes
ministries departments	-
pressure group, informal asso.	Samkalp Notes
Representation of people’s act	Mrunal weekly important topics(sad u ended the series)
various bodies: Constitutional, statutory..	Internet
NGO, SHG etc	Newspapers, Internet
welfare schemes, bodies	Internet
social sector, health, edu, HRD	Internet
governance, transparency, accountability	Internet
e-governance	Internet
role of civil service	Internet
India & neighbors	MEA India App
bilateral/global grouping	MEA India App
effect of foreign country policies on Indian interest	Newspaper Opinions
Diaspora	Newspaper Opinions
international bodies- structure mandate	Internet

General studies (Mains) Paper 3

Topic	How Did You Prepare?
Indian economy, resource mobilization	Sanjiv Verma
inclusive growth	Newspapers
Budgeting	Budget
major crops, irrigation	Not much
agro produce – storage, marketing	Learned during mock tests
e-technology for famers	Learned during mock tests
farm subsidies, MSP	Learned during mock tests
PDS, buffer, food security	Learned during mock tests
technology mission	Learned during mock tests
animal rearing economics	Learned during mock tests
food processing	Learned during mock tests
land reforms	Mrunal
Liberalization	Largely known
Infra	Newspapers
investment models	Newspapers
science-tech day to day life	-
Indian achievements in sci-tech	-
awareness in IT, space, biotech, nano, IPR	-
environmental impact assessment	Internet
Disaster Management	ARC report, Internet
non state actors, internal security	Learned during mock tests
internal security – role of media, social networking site	Learned during mock tests
cyber security	Learned during mock tests
money laundering	Learned during mock tests
border  Management	Learned during mock tests
organized crime, terrorism	Learned during mock tests
security agencies- structure mandate	Learned during mock tests

 General Studies 4: Ethics, Integrity, aptitude

Topic	How Did You Prepare?
ethics and interface, family, society and all the hathodaa topics	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)
attitude, moral influence etc.	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)
civil service: integrity, impartiality, tolerance to weak etc	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)
emotional intelligence, its use in governance	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)
moral thinkers of India and world	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir), prepared whatever came along the way
ethics in pub.ad, accountability, laws, rules etc.	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)
corporate governance	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)
probity in governance, work culture	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)
citizen charter, ethics code, work culture etc.	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)
challenges of corruption	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)
case studies on above topics	Samkalp Notes(Mishra Sir)

GS4 Ethics case study answers in Mains 2014

Case	your approach/ keypoints
case1: your friend preparing UPSC	Take a positive and reformist approach. Law of karma
case2: Rameshwar the uptight UPSC topper.	Standard ethics case study. Listen to your heart and answer appropriately.
case3: no bribe no contract.	Never bribe. Use RTI.
case4: corrupt subordinates file bogus rape complaint against you.	Answer the notice and keep working diligently. Have faith in the institutions.
in  the remaining bol-bachchan type questions (e.g. why ethics important, why probity difficult etc).	Be ethical in approach. Never compromise and always analyse.

Stay tuned for Mr. Aman Mittal's tips on Answer Writing, Electrical Engineering optional and other important stuff concerning CSE Preparation.

  

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