Success in UPSC Civil Services Examination = 50% Knowledge + 50% Strategy. Both knowledge and strategy are important to clear this exam.
You might have finished reading your mandatory standard books, but still is your preparation complete? Do you remember all the important facts in your current affairs syllabus? Have you practised maps yet? Do you know all the important kingdoms in Ancient & Medieval History? Do you have a strong conceptual clarity on the foundational topics of Prelims? Are there any questions you have come across while practising your test series which you want to discuss in a live webinar? Then, register yourself for our next Ask me Anything Session with Prelims Toppers & UPSC Mentors Shubham & Anurag.
Open to All Free Live Q&A Webinar with Prelims Toppers & Civilsdaily Mentors Anurag & Shubham
How long has it been since you revised your GS subjects? First time reading of all books is always easy. In the second and third time readings, you will realise that your recollection of the topics is still sparse. All the topics might seem new, even when they are already read. In the second and third time readings, not only you are expected to write down notes but also start your subject-wise test series. So, how will you fit in revision study plan with your test series and current affairs schedule in the next five months?
Since, there are five months for Prelims exams to begin in 2022, do you think its too early to start CSAT preparation? CSAT, is only a qualifying paper but it definitely is not a piece of cake. In the past two years, questions testing the analytical, reasoning and aptitude skills of candidates have become tougher. Many toppers have had to write Prelims a second time as they had underestimated CSAT the first time. Case in point, is our Civilsdaily student and IPS Officer Shubham Nagargoje.
Most importantly, if you have not yet started UPSC preparation, but still want to give 2022 a decent attempt, then you might be unsure how you can do justice to Prelims preparation in the last five months. Anurag and Shubham sir will draw the correct roadmap for such learners.
Key-Takeaways of Free Live Ask Me Anything Session with Shubham & Anurag Sir
Both Shubham and Anurag sir have attended interview round of UPSC-CSE as aspirants two to three times respectively and cleared the prelims five to six times respectively with a score above 110 marks. In their Q&A webinar, they will be welcoming doubts from all aspirants in these areas —
1. What to target for prelims 2022? For those who have started their UPSC preparation only this month onwards.
2. How to revise GS for Prelims? How to form a test series and revision schedule that are in sync with each other?
3. Is CSAT a child’s play?
4. The different kinds of Mock Tests for Prelims. What are they and where will you find them?
5. Tricky topics of Prelims 2022. What are the topics where questions deviate from the standard sources?
6. Difference in preparation- Prelims vs Mains Preparation. What are the differences when it comes to books, current affairs sources and taking down notes on same topics?
7. Analysing test performance. How to change or increase your topic-wise sources in GS Prelims after taking a test?
Webinar Details
It’s time to level up and revise the same syllabus that took you one year to complete in the next 5 months! We hope this webinar will help all 2022 aspirants implement the suggestions of Shubham and Anurag sir
Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC) approved the country’s first-ever National Security Policy (NSP) – which is designed to be a “Comprehensive National Security Framework” and covers a five-year period from 2022-26. Pakistan’s (official) policy now leaves the door open for trade with India even without the settlement of the Kashmir issue – provided there is headway in bilateral talks. Earlier, Kashmir used to be at the centre stage of all Pakistani outcry.
New Security Policy
The country’s new policy would act as an umbrella document, to be used as a guideline for Pakistan`s foreign, international and defence related policies.
The five-year-policy document, which will span 2022-26, is being touted by the Pakistan government as the country’s first-ever strategy paper of its kind.
Key highlights of the document
Focus on trade: The 100-page policy document has also put out elaborate plans to open trade and business ties with India.
Silent on Kashmir: Kashmir issue with India has been identified as a ‘vital national policy’ issue for Pakistan.
No public discussion: Only a part of the national security policy will be made public.
Defying hostility with India: The document states that Pakistan is not seeking hostility with India for the next 100 years.
Curbing militancy: The new policy also deals with the issue of militant and dissident groups and advocates dialogue with ‘reconcilable elements.’
No re-conciliation with India: There are no prospects of rapprochement with India under the current government.
Others: On the internal front, the new policy identifies five key areas of population/migration, health, climate and water, food security and gender mainstreaming.
Significance of such policy
Pakistan and India have mostly been at loggerheads with each other throughout history.
During the first term of Narendra Modi in 2014, the relations took a positive turn when he announced his intentions to have cordial relations with Pakistan.
He had also visited Islamabad in 2015 unannounced to attend a marriage ceremony in Ex-PMs family.
However, the relations deteriorated following the horrific 2016 Uri attacks.
Concerns with Pakistan’s National Security Policy
The vision laid out in the policy: There are concerns that this will result in increasing unchecked military control within the country and affect the borer-tensions with India as well.
Increased corruption: The Pakistan Army has never fully exposed the country’s defence spending and it does not allow inspection of its huge network of economic businesses and real estate.
Might increase extremism: There are concerns that Pakistan’s National Security Policy will result in increased radical events of extremism in the wake of challenging the security issues.
Hamper country’s growth: Diverting resources from development to military, in addition to Pakistan’s philosophy and attitude, is seen to hamper the country’s social growth and economic management.
Implications of the National Security Policy of Pakistan on India
The policy hints at peace with other countries, especially in the neighbourhood.
Strategic establishment in India would need to look at the policy in the context of security challenges.
The policy will impact Pakistan’s approach to India as an open-ended subject by changing the military engagements and infrastructure built up along the border areas.
The economic pressures and primacy in the National Security Policy make India review its trade policy towards Pakistan and take advantage of better economic dynamics.
India needs to demarcate a clear distinction between geo-politics and geo-economics in the context of provision of the policy.
The policy is unlikely to bring any change in Pakistan’s active support to cross-border terrorism and position on Kashmir.
China as anchor
Stoutly refusing to open up trade with India, Pakistan has looked to other economic and commercial partners among whom China is by far the most important.
The security relationship was the anchor of the China-Pakistan ties. Now, Pakistan hopes that China will offer its assistance to transform its economy.
It looks to the mechanisms under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to play a crucial role through connectivity, port development, power production and other investments.
Factors behind the complex bilateral ties between the two countries
(1) Cross-border Terrorism
Terrorism emanating from territories under Pakistan’s control remains a core concern in bilateral relations.
India has consistently stressed the need for Pakistan to take credible, irreversible and verifiable action to end cross-border terrorism against India.
Pakistan has yet not brought the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks 2008 to justice in the ongoing trials, even after all the evidence have been provided to them.
India has firmly stated that it will not tolerate and comprise on issues regarding national security.
Based on attacks in India and involvement of the neighboring country, the Indian Army had conducted surgical strike at various terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control, as an answer to the attack at the army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir.
India had again hit back over the cross-border terror attack on the convey of Indian security forces in Pulwama by carrying out a successful airstrike at a training camp of JeM in Balakot, Pakistan.
(2) Kashmir
Due to political differences between the two countries, the territorial claim of Kashmir has been the subject of wars in 1947, 1965 and a limited conflict in 1999 and frequent ceasefire violations and promotion of rebellion within the Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir.
The then princely state remains an area of contention and is divided between the two countries by the Line of Control (LoC), which demarcates the ceasefire line agreed post-1947 conflict.
(3) Siachen Glacier
Siachen Glacier is located in Northern Ladakh in the Karakoram Range.
Most of the Siachen Glacier is disputed between India and Pakistan. Before 1984, neither of the two countries had any permanent presence on the glacier.
Under the Shimla Agreement of 1972, the Siachen was called barren and useless. This Agreement also did not specify the boundary between India and Pakistan.
When India got intelligence that Pakistan was going to occupy Siachen Glacier, it launched Operation Meghdoot to reach the glacier first.
Following the success of Operation Meghdoot, the Indian Army obtained the area at a higher altitude and Pakistan army getting a much lower altitude. Thus, India has a strategic advantage in this region.
Following the 2003 armistice treaty between the two countries, firing and bombardment have ceased in this area, though both the sides have stationed their armies in the region.
(4) Sir Creek Dispute
Sir Creek is a 96 km estuary in the Rann of Kutch. Rann of Kutch lies between Gujarat (India) and Sindh (Pakistan).
Pakistan claims the entire Sir Creek in accordance with a 1914 agreement that was signed between the Government of Sindh and Rulers of Kutch.
India, on the other hand, claims that the boundary lies mid-channel as per a 1925 map.
If one country agrees to the other’s position, the former will lose a vast amount of Exclusive Economic Zone that is rich with gas and mineral deposits.
(5) Water disputes
The Indus Waters Treaty is the water distribution treaty signed between India and Pakistan, brokered by World Bank.
According to the treaty, three rivers, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas were given to India for exclusive use and the other three rivers, Sindh, Jhelum and Chenab were given to Pakistan.
This treaty failed to address the dispute since source rivers of Indus Basin were in India, having the potential to create drought and famines in Pakistan.
Last year, Modi Government had stated that India would no longer allow its share of river waters to flow into Pakistan in response to the Pulwama terror attack.
According to the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, India can exploit rivers under its control without disturbing the flow or quantum. India plans to divert its three rivers to the Yamuna.
Major Achievements
Some of the confidence-building measures taken to improve Indo-Pakistan relations are as follows:
(1) Military CBMs
Agreement on the Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations and Facilities was signed in 1988 and ratified in 1990. The first exchange took place on January 1, 1992.
As per the Agreement, India and Pakistan exchange the list of their nuclear installations to prevent attacking each other’s atomic facilities. This practise has been followed to date.
Agreement on Advance Notification on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troop Movements were brought into effect in 1991 played a crucial role in deescalating the tensions on both sides of the LoC.
A communication link between Pakistan Maritime Security Agency and the Indian Coast Guard was established in 2005 to facilitate the early exchange of information regarding anglers who are apprehended for straying into each other’s waters.
A hotline between the Directors-General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of both the countries have been in effect since 1965 and was used in an unscheduled exchange to discuss troop movements and allay tensions in the aftermath of the 26/11 attacks.
(2) Non-military CBMs
Delhi-Lahore Bus Service was initiated in 1999. It was suspended in the aftermath of the 2001 Indian Parliament Attack.
The bus service was later resumed in 2003 when bilateral relations had improved.
This service was recently suspended in 2019 in the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution.
Samjhauta Express was launched following the signing of the Shimla Agreement connects the Pakistani city of Lahore and the Indian town of Attari.
It had been suspended frequently, but due to negotiations, it was restarted. In 2019, it was suspended after the revocation of the special status of Kashmir.
Weekly Bus Service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad was initiated in 2005. It has withstood the test of times and still operational.
Since 2014, India has been successful in the repatriation of 2133 Indians from Pakistan’s custody (including fishermen), and still, about 275 Indians are believed to be in their custody
The Bilateral Protocol on Visits to Religious Shrines was signed between the two countries in 1974.
The protocol provides for three Hindu pilgrimages and four Sikh pilgrimages every year to visit 15 shrines in Pakistan while five Pakistan pilgrimage visit shrines in India.
An agreement between India and Pakistan for the facilitation of pilgrims to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur, Pakistan, was signed on 24 October 2019 in order to fulfill the long-standing demand of the pilgrims to have easy and smooth access to the holy Gurudwara.
Failures in the CBM process
Although there are hotlines connecting both military and political leaders in both countries, they have been scarcely used when required the most.
The absence of communications has led to suspicions and accusations of misinformation.
There is a disproportionate emphasis on military CBMs and inadequate recognition of several momentous non-military CBMs.
Governments of both sides often use CBMs as political tools to win over specific constituencies, which can be very damaging in the long-run.
Public conciliatory statements, which are meant to be CBMs, can have the opposite effect if they are insincere.
Way Forward
(1) Reforming Pakistan’s political structure
Despite the democratic elections in Pakistan, the military wields real power in the country. This holds true especially on matters of defence, national security and foreign policy.
Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), consisting for personnel from Pakistan Armed Forces, is often accused of supporting and training separatist militant groups operating in India.
This makes it highly difficult for India to undertake diplomatic relations with the Pakistani government since it is not the decision-maker in the country.
Thus, a strong political reform in Pakistan, one that focuses on the welfare of the Pakistani nationals is vital to improving its relations with India.
(2) People-to-people relations
Propaganda is currently being used by both sides through the media to justify each other’s stand on conflicting issues.
This is creating misconception, hatred and stereotyping among the people of both countries.
This method is also used for political gains of both nations, with the least consideration towards people’s welfare and the need for peace.
Steps must be taken to facilitate travel between the two countries, ease up visa regimes, provide security for tourists, set up student and faculty exchanges, and invite professionals, intellectuals and artists to events to promote the bilateral ties.
(3) Promote trade
Steps that can be undertaken to improve bilateral trade include:
Remove non-tariff barriers and bureaucratic hurdles that are currently impeding trade.
Cut down duties
Improve customs clearance procedures
Proportionate trade is beneficial for both sides and is possible through the right government policies.
(4) Promoting soft diplomacy
Use of Indus Waters Treaty to promote hydro diplomacy. Both nations can come together to construct Water Grid between their territories to address the water problems in the region.
Cultural diplomacy can be used through the exchange of ideas, values, traditions, and other cultural aspects to strengthen bilateral ties, enhance socio-cultural cooperation and promote individual national interest.
Promotion of Cricket diplomacy i.e., the use of cricket as a diplomatic tool to overcome differences between the two countries.
To a certain extent, soft diplomacy improved the people-to-people relations between the two countries and eased the tensions on both sides.
Success in UPSC Civil Services Examination = 50% Knowledge + 50% Strategy. Both knowledge and strategy are important to clear this exam.
You might have finished reading your mandatory standard books, but still is your preparation complete? Do you remember all the important facts in your current affairs syllabus? Have you practised maps yet? Do you know all the important kingdoms in Ancient & Medieval History? Do you have a strong conceptual clarity on the foundational topics of Prelims? Are there any questions you have come across while practising your test series which you want to discuss in a live webinar? Then, register yourself for our next Ask me Anything Session with Prelims Toppers & UPSC Mentors Shubham & Anurag.
Open to All Free Live Q&A Webinar with Prelims Toppers & Civilsdaily Mentors Anurag & Shubham
How long has it been since you revised your GS subjects? First time reading of all books is always easy. In the second and third time readings, you will realise that your recollection of the topics is still sparse. All the topics might seem new, even when they are already read. In the second and third time readings, not only you are expected to write down notes but also start your subject-wise test series. So, how will you fit in revision study plan with your test series and current affairs schedule in the next five months?
Since, there are five months for Prelims exams to begin in 2022, do you think its too early to start CSAT preparation? CSAT, is only a qualifying paper but it definitely is not a piece of cake. In the past two years, questions testing the analytical, reasoning and aptitude skills of candidates have become tougher. Many toppers have had to write Prelims a second time as they had underestimated CSAT the first time. Case in point, is our Civilsdaily student and IPS Officer Shubham Nagargoje.
Most importantly, if you have not yet started UPSC preparation, but still want to give 2022 a decent attempt, then you might be unsure how you can do justice to Prelims preparation in the last five months. Anurag and Shubham sir will draw the correct roadmap for such learners.
Key-Takeaways of Free Live Ask Me Anything Session with Shubham & Anurag Sir
Both Shubham and Anurag sir have attended interview round of UPSC-CSE as aspirants two to three times respectively and cleared the prelims five to six times respectively with a score above 110 marks. In their Q&A webinar, they will be welcoming doubts from all aspirants in these areas —
1. What to target for prelims 2022? For those who have started their UPSC preparation only this month onwards.
2. How to revise GS for Prelims? How to form a test series and revision schedule that are in sync with each other?
3. Is CSAT a child’s play?
4. The different kinds of Mock Tests for Prelims. What are they and where will you find them?
5. Tricky topics of Prelims 2022. What are the topics where questions deviate from the standard sources?
6. Difference in preparation- Prelims vs Mains Preparation. What are the differences when it comes to books, current affairs sources and taking down notes on same topics?
7. Analysing test performance. How to change or increase your topic-wise sources in GS Prelims after taking a test?
Webinar Details
It’s time to level up and revise the same syllabus that took you one year to complete in the next 5 months! We hope this webinar will help all 2022 aspirants implement the suggestions of Shubham and Anurag sir
GS-2 Constitution of India—historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure; Representation of People’s Act
GS-3 Inclusive growth and issues arising from it; Effects of liberalization on the economy, changes in industrial policy and their effects on industrial growth.
GS-4 Probity in Governance: Concept of public service; Philosophical basis of governance and probity
HOW TO ATTEMPT ANSWERS IN DAILY ANSWER WRITING ENHANCEMENT(AWE)?
Daily 4 questions from General studies 1, 2, 3, and 4 will be provided to you.
A Mentor’s Comment will be available for all answers. This can be used as a guidance tool but we encourage you to write original answers.
You can write your answer on an A4 sheet and scan/click pictures of the same.
Upload the scanned answer in the comment section of the same question.
Along with the scanned answer, please share your Razor payment ID, so that paid members are given priority.
If you upload the answer on the same day like the answer of 11th October is uploaded on 11th October then your answer will be checked within 72 hours. Also, reviews will be in the order of submission- First come first serve basis
If you are writing answers late, for example, 11th October is uploaded on 13th October, then these answers will be evaluated as per the mentor’s schedule.
