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NAME | AMIT KUMAR |
RANK IN CSE-2018 | 91 |
GRADUATION | IIT ISM DHANBAD |
NO OF ATTEMPTS | 02 |
OPTIONAL SUBJECT | GEOLOGY |
MEDIUM OF MAINS WRITING | ENGLISH |
MEDIUM OF INTERVIEW | ENGLISH |
AGE | 26 |
HOME TOWN/CITY | SURAJPUR, CHHATTISGARH |
WORK EXPERIENCE | NO |
WORKING WHILE PREPARATION | NO |
Amit originally belongs to Bihar. But he grew up in Sarguja District in North Chhattisgarh. The district at present is known as Surajpur District. He was brought up in Surajpur District as his father was posted in Coal India Limited there. His mother is a housewife. He did his schooling, Class X and XII from DAP school in Chhattisgarh. Amit says as a student he was a late bloomer, it was only between class VIII to X that he started performing well in his studies. After school, he joined IIT ISM Dhanbad for his higher studies.
As Amit says since he originally belongs to Bihar and there is a lot of enthusiasm for UPSC CSE in Bihar, so, it was there in his mind for a long time to appear for the civil service exam. What tempted him to appear for Civil Services Exam was the kind of opportunities this service provides to work on a large scale.
Amit gave two attempts of UPSC CSE. The first attempt he appeared was in 2017. He started his preparation for UPSC CSE in May 2016 just after finishing his college degree. In his first attempt, he was able to clear the prelims examination but he could not pass the mains examination. He again appeared for the exam in 2018 and this time he cleared the exam with All India Rank 91.
Amit started his preparation in 2016. He started his preparation with a mindset that preparation for UPSC CSE would require long study hours and a lot of hard work. But after his first attempt in which he cleared prelims but could not pass the mains exam, he analysed his mistakes. He realized that he needs to focus more on smart work rather than hard work. After that, he totally changed his strategy.
Ancient and Medieval History | Old NCERT |
Modern History | Spectrum by Rajiv Ahir |
Art and Culture | CCERT Website |
Geography | NCERT Class XI and XII |
Polity | Laxmikanth |
Economy | Mrunal Videos and current affairs |
Environment | Shankar IAS |
General science | Current Affairs |
Current Affairs Government schemes & others | Newspaper, Monthly Magazine by Vision IAS |
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GS-1 | Art and Culture (Same as prelims) | CCERT Website |
Ancient and Medieval History | Old NCERT | |
Modern Indian History (same as prelims) | Spectrum and Bipan Chandra | |
Post-Independence | Coaching Notes | |
World History | Coaching Notes | |
Indian Society | Current Affairs and Google Search | |
Geography (same as prelims) | NCERT and G C Leong | |
GS-2 | Polity, Constitution | Laxmikant and Vision Polity Magazine, Vajiram Class Notes |
Governance | Current Affairs | |
International Relations | Vision IAS IR Magazine, | |
GS-3 | Economy | Current Affairs |
Environment and Ecology (same as prelims) | Shankar IAS | |
Science and Technology | Current Affairs | |
Disaster Management | Online material | |
National Security | Newspaper | |
GS-4 | Theory, Moral Thinkers and Case studies | Lexicon and 2nd ARC report |
Answer writing is a skill that you need to develop. But you can start answer writing only after you have covered the syllabus fully at least once. If you try to write before that you will end up wasting a lot of time and you will not be able to frame a good answer.
For essay writing, you do not need any extra preparation besides the GS paper. Once you have gone through the whole syllabus, you are ready to write essays.
Amit took Geology as his optional subject. He took Geology as optional because he was already familiar with the subject from his college days.
Paper 1
Application part-
Paper 2
After mains, Amit was confident about getting an interview call. He divided his interview preparation
into two parts. One was DAF and the other was current affairs of two to three months before the
interview. He thoroughly prepared each and everything that he had mentioned in his DAF. He also did
thorough research on the hobbies that he had mentioned there.
For current affairs, he prepared all burning issues of that time, for example, he thoroughly
prepared issues like Sabrimala Temple, Rafael Deal, etc as they were in news widely at that time. If
there is a current affair related to your optional subject then it must be prepared well. For
example, during his time Magnetic North Pole shifting was an issue, so he prepared it well.
However, the final advice from Amit for the interview level is to be calm and confident. It's a
personality test and if you are able to handle it with calmness and could answer the questions with
confidence then that is enough. His interview experience was very good.
Amit started his preparation in 2016. In his first attempt, he was not able to clear mains but in his second attempt, he cleared all three stages of the exam and secured All India Rank 91. The journey taught him a lot of things, the best among them all was that he was able to understand himself better.
Amit advises aspirants to focus on two things while preparing, one is resources and the other is revision. As per Amit aspirants need to limit their resources and increase the number of revisions. Amit revised his notes 30 to 35 times before the exam. Besides this, you must have the risk-taking ability and the courage to move out of your comfort zone. Never let yourself settle in your comfort zone. Take life as a challenge, create new challenges and enjoy them. Best of luck!