Aditya relied on the self-study with the own set of curated Material at his own house in his room for this whole Journey of preparation, he just came to Delhi for the Mock-interviews, otherwise he was seated in his room in two shifts (Morning 07:00 AM- Lunch time) and then (post lunch till Dinner), His family played a crucial role in his preparation, right from the financial support to all the logistics needed in the preparation, and the right kind of motivation depends on person to person, no one can be a perfect strategist, as luck factor also plays a role, but still with the hard work , consistency and perseverance every goal desired can be achieved.
For Prelims:
- Aditya use to say, that prelims is not just about hard work, just rote-learning the facts, mugging up, what needs to be done, is that once the completion of whole syllabus is done (comprehensive preparation of Mains and Prelims, as Prelims cannot be done in isolation from mains) one should give emphasis on the Analysis part of the Previous Year Question (PYQs) papers, Identify wrong and right statements framed by UPSC.
- During his second attempt he realized (as already being selected for IPS), he utilized some of his contacts in the academy (basically the officer trainees who were Top rankers and were 15-20 marks ahead of what he got in his second attempt (mains examination) , had discussions with them on their respective approach of studying , what special they had done to achieve that extra edge, then using his own intellect, he devised his own strategy for his Third attempt incorporating all the relevant points enriched by his own thought process, and that worked for him in securing AIR-1.
- Self-Analysis do play a important role in the preparation, whether it is prelims or mains stage of the exam, he analysed PYQs with the perspective of the weightage of every subject in Prelims GS paper-1, according to him the Polity and Economy are the subjects to be given proper emphasis in prelims, as these subjects were the foundational subjects of the General Studies.
- For CSAT part, Since Aditya is a IIT-Graduate, so he did not find any difficulty in Maths portion of the CSAT but he used to identify some scoring areas like Reasoning and comprehension in which 50% marks are achievable , the last priority should be on selective questions of maths (for the Students having Maths phobia).
For Mains:
- Aditya gave emphasis on the Content preparation in advance and its enrichment throughout this journey and revision plus re-revision is the only thing which should be done for learning all your notes by heart.
- During the time between Prelims-Mains, he used to write 10-15 questions daily while keeping on timer of 70-110 minutes , this is the first thing he used to do in the morning, later on revising his GS subjects and Optional post Lunch hours.
- Answer writing is the must one should do daily according to him, as one should prepare for all type of questions that can be asked in UPSC, and that can be achieved while writing answers to the random question, as 7 minutes is not sufficient to think as well as write simultaneously, what works in the mains exam is, thinking for 30 seconds and writing in 6 and half minutes.
- He did not relied much on newspaper reading and extracted content from ChatGPT as well as Google
For Interview:
He used to think about interview as he started his preparation, as it cannot be done in few days, it takes a change in the personality which is a very dynamic thing and needs to work upon it continuously. During his second attempt, he gave at least 13-14 mock interviews and secured 236 rank, but he realized that, giving too much mocks will make your views and answers robotic and that can be seen easily by the panel as responses are not natural, so during his final attempt, he just gave one mock so that his responses could be natural. He also believes that mock interviews are basically having some element of marketing strategy and cannot give full picture of your personality, as in contrast, actual interviews are much cordial and the panel is expressionless-you cannot think of what is happening in one’s mind. Make use of words very judiciously before the panel, as there would be Cross-questions and you should not get trapped by what you’ve said incorrectly or unwillingly.