We encourage you to write answers on the same day. However, if you are uploading an answer late then tag the mentor like @Staff so that the mentor is notified about your answer.
*In case your answer is not reviewed, reply to your answer saying *NOT CHECKED*.
Success in UPSC Civil Services Examination = 50% Knowledge + 50% Strategy. Both knowledge and strategy are important to clear this exam.
You might have finished reading your mandatory standard books, but still is your preparation complete? Do you remember all the important facts in your current affairs syllabus? Have you practised maps yet? Do you know all the important kingdoms in Ancient & Medieval History? Do you have a strong conceptual clarity on the foundational topics of Prelims? Are there any questions you have come across while practising your test series which you want to discuss in a live webinar? Then, register yourself for our next Ask me Anything Session with Prelims Toppers & UPSC Mentors Shubham & Anurag.
Open to All Free Live Q&A Webinar with Prelims Toppers & Civilsdaily Mentors Anurag & Shubham
How long has it been since you revised your GS subjects? First time reading of all books is always easy. In the second and third time readings, you will realise that your recollection of the topics is still sparse. All the topics might seem new, even when they are already read. In the second and third time readings, not only you are expected to write down notes but also start your subject-wise test series. So, how will you fit in revision study plan with your test series and current affairs schedule in the next five months?
Since, there are five months for Prelims exams to begin in 2022, do you think its too early to start CSAT preparation? CSAT, is only a qualifying paper but it definitely is not a piece of cake. In the past two years, questions testing the analytical, reasoning and aptitude skills of candidates have become tougher. Many toppers have had to write Prelims a second time as they had underestimated CSAT the first time. Case in point, is our Civilsdaily student and IPS Officer Shubham Nagargoje.
Most importantly, if you have not yet started UPSC preparation, but still want to give 2022 a decent attempt, then you might be unsure how you can do justice to Prelims preparation in the last five months. Anurag and Shubham sir will draw the correct roadmap for such learners.
Key-Takeaways of Free Live Ask Me Anything Session with Shubham & Anurag Sir
Both Shubham and Anurag sir have attended interview round of UPSC-CSE as aspirants two to three times respectively and cleared the prelims five to six times respectively with a score above 110 marks. In their Q&A webinar, they will be welcoming doubts from all aspirants in these areas —
1. What to target for prelims 2022? For those who have started their UPSC preparation only this month onwards.
2. How to revise GS for Prelims? How to form a test series and revision schedule that are in sync with each other?
3. Is CSAT a child’s play?
4. The different kinds of Mock Tests for Prelims. What are they and where will you find them?
5. Tricky topics of Prelims 2022. What are the topics where questions deviate from the standard sources?
6. Difference in preparation- Prelims vs Mains Preparation. What are the differences when it comes to books, current affairs sources and taking down notes on same topics?
7. Analysing test performance. How to change or increase your topic-wise sources in GS Prelims after taking a test?
Webinar Details
It’s time to level up and revise the same syllabus that took you one year to complete in the next 5 months! We hope this webinar will help all 2022 aspirants implement the suggestions of Shubham and Anurag sir
Smash Prelims Program is back after a thumping success in Prelims 2021. Out of 25 students Santosh sir has mentored, 15 have cleared prelims this time.Our students were kind enough to take time out of their hectic Mains preparation and let us know how Santosh sir’s mentorship benefitted them in the exams. We wish them all the very best for the upcoming Mains exam from 7th January onwards!
https://youtu.be/oTRUMSOQEY4
Why Your Focus for Next 5 Months Must be About Scoring Above Cut-Off Marks in UPSC-CSE Prelims? Isn’t the last 1 Month Enough for This?
Every year, the competition for UPSC-CSE is increasing while vacancies are decreasing drastically. This year there are only 712 vacancies as against 2019 which had 927 vacancies. However, atleast 10 lakh students will attempt the prelims exam. This is why right now, it’s important to start having an Olympic Athlete mindset. You need to daily focus on scoring above the cut-off marks in your test series.
Civilsdaily Student and 2019 UPSC-CSE AIR 8 Topper Abhishek Saraf had practiced nearly 6000+ MCQs under us to clear prelims!
What makes prelims tough? It’s because the paper is unpredictable. If this year, science questions are a breeze then the next year you will have to answer advanced concept-based questions. Unlike Mains, Prelims has negative markings.
Toppers like Pranav Vijayvergiya (AIR 65) andSwati Sharma(AIR 17) have found Prelims to be tougher than Mains. In fact, Pranav failed to clear Prelims thrice. But, in his fourth attempt he took Civilsdaily mentorship and cleared Prelims, Mains and Interview in one shot!
Are you feeling low that you are unable to get the required cut-off marks in your test series. Worry not, for about 65% of the UPSC toppers have said that they scored below cut-off marks till December. But by June, they were able to boost their marks to get through the prelims hurdle. It’s time to be like them now.
One has to be good at elimination methods to choose the right option amongst two similar ones. Our Smash Prelims Program started as a pilot project last year with an aim to introduce step-wise improvement in our chosen 25 aspirants. Over a period of 2 months, Santhosh sir inculcated confidence in aspirants who were either newbies or gave too many attempts. This year, we achieved a remarkable 60% success ratio. Next year, we have set our eyes on 100%. Yes, we are ambitious and aspirational just like any other UPSC aspirant.
Why is Mentorship Required for UPSC-CSE Prelims in Every Step – From Test Series, to Study Materials, Classes to Doubt Resolution?
If you are appearing for UPSC-CSE 2022 exams, you might have completed your entire prelims and mains syllabus right now. So what are your main priorities right now? To succeed in UPSC-CSE Prelims 2022, you have to check all these boxes in terms of preparation—
You need clear strategy for next 150 days.
You need to revise effectively to remember whole syllabus at the eve of exam.
You need to practice lots of tests to score accurately, to understand elimination techniques and reduce exam anxiety.
You need to revise current affair of 1.5 years that you have been studying daily.
You need a mentor to fill the critical gaps that have been ignoring till now as you had no one to address them for you.
Santhosh Sir’s Weekly Zoom Session
Do you want to have a mentor who conducts and evaluates medium to advanced test series regularly? A mentor explains to you the different kinds of elimination techniques after you have taken a test series. Before attending a test do you want the mentor to discuss with you the study materials required for the test and provide the right notes with integrated current affairs? While studying a subject, you might have umpteen number of questions. Having someone who responds quickly and explains the topics in simple terms saves your time. And, after a test do you want an experienced mentor to discuss the right answers and motivate you? Do you want the mentor to provide you classes on static+dynamic prelims topics? If yes, then this is the right program for you! The registrations are open for all UPSC 2022 aspirants
Self Preparation with Mentorship: What do Civilsdaily Students think of Santosh Sir’s Mentorship for UPSC-CSE Prelims?
Santhosh Sir, Core Civilsdaily Mentor. He has attended Interview Thrice & Cleared Prelims 6/6 times with above 145 marks.
We asked Santosh sir’s students about their opinion on mentorship — if it was something that saved their time or wasted their time in studies and this is what they had to say:
Kamini: “If I can say in one word, then Santosh sir’s mentorship is unique. Before I joined his program, I used to score 90 marks in Full Length Test Series. Santhosh sir had done in depth analysis of my test papers and suggested ways to reduce the negatives. Right now I am able to score 100+ in advanced test series of not only Civilsdaily but other institutes. He is always available to clear my doubts and solve my issues on call or phone. No issue is too big enough for Santosh sir. He has always told me after you finish a test series, read the same topics again and take another test series the same day to see if your marks improve. From Santosh sir’s polity and economic survey notes, we got questions in 2021 Prelims. I always feel its better to do self studies with mentorship than join coaching institutes and get spoon fed with information.”
Sweetie Raj: “I am a banking professional, living with a joint family. Attending coaching classes is out of question because I won’t have time to read the books myself. Santosh sir helps me self-study by providing me mentorship daily. I study daily from 9PM to 3AM. Santosh sir has been available for 1 hour strategy calls even during this time. No other teacher would have wanted me to succeed as much as he wants me to. I can understand concepts by myself and don’t need help in that. I want someone who pushes me to complete the target modules, checks if I did my mains answer writing for the day and analyses the previous year question papers with me. Because of Santosh sir, I understood that its just not enough reading one book but at the same time I dont have to waste time reading many books. He tells me the topic-wise sources to refer. Also he has designed a study plan for me that I can follow every week. Once, I told Santhosh sir I was missing test series discussion classes as it was conducted at 7PM. Immediately, he provided me recorded videos and kept the session at 8.30PM.”
Specific Features of Smash Prelims 2022 by Santosh Sir
Sincere aspirants who are scoring in the range of 80-90 marks must not attend last minute crash courses right now. They should instead focus on self revision, test series practice and guided mentorship to qualify for UPSC Prelims 2022. Here are the features of Prelims Focused Program by Civilsdaily —
Pillar-1
PRELIMS TESTS:
40 Full Length Tests(12 Basic + 6 Advanced + 10 CA tests + 8 Full tests + 4 CSAT).
In addition to this, in the month of January, we will have 60 sectional tests for practice. This will have 50 questions each. Hence, totally 100 Test Papers (40 FLTs + 60 Sectional Test Papers)
FIRST TEST WILL START ON JANUARY 15TH. SO, REGISTER ASAP.
VALUE ADDITIONS NOTES AND CLASSES BY VETERAN CIVILSDAILY MENTORS like SUDHANSHU SIR, SAJAL SIR & SUKANYA MA’AM
Polity: Sudhanshu sirwill conduct two sessions covering all the Polity Fundamentals, a session analyzing past year papers, another session on important current affairs related to polity this year and will discuss your test solutions.
History: Santosh Gupta sir will conduct a session on Sectoral Developments in Modern History, a session analyzing past year papers, and test discussion.
Economy: Sajal sir will conduct sessions on economic survey, trend analysis, discussion of most important economic current affairs, past year paper analysis, and economy final test discussion.
Geography: Santosh sir will conduct sessions on the most difficult aspects like Geography Mapping, Economic Geography, and Indian Agriculture.
Environment:Sukanya Ma’amwill cover sessions on Environment innovatively. Key concepts like vegetation and biome, Indian wildlife, conventions and protocols, national parks and sanctuaries, agriculture and sustainable development, and environment current affairs will be covered.
Science & Technology: This year’s prelims paper questioned on the basic concepts of science. Keeping this in mind, Santosh Gupta sir will conduct 2 sessions on One basic concept and current affairs of science and technology.
2. Civilsdaily Current Affairs Magazines for 1 year
3. Civilsdaily compilations of Yojna, Kurukshetra, PRS and RS TV.
4. Civilsdaily Budget And Economic Survey Summary.
5. Handouts on key subject-wise static topics to remember the terms and definitions for Prelims 2022.
Pillar-3
Santosh Gupta sir’s mentorship program
1. Introductory mentor call to every aspirant immediately upon commencement of program.
2. Weekly zoom strategy session by Santosh sir for doubt clearance and continuous improvement.
3. 1-1 mentor calls after 3-4 tests by mentor. After every test series, zoom sessions will be conducted by Birendra sir with all members of the batch for test discussion.
4. Support from mentors on the Habitat Group.
5. Frequent sessions with toppers for support and guidance. will have these special features for aspirants.
6. Mentor will guide on the FCE Approach i.e the Factual and Conceptual Methods of Elimination.
7. Mentor call as per request and mandatory check up call by mentor once a month.
Toppers’ Speak: How Civilsdaily Mentorship Helped Me Clear UPSC?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSwO38weHAA
About Santosh Gupta Sir
Santosh sir has scored above 140 twice in UPSC prelims and 120 plus in all 6 attempts. He has written all 6 mains and has appeared for Interviews 3 times. He has qualified UPSC EPFO and BPSC 56-59th also. As the Prelims coordinator at Civilsdaily, he has helped 15 out of 25 students clear the prelims examination this year.
Success in UPSC Civil Services Examination = 50% Knowledge + 50% Strategy. Both knowledge and strategy are important to clear this exam.
You might have finished reading your mandatory standard books, but still is your preparation complete? Do you remember all the important facts in your current affairs syllabus? Have you practised maps yet? Do you know all the important kingdoms in Ancient & Medieval History? Do you have a strong conceptual clarity on the foundational topics of Prelims? Are there any questions you have come across while practising your test series which you want to discuss in a live webinar? Then, register yourself for our next Ask me Anything Session with Prelims Toppers & UPSC Mentors Shubham & Anurag.
Open to All Free Live Q&A Webinar with Prelims Toppers & Civilsdaily Mentors Anurag & Shubham
How long has it been since you revised your GS subjects? First time reading of all books is always easy. In the second and third time readings, you will realise that your recollection of the topics is still sparse. All the topics might seem new, even when they are already read. In the second and third time readings, not only you are expected to write down notes but also start your subject-wise test series. So, how will you fit in revision study plan with your test series and current affairs schedule in the next five months?
Since, there are five months for Prelims exams to begin in 2022, do you think its too early to start CSAT preparation? CSAT, is only a qualifying paper but it definitely is not a piece of cake. In the past two years, questions testing the analytical, reasoning and aptitude skills of candidates have become tougher. Many toppers have had to write Prelims a second time as they had underestimated CSAT the first time. Case in point, is our Civilsdaily student and IPS Officer Shubham Nagargoje.
Most importantly, if you have not yet started UPSC preparation, but still want to give 2022 a decent attempt, then you might be unsure how you can do justice to Prelims preparation in the last five months. Anurag and Shubham sir will draw the correct roadmap for such learners.
Key-Takeaways of Free Live Ask Me Anything Session with Shubham & Anurag Sir
Both Shubham and Anurag sir have attended interview round of UPSC-CSE as aspirants two to three times respectively and cleared the prelims five to six times respectively with a score above 110 marks. In their Q&A webinar, they will be welcoming doubts from all aspirants in these areas —
1. What to target for prelims 2022? For those who have started their UPSC preparation only this month onwards.
2. How to revise GS for Prelims? How to form a test series and revision schedule that are in sync with each other?
3. Is CSAT a child’s play?
4. The different kinds of Mock Tests for Prelims. What are they and where will you find them?
5. Tricky topics of Prelims 2022. What are the topics where questions deviate from the standard sources?
6. Difference in preparation- Prelims vs Mains Preparation. What are the differences when it comes to books, current affairs sources and taking down notes on same topics?
7. Analysing test performance. How to change or increase your topic-wise sources in GS Prelims after taking a test?
Webinar Details
It’s time to level up and revise the same syllabus that took you one year to complete in the next 5 months! We hope this webinar will help all 2022 aspirants implement the suggestions of Shubham and Anurag sir
Smash Prelims Program is back after a thumping success in Prelims 2021. Out of 25 students Santosh sir has mentored, 15 have cleared prelims this time.Our students were kind enough to take time out of their hectic Mains preparation and let us know how Santosh sir’s mentorship benefitted them in the exams. We wish them all the very best for the upcoming Mains exam from 7th January onwards!
https://youtu.be/oTRUMSOQEY4
Why Your Focus for Next 5 Months Must be About Scoring Above Cut-Off Marks in UPSC-CSE Prelims? Isn’t the last 1 Month Enough for This?
Every year, the competition for UPSC-CSE is increasing while vacancies are decreasing drastically. This year there are only 712 vacancies as against 2019 which had 927 vacancies. However, atleast 10 lakh students will attempt the prelims exam. This is why right now, it’s important to start having an Olympic Athlete mindset. You need to daily focus on scoring above the cut-off marks in your test series.
Civilsdaily Student and 2019 UPSC-CSE AIR 8 Topper Abhishek Saraf had practiced nearly 6000+ MCQs under us to clear prelims!
What makes prelims tough? It’s because the paper is unpredictable. If this year, science questions are a breeze then the next year you will have to answer advanced concept-based questions. Unlike Mains, Prelims has negative markings.
Toppers like Pranav Vijayvergiya (AIR 65) andSwati Sharma(AIR 17) have found Prelims to be tougher than Mains. In fact, Pranav failed to clear Prelims thrice. But, in his fourth attempt he took Civilsdaily mentorship and cleared Prelims, Mains and Interview in one shot!
Are you feeling low that you are unable to get the required cut-off marks in your test series. Worry not, for about 65% of the UPSC toppers have said that they scored below cut-off marks till December. But by June, they were able to boost their marks to get through the prelims hurdle. It’s time to be like them now.
One has to be good at elimination methods to choose the right option amongst two similar ones. Our Smash Prelims Program started as a pilot project last year with an aim to introduce step-wise improvement in our chosen 25 aspirants. Over a period of 2 months, Santhosh sir inculcated confidence in aspirants who were either newbies or gave too many attempts. This year, we achieved a remarkable 60% success ratio. Next year, we have set our eyes on 100%. Yes, we are ambitious and aspirational just like any other UPSC aspirant.
Why is Mentorship Required for UPSC-CSE Prelims in Every Step – From Test Series, to Study Materials, Classes to Doubt Resolution?
If you are appearing for UPSC-CSE 2022 exams, you might have completed your entire prelims and mains syllabus right now. So what are your main priorities right now? To succeed in UPSC-CSE Prelims 2022, you have to check all these boxes in terms of preparation—
You need clear strategy for next 150 days.
You need to revise effectively to remember whole syllabus at the eve of exam.
You need to practice lots of tests to score accurately, to understand elimination techniques and reduce exam anxiety.
You need to revise current affair of 1.5 years that you have been studying daily.
You need a mentor to fill the critical gaps that have been ignoring till now as you had no one to address them for you.
Santhosh Sir’s Weekly Zoom Session
Do you want to have a mentor who conducts and evaluates medium to advanced test series regularly? A mentor explains to you the different kinds of elimination techniques after you have taken a test series. Before attending a test do you want the mentor to discuss with you the study materials required for the test and provide the right notes with integrated current affairs? While studying a subject, you might have umpteen number of questions. Having someone who responds quickly and explains the topics in simple terms saves your time. And, after a test do you want an experienced mentor to discuss the right answers and motivate you? Do you want the mentor to provide you classes on static+dynamic prelims topics? If yes, then this is the right program for you! The registrations are open for all UPSC 2022 aspirants
Self Preparation with Mentorship: What do Civilsdaily Students think of Santosh Sir’s Mentorship for UPSC-CSE Prelims?
Santhosh Sir, Core Civilsdaily Mentor. He has attended Interview Thrice & Cleared Prelims 6/6 times with above 145 marks.
We asked Santosh sir’s students about their opinion on mentorship — if it was something that saved their time or wasted their time in studies and this is what they had to say:
Kamini: “If I can say in one word, then Santosh sir’s mentorship is unique. Before I joined his program, I used to score 90 marks in Full Length Test Series. Santhosh sir had done in depth analysis of my test papers and suggested ways to reduce the negatives. Right now I am able to score 100+ in advanced test series of not only Civilsdaily but other institutes. He is always available to clear my doubts and solve my issues on call or phone. No issue is too big enough for Santosh sir. He has always told me after you finish a test series, read the same topics again and take another test series the same day to see if your marks improve. From Santosh sir’s polity and economic survey notes, we got questions in 2021 Prelims. I always feel its better to do self studies with mentorship than join coaching institutes and get spoon fed with information.”
Sweetie Raj: “I am a banking professional, living with a joint family. Attending coaching classes is out of question because I won’t have time to read the books myself. Santosh sir helps me self-study by providing me mentorship daily. I study daily from 9PM to 3AM. Santosh sir has been available for 1 hour strategy calls even during this time. No other teacher would have wanted me to succeed as much as he wants me to. I can understand concepts by myself and don’t need help in that. I want someone who pushes me to complete the target modules, checks if I did my mains answer writing for the day and analyses the previous year question papers with me. Because of Santosh sir, I understood that its just not enough reading one book but at the same time I dont have to waste time reading many books. He tells me the topic-wise sources to refer. Also he has designed a study plan for me that I can follow every week. Once, I told Santhosh sir I was missing test series discussion classes as it was conducted at 7PM. Immediately, he provided me recorded videos and kept the session at 8.30PM.”
Specific Features of Smash Prelims 2022 by Santosh Sir
Sincere aspirants who are scoring in the range of 80-90 marks must not attend last minute crash courses right now. They should instead focus on self revision, test series practice and guided mentorship to qualify for UPSC Prelims 2022. Here are the features of Prelims Focused Program by Civilsdaily —
Pillar-1
PRELIMS TESTS:
40 Full Length Tests(12 Basic + 6 Advanced + 10 CA tests + 8 Full tests + 4 CSAT).
In addition to this, in the month of January, we will have 60 sectional tests for practice. This will have 50 questions each. Hence, totally 100 Test Papers (40 FLTs + 60 Sectional Test Papers)
FIRST TEST WILL START ON JANUARY 15TH. SO, REGISTER ASAP.
VALUE ADDITIONS NOTES AND CLASSES BY VETERAN CIVILSDAILY MENTORS like SUDHANSHU SIR, SAJAL SIR & SUKANYA MA’AM
Polity: Sudhanshu sirwill conduct two sessions covering all the Polity Fundamentals, a session analyzing past year papers, another session on important current affairs related to polity this year and will discuss your test solutions.
History: Santosh Gupta sir will conduct a session on Sectoral Developments in Modern History, a session analyzing past year papers, and test discussion.
Economy: Sajal sir will conduct sessions on economic survey, trend analysis, discussion of most important economic current affairs, past year paper analysis, and economy final test discussion.
Geography: Santosh sir will conduct sessions on the most difficult aspects like Geography Mapping, Economic Geography, and Indian Agriculture.
Environment:Sukanya Ma’amwill cover sessions on Environment innovatively. Key concepts like vegetation and biome, Indian wildlife, conventions and protocols, national parks and sanctuaries, agriculture and sustainable development, and environment current affairs will be covered.
Science & Technology: This year’s prelims paper questioned on the basic concepts of science. Keeping this in mind, Santosh Gupta sir will conduct 2 sessions on One basic concept and current affairs of science and technology.
2. Civilsdaily Current Affairs Magazines for 1 year
3. Civilsdaily compilations of Yojna, Kurukshetra, PRS and RS TV.
4. Civilsdaily Budget And Economic Survey Summary.
5. Handouts on key subject-wise static topics to remember the terms and definitions for Prelims 2022.
Pillar-3
Santosh Gupta sir’s mentorship program
1. Introductory mentor call to every aspirant immediately upon commencement of program.
2. Weekly zoom strategy session by Santosh sir for doubt clearance and continuous improvement.
3. 1-1 mentor calls after 3-4 tests by mentor. After every test series, zoom sessions will be conducted by Birendra sir with all members of the batch for test discussion.
4. Support from mentors on the Habitat Group.
5. Frequent sessions with toppers for support and guidance. will have these special features for aspirants.
6. Mentor will guide on the FCE Approach i.e the Factual and Conceptual Methods of Elimination.
7. Mentor call as per request and mandatory check up call by mentor once a month.
Toppers’ Speak: How Civilsdaily Mentorship Helped Me Clear UPSC?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSwO38weHAA
About Santosh Gupta Sir
Santosh sir has scored above 140 twice in UPSC prelims and 120 plus in all 6 attempts. He has written all 6 mains and has appeared for Interviews 3 times. He has qualified UPSC EPFO and BPSC 56-59th also. As the Prelims coordinator at Civilsdaily, he has helped 15 out of 25 students clear the prelims examination this year.
Success in UPSC Civil Services Examination = 50% Knowledge + 50% Strategy. Both knowledge and strategy are important to clear this exam.
You might have finished reading your mandatory standard books, but still is your preparation complete? Do you remember all the important facts in your current affairs syllabus? Have you practised maps yet? Do you know all the important kingdoms in Ancient & Medieval History? Do you have a strong conceptual clarity on the foundational topics of Prelims? Are there any questions you have come across while practising your test series which you want to discuss in a live webinar? Then, register yourself for our next Ask me Anything Session with Prelims Toppers & UPSC Mentors Shubham & Anurag.
Open to All Free Live Q&A Webinar with Prelims Toppers & Civilsdaily Mentors Anurag & Shubham
How long has it been since you revised your GS subjects? First time reading of all books is always easy. In the second and third time readings, you will realise that your recollection of the topics is still sparse. All the topics might seem new, even when they are already read. In the second and third time readings, not only you are expected to write down notes but also start your subject-wise test series. So, how will you fit in revision study plan with your test series and current affairs schedule in the next five months?
Since, there are five months for Prelims exams to begin in 2022, do you think its too early to start CSAT preparation? CSAT, is only a qualifying paper but it definitely is not a piece of cake. In the past two years, questions testing the analytical, reasoning and aptitude skills of candidates have become tougher. Many toppers have had to write Prelims a second time as they had underestimated CSAT the first time. Case in point, is our Civilsdaily student and IPS Officer Shubham Nagargoje.
Most importantly, if you have not yet started UPSC preparation, but still want to give 2022 a decent attempt, then you might be unsure how you can do justice to Prelims preparation in the last five months. Anurag and Shubham sir will draw the correct roadmap for such learners.
Key-Takeaways of Free Live Ask Me Anything Session with Shubham & Anurag Sir
Both Shubham and Anurag sir have attended interview round of UPSC-CSE as aspirants two to three times respectively and cleared the prelims five to six times respectively with a score above 110 marks. In their Q&A webinar, they will be welcoming doubts from all aspirants in these areas —
1. What to target for prelims 2022? For those who have started their UPSC preparation only this month onwards.
2. How to revise GS for Prelims? How to form a test series and revision schedule that are in sync with each other?
3. Is CSAT a child’s play?
4. The different kinds of Mock Tests for Prelims. What are they and where will you find them?
5. Tricky topics of Prelims 2022. What are the topics where questions deviate from the standard sources?
6. Difference in preparation- Prelims vs Mains Preparation. What are the differences when it comes to books, current affairs sources and taking down notes on same topics?
7. Analysing test performance. How to change or increase your topic-wise sources in GS Prelims after taking a test?
Webinar Details
It’s time to level up and revise the same syllabus that took you one year to complete in the next 5 months! We hope this webinar will help all 2022 aspirants implement the suggestions of Shubham and Anurag sir
HOW TO ATTEMPT ANSWERS IN DAILY ANSWER WRITING ENHANCEMENT(AWE)?
Daily 4 questions from General studies 1, 2, 3, and 4 will be provided to you.
A Mentor’s Comment will be available for all answers. This can be used as a guidance tool but we encourage you to write original answers.
You can write your answer on an A4 sheet and scan/click pictures of the same.
Upload the scanned answer in the comment section of the same question.
Along with the scanned answer, please share your Razor payment ID, so that paid members are given priority.
If you upload the answer on the same day like the answer of 11th October is uploaded on 11th October then your answer will be checked within 72 hours. Also, reviews will be in the order of submission- First come first serve basis
If you are writing answers late, for example, 11th October is uploaded on 13th October, then these answers will be evaluated as per the mentor’s schedule.
We encourage you to write answers on the same day. However, if you are uploading an answer late then tag the mentor like @Staff so that the mentor is notified about your answer.
*In case your answer is not reviewed, reply to your answer saying *NOT CHECKED*.
Smash Prelims Program is back after a thumping success in Prelims 2021. Out of 25 students Santosh sir has mentored, 15 have cleared prelims this time.Our students were kind enough to take time out of their hectic Mains preparation and let us know how Santosh sir’s mentorship benefitted them in the exams. We wish them all the very best for the upcoming Mains exam from 7th January onwards!
https://youtu.be/oTRUMSOQEY4
Why Your Focus for Next 5 Months Must be About Scoring Above Cut-Off Marks in UPSC-CSE Prelims? Isn’t the last 1 Month Enough for This?
Every year, the competition for UPSC-CSE is increasing while vacancies are decreasing drastically. This year there are only 712 vacancies as against 2019 which had 927 vacancies. However, atleast 10 lakh students will attempt the prelims exam. This is why right now, it’s important to start having an Olympic Athlete mindset. You need to daily focus on scoring above the cut-off marks in your test series.
Civilsdaily Student and 2019 UPSC-CSE AIR 8 Topper Abhishek Saraf had practiced nearly 6000+ MCQs under us to clear prelims!
What makes prelims tough? It’s because the paper is unpredictable. If this year, science questions are a breeze then the next year you will have to answer advanced concept-based questions. Unlike Mains, Prelims has negative markings.
Toppers like Pranav Vijayvergiya (AIR 65) andSwati Sharma(AIR 17) have found Prelims to be tougher than Mains. In fact, Pranav failed to clear Prelims thrice. But, in his fourth attempt he took Civilsdaily mentorship and cleared Prelims, Mains and Interview in one shot!
Are you feeling low that you are unable to get the required cut-off marks in your test series. Worry not, for about 65% of the UPSC toppers have said that they scored below cut-off marks till December. But by June, they were able to boost their marks to get through the prelims hurdle. It’s time to be like them now.
One has to be good at elimination methods to choose the right option amongst two similar ones. Our Smash Prelims Program started as a pilot project last year with an aim to introduce step-wise improvement in our chosen 25 aspirants. Over a period of 2 months, Santhosh sir inculcated confidence in aspirants who were either newbies or gave too many attempts. This year, we achieved a remarkable 60% success ratio. Next year, we have set our eyes on 100%. Yes, we are ambitious and aspirational just like any other UPSC aspirant.
Why is Mentorship Required for UPSC-CSE Prelims in Every Step – From Test Series, to Study Materials, Classes to Doubt Resolution?
If you are appearing for UPSC-CSE 2022 exams, you might have completed your entire prelims and mains syllabus right now. So what are your main priorities right now? To succeed in UPSC-CSE Prelims 2022, you have to check all these boxes in terms of preparation—
You need clear strategy for next 150 days.
You need to revise effectively to remember whole syllabus at the eve of exam.
You need to practice lots of tests to score accurately, to understand elimination techniques and reduce exam anxiety.
You need to revise current affair of 1.5 years that you have been studying daily.
You need a mentor to fill the critical gaps that have been ignoring till now as you had no one to address them for you.
Santhosh Sir’s Weekly Zoom Session
Do you want to have a mentor who conducts and evaluates medium to advanced test series regularly? A mentor explains to you the different kinds of elimination techniques after you have taken a test series. Before attending a test do you want the mentor to discuss with you the study materials required for the test and provide the right notes with integrated current affairs? While studying a subject, you might have umpteen number of questions. Having someone who responds quickly and explains the topics in simple terms saves your time. And, after a test do you want an experienced mentor to discuss the right answers and motivate you? Do you want the mentor to provide you classes on static+dynamic prelims topics? If yes, then this is the right program for you! The registrations are open for all UPSC 2022 aspirants
Self Preparation with Mentorship: What do Civilsdaily Students think of Santosh Sir’s Mentorship for UPSC-CSE Prelims?
Santhosh Sir, Core Civilsdaily Mentor. He has attended Interview Thrice & Cleared Prelims 6/6 times with above 145 marks.
We asked Santosh sir’s students about their opinion on mentorship — if it was something that saved their time or wasted their time in studies and this is what they had to say:
Kamini: “If I can say in one word, then Santosh sir’s mentorship is unique. Before I joined his program, I used to score 90 marks in Full Length Test Series. Santhosh sir had done in depth analysis of my test papers and suggested ways to reduce the negatives. Right now I am able to score 100+ in advanced test series of not only Civilsdaily but other institutes. He is always available to clear my doubts and solve my issues on call or phone. No issue is too big enough for Santosh sir. He has always told me after you finish a test series, read the same topics again and take another test series the same day to see if your marks improve. From Santosh sir’s polity and economic survey notes, we got questions in 2021 Prelims. I always feel its better to do self studies with mentorship than join coaching institutes and get spoon fed with information.”
Sweetie Raj: “I am a banking professional, living with a joint family. Attending coaching classes is out of question because I won’t have time to read the books myself. Santosh sir helps me self-study by providing me mentorship daily. I study daily from 9PM to 3AM. Santosh sir has been available for 1 hour strategy calls even during this time. No other teacher would have wanted me to succeed as much as he wants me to. I can understand concepts by myself and don’t need help in that. I want someone who pushes me to complete the target modules, checks if I did my mains answer writing for the day and analyses the previous year question papers with me. Because of Santosh sir, I understood that its just not enough reading one book but at the same time I dont have to waste time reading many books. He tells me the topic-wise sources to refer. Also he has designed a study plan for me that I can follow every week. Once, I told Santhosh sir I was missing test series discussion classes as it was conducted at 7PM. Immediately, he provided me recorded videos and kept the session at 8.30PM.”
Specific Features of Smash Prelims 2022 by Santosh Sir
Sincere aspirants who are scoring in the range of 80-90 marks must not attend last minute crash courses right now. They should instead focus on self revision, test series practice and guided mentorship to qualify for UPSC Prelims 2022. Here are the features of Prelims Focused Program by Civilsdaily —
Pillar-1
PRELIMS TESTS:
40 Full Length Tests(12 Basic + 6 Advanced + 10 CA tests + 8 Full tests + 4 CSAT).
In addition to this, in the month of January, we will have 60 sectional tests for practice. This will have 50 questions each. Hence, totally 100 Test Papers (40 FLTs + 60 Sectional Test Papers)
FIRST TEST WILL START ON JANUARY 15TH. SO, REGISTER ASAP.
VALUE ADDITIONS NOTES AND CLASSES BY VETERAN CIVILSDAILY MENTORS like SUDHANSHU SIR, SAJAL SIR & SUKANYA MA’AM
Polity: Sudhanshu sirwill conduct two sessions covering all the Polity Fundamentals, a session analyzing past year papers, another session on important current affairs related to polity this year and will discuss your test solutions.
History: Santosh Gupta sir will conduct a session on Sectoral Developments in Modern History, a session analyzing past year papers, and test discussion.
Economy: Sajal sir will conduct sessions on economic survey, trend analysis, discussion of most important economic current affairs, past year paper analysis, and economy final test discussion.
Geography: Santosh sir will conduct sessions on the most difficult aspects like Geography Mapping, Economic Geography, and Indian Agriculture.
Environment:Sukanya Ma’amwill cover sessions on Environment innovatively. Key concepts like vegetation and biome, Indian wildlife, conventions and protocols, national parks and sanctuaries, agriculture and sustainable development, and environment current affairs will be covered.
Science & Technology: This year’s prelims paper questioned on the basic concepts of science. Keeping this in mind, Santosh Gupta sir will conduct 2 sessions on One basic concept and current affairs of science and technology.
2. Civilsdaily Current Affairs Magazines for 1 year
3. Civilsdaily compilations of Yojna, Kurukshetra, PRS and RS TV.
4. Civilsdaily Budget And Economic Survey Summary.
5. Handouts on key subject-wise static topics to remember the terms and definitions for Prelims 2022.
Pillar-3
Santosh Gupta sir’s mentorship program
1. Introductory mentor call to every aspirant immediately upon commencement of program.
2. Weekly zoom strategy session by Santosh sir for doubt clearance and continuous improvement.
3. 1-1 mentor calls after 3-4 tests by mentor. After every test series, zoom sessions will be conducted by Birendra sir with all members of the batch for test discussion.
4. Support from mentors on the Habitat Group.
5. Frequent sessions with toppers for support and guidance. will have these special features for aspirants.
6. Mentor will guide on the FCE Approach i.e the Factual and Conceptual Methods of Elimination.
7. Mentor call as per request and mandatory check up call by mentor once a month.
Toppers’ Speak: How Civilsdaily Mentorship Helped Me Clear UPSC?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSwO38weHAA
About Santosh Gupta Sir
Santosh sir has scored above 140 twice in UPSC prelims and 120 plus in all 6 attempts. He has written all 6 mains and has appeared for Interviews 3 times. He has qualified UPSC EPFO and BPSC 56-59th also. As the Prelims coordinator at Civilsdaily, he has helped 15 out of 25 students clear the prelims examination this year.
Success in UPSC Civil Services Examination = 50% Knowledge + 50% Strategy. Both knowledge and strategy are important to clear this exam.
You might have finished reading your mandatory standard books, but still is your preparation complete? Do you remember all the important facts in your current affairs syllabus? Have you practised maps yet? Do you know all the important kingdoms in Ancient & Medieval History? Do you have a strong conceptual clarity on the foundational topics of Prelims? Are there any questions you have come across while practising your test series which you want to discuss in a live webinar? Then, register yourself for our next Ask me Anything Session with Prelims Toppers & UPSC Mentors Shubham & Anurag.
Open to All Free Live Q&A Webinar with Prelims Toppers & Civilsdaily Mentors Anurag & Shubham
How long has it been since you revised your GS subjects? First time reading of all books is always easy. In the second and third time readings, you will realise that your recollection of the topics is still sparse. All the topics might seem new, even when they are already read. In the second and third time readings, not only you are expected to write down notes but also start your subject-wise test series. So, how will you fit in revision study plan with your test series and current affairs schedule in the next five months?
Since, there are five months for Prelims exams to begin in 2022, do you think its too early to start CSAT preparation? CSAT, is only a qualifying paper but it definitely is not a piece of cake. In the past two years, questions testing the analytical, reasoning and aptitude skills of candidates have become tougher. Many toppers have had to write Prelims a second time as they had underestimated CSAT the first time. Case in point, is our Civilsdaily student and IPS Officer Shubham Nagargoje.
Most importantly, if you have not yet started UPSC preparation, but still want to give 2022 a decent attempt, then you might be unsure how you can do justice to Prelims preparation in the last five months. Anurag and Shubham sir will draw the correct roadmap for such learners.
Key-Takeaways of Free Live Ask Me Anything Session with Shubham & Anurag Sir
Both Shubham and Anurag sir have attended interview round of UPSC-CSE as aspirants two to three times respectively and cleared the prelims five to six times respectively with a score above 110 marks. In their Q&A webinar, they will be welcoming doubts from all aspirants in these areas —
1. What to target for prelims 2022? For those who have started their UPSC preparation only this month onwards.
2. How to revise GS for Prelims? How to form a test series and revision schedule that are in sync with each other?
3. Is CSAT a child’s play?
4. The different kinds of Mock Tests for Prelims. What are they and where will you find them?
5. Tricky topics of Prelims 2022. What are the topics where questions deviate from the standard sources?
6. Difference in preparation- Prelims vs Mains Preparation. What are the differences when it comes to books, current affairs sources and taking down notes on same topics?
7. Analysing test performance. How to change or increase your topic-wise sources in GS Prelims after taking a test?
Webinar Details
It’s time to level up and revise the same syllabus that took you one year to complete in the next 5 months! We hope this webinar will help all 2022 aspirants implement the suggestions of Shubham and Anurag sir
Everything that has a value in life is a product of consistency — Health, Fitness, Wealth, Relationships and Your UPSC Aspiration as well. Choosing consistency is better than chasing perfection. Nobody can be perfect, but everyone can stay consistent.
Choosing to be a UPSC Aspirant means you have signed up for a roller-coaster of emotions for a period of 1-2 years. Not all days are going to be the same, that is for sure. Some days you’re extremely motivated and positive, and on other days, you might find yourself questioning EVERYTHING about your preparation! It is absolutely normal. This is something extremely inevitable. Even the best of the toppers can have the worst days during the preparation phase simply because it is an extremely long and often a lonely process.
It’s fine to be inconsistent for a short while. Maybe a day or two in the initial phase. But don’t make it a habit. Regular inconsistency won’t fetch you the desired result. But what exactly is inconsistency?
What did Aspirants say made them Inconsistent 1-on-1 Free Counselling Session?
Last month, we had counselled about 4000 aspirants and found out the major reasons why are in inconsistent in their UPSC preparation. Here are few of the responses we received (we have withheld names to respect their privacy) —
1. “I am inconsistent because my thoughts don’t line up with my actions. I like the idea of being an IAS officer, but I am unable to study for it.”
2. “There are days when I brood about the competition and think do I really stand a chance? That’s what keeps me studying for many days together.”, shared another
3. “I am a working professional and I am unable to find time to study for weeks together.”
4. “I am unable to make a timetable that can do justice to both my pace and the vast syllabus of UPSC”
5. “This is my third attempt. The thought of repeating the same cycle of studies and reading those dreary books once again keeps me from staying consistent.”
6. “I feel burnt out. There are days I put in so much effort studying for UPSC that I won’t feel like the next day.”
7. “Social Media. I get distracted often.”
8. “The preparation makes me feel lonely. Sometimes I wish I had a well-wisher who could pull me out of my inconsistent ways.”
What we could understand from this is that self-doubt kills enthusiasm to prepare for UPSC. And fear of failure stops you from staying consistent. It’s important to inculcate consistency as a UPSC aspirant as consistency leads to habits. Habits lead to action and action makes you successful.
Inconsistency is the frenemy of every UPSC aspirant — they look like your friend at first, but they are your enemy in disguise. It doesn’t even let you achieve 10% of your actual potential. You know that you are capable of so many things if you stopped being inconsistent.
Keeping this in mind, we have launched our mentorship program this week. The highlight of our free 1-on-1 sessions would be to suggest ways that can help you stay focused during your long preparation journey for UPSC.
How does 1-on-1 Mentorship fights inconsistency in UPSC Preparation?
Our philosophy behind MENTORSHIP is to get you out of this Snooze cycle. This ensures that you are the BEST VERSION of yourself in this journey. If you are under the impression that mentorship is weekly calls you attend, then you are mistaken, my friend. Trust us, your mentor will be your ‘FRIEND, PHILOSOPHER AND GUIDE’.
TO EACH THEIR OWN – Every aspirant is different. Their strengths and weaknesses are different. Their time availability is also different. Identifying this is important so you don’t end up making unrealistic targets and lose momentum. Your mentor will make sure you start slow but remain consistent to build your confidence. Making your schedule structured based on our experience of working with 2500+ students is our first priority.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS – When you see yourself grow, it becomes easier to motivate yourself to push boundaries. Tracking your progress can happen in many ways like mentorship calls or chat sessions or by regular tests. The idea is to ensure that you don’t go off track in your preparation, and even if you do, we have your back.
EVOLUTION – A constant guidance is important to bring consistency to your UPSC preparation. Guidance is not about clearing your doubts or asking you to study when you don’t. It is also about the evolution of your preparation. This is where you and your mentor work as a team. A constant effort to PLAN AND BUILD UP YOUR ABILITY to learn in a faster and more efficient way.RECEIVE PERSONAL GUIDANCE FOR UPSC (REGISTER HERE)
TALK IT OUT – The biggest hurdle in achieving your highest level of consistency is the emotional part. Every now and then, you. surround yourself with negative thoughts, you feel scared and depressed. Instead of resolving these emotional issues, you avoid them as it seems like a waste of your precious time. You have to understand that ignoring emotional troubles does not solve them. What your doing is building an emotional time bomb that may burst a week before your mains or prelims! This is where your MENTOR AS A FRIEND comes in. All our mentors have been through this journey. We understand your fears and anxieties. So, TALK IT OUT.
Don’t let inconsistency keep you away from your dreams.
Fill up the SAMANVAYA form given below. Let us know your problems and we will find a solution to it, just like our students say ” TOGETHER WE CAN AND WE WILL”.
How has Civilsdaily Mentorship, helped Aspirants become Toppers?
The most difficult challenge faced by EVERY candidate is inconsistency. Be it inconsistency in studies, answer-writing practice, covering the syllabus, or revision, every candidate finds it difficult to cope with. Buthow do successful candidates manage to FIGHT Inconsistency so consistently?
In UPSC 2020, Civilsdaily helped 80+ students secure ranks in their exams. In the top 100, every 3rd ranker was a Civilsdaily student.
A very recent success story would be Vishwa Shah, student of Civilsdaily Mentor, Sukanya Ma’am. Vishwa has cleared the GPSC exam to become the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Gujarat. He has penned a thank-you note yesterday. Heartiest Congratulations to Vishwa!
One of our other Civilsdaily Student, Shubham Nagargojecleared the exams in 2020 to become an IPS Officer. Shubham was gracious enough to let us know how he felt about Civilsdaily Samanvaya Guidance under Parth sir.
To know how all of them cleared the exam with our mentorship, visit the UnherdPodcast.
Now that results are announced for UPSC 2021 Prelims, out of 15 out of 25 students of Santhosh Gupta sir have been recommended to Mains. One such student, Rahul expresses his gratitude and extends his appreciation.
Most of our Mentors like Sudhanshu sir, Sajal sir, Santhosh sir, Pravin sir, Parth Verma sir and Sukanya Ma’am were UPSC aspirants themselves and have attended UPSC Mains more than five times and UPSC Interview more than twice. Hence their mentorship is always a blend of the best test series, comprehensive notes and current affairs knowledge.
All of them dedicate their time weekly to give 1-on-1 mentorship to every student where they discuss last week’s performance and next week’s approach.
Be it Telegram, Whatsapp or Habitiat channels, they are always available and clear student’s doubts in a turnaround time of 24 Hours.
Why Civilsdaily Mentors are the GPS for Your UPSC-CSE Preparation
Remember there is always light at the end of the tunnel and if you want to get out of the tunnel you have to follow the direction of the light! Our mentors’ give you direction which is divided into daily modules. All you have to do is study and complete them on time.
As every year passes by, we don’t get confident by the previous years’ performance and become laidback. Instead, we become more hungry to convert all our students into toppers.
How are Current Civilsdaily Students Gearing up for UPSC-CSE 2022?
Initially, our Civilsdaily student Smriti wasn’t confident about Prelims when she began her preparation. Though she had joined Civilsdaily in 2020, she started studying for UPSC-CSE back in 2019. At that time, Smriti had enrolled in multiple institutes. Though, most of these institutes had promised a personal mentor, she was unable to get in touch with them on a daily basis. Also those mentors never scheduled test-series on a weekly basis. Hence, despite preparing for a year, Smriti had scored only 35 marks out of 200 in her first test series by Civilsdaily.
She then started writing 20-25 test series over the course of UAP 2021 and in her last test, her scores have drastically improved. She now scores in the range of 130-135 marks in prelims’ and 110+ in mains’ papers.
In Smriti’s own words she describes her Samanvaya Mentorship Experience to be —
“Our parents provide us financial and emotional support, friends provide us moral support and the right mentor gives you logistic and logical support for UPSC. There are days when I felt I won’t be able to compete against lakhs of aspirants. That’s when my mentor, Ravi sir reminded me of my improvement and encouraged me that I can crack it with the same consistency. We need someone, who tells us we are performing well especially when we cannot see that ourselves. The mentorship at Civilsdaily helped me become mentally stronger as a person. In other institutes, mentors are allotted only for doubt resolution. But at Civilsdaily, I am getting end-to-end mentorship via value added notes, classes, test series and detailed evaluation.”
Similarly our another Civilsdaily student, Ashishsums up his Samanvaya experience with Civilsdaily mentor,Pravin Sir, “Because of Pravin sir’s support, I am able to understand a topic in lesser time.”
This is how Pravin sir evaluates Ashish’s Mains Test Series every week. After every test series evaluation, Pravin sir schedules a 1 hour call to discuss how Ashish can improve his marks and the sources he can refer for key topics.
It’s Your Turn Get the Free 40 Min Counselling Session By a CD Mentor
Civilsdaily mentors are so dedicated, consistent and focused for your UPSC goal, that you will eventually become focused into turning your dreams to reality.
At the core of Civilsdaily UPSC mentorship, lies the fact that each one of you will have a unique journey while preparing for the exam. Some will get through on the first attempt without much effort while others will take both more time and more effort.
We want to understand you better to help you optimize your journey so you can focus on the right things and not waste time on the wrong ones. We are asking you to tap into the valuable experiences of mentors who underwent the same grind and realize the pitfalls and understand the shortcuts to make it.
In the first counselling session, we will understand your weaknesses. We then help you to stick to one plan or strategy throughout your preparation. We will then follow up with you on a daily basis to check if you are right on track. To get an idea of how your 1st 1-on-1 mentorship will look like, watch this sample video —
GS-1 Population and associated issues, poverty, and developmental issues
GS-2 Constitution of India—historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure; Representation of People’s Act
GS-3 Indian Economy
GS-4 Public/Civil service values and Ethics in Public administration: Accountability and ethical governance; strengthening of ethical and moral values in governance; ethical issues in international relations and funding; corporate governance.
HOW TO ATTEMPT ANSWERS IN DAILY ANSWER WRITING ENHANCEMENT(AWE)?
Daily 4 questions from General studies 1, 2, 3, and 4 will be provided to you.
A Mentor’s Comment will be available for all answers. This can be used as a guidance tool but we encourage you to write original answers.
You can write your answer on an A4 sheet and scan/click pictures of the same.
Upload the scanned answer in the comment section of the same question.
Along with the scanned answer, please share your Razor payment ID, so that paid members are given priority.
If you upload the answer on the same day like the answer of 11th October is uploaded on 11th October then your answer will be checked within 72 hours. Also, reviews will be in the order of submission- First come first serve basis
If you are writing answers late, for example, 11th October is uploaded on 13th October, then these answers will be evaluated as per the mentor’s schedule.
We encourage you to write answers on the same day. However, if you are uploading an answer late then tag the mentor like @Staff so that the mentor is notified about your answer.
*In case your answer is not reviewed, reply to your answer saying *NOT CHECKED*.
Everything that has a value in life is a product of consistency — Health, Fitness, Wealth, Relationships and Your UPSC Aspiration as well. Choosing consistency is better than chasing perfection. Nobody can be perfect, but everyone can stay consistent.
Choosing to be a UPSC Aspirant means you have signed up for a roller-coaster of emotions for a period of 1-2 years. Not all days are going to be the same, that is for sure. Some days you’re extremely motivated and positive, and on other days, you might find yourself questioning EVERYTHING about your preparation! It is absolutely normal. This is something extremely inevitable. Even the best of the toppers can have the worst days during the preparation phase simply because it is an extremely long and often a lonely process.
It’s fine to be inconsistent for a short while. Maybe a day or two in the initial phase. But don’t make it a habit. Regular inconsistency won’t fetch you the desired result. But what exactly is inconsistency?
What did Aspirants say made them Inconsistent 1-on-1 Free Counselling Session?
Last month, we had counselled about 4000 aspirants and found out the major reasons why are in inconsistent in their UPSC preparation. Here are few of the responses we received (we have withheld names to respect their privacy) —
1. “I am inconsistent because my thoughts don’t line up with my actions. I like the idea of being an IAS officer, but I am unable to study for it.”
2. “There are days when I brood about the competition and think do I really stand a chance? That’s what keeps me studying for many days together.”, shared another
3. “I am a working professional and I am unable to find time to study for weeks together.”
4. “I am unable to make a timetable that can do justice to both my pace and the vast syllabus of UPSC”
5. “This is my third attempt. The thought of repeating the same cycle of studies and reading those dreary books once again keeps me from staying consistent.”
6. “I feel burnt out. There are days I put in so much effort studying for UPSC that I won’t feel like the next day.”
7. “Social Media. I get distracted often.”
8. “The preparation makes me feel lonely. Sometimes I wish I had a well-wisher who could pull me out of my inconsistent ways.”
What we could understand from this is that self-doubt kills enthusiasm to prepare for UPSC. And fear of failure stops you from staying consistent. It’s important to inculcate consistency as a UPSC aspirant as consistency leads to habits. Habits lead to action and action makes you successful.
Inconsistency is the frenemy of every UPSC aspirant — they look like your friend at first, but they are your enemy in disguise. It doesn’t even let you achieve 10% of your actual potential. You know that you are capable of so many things if you stopped being inconsistent.
Keeping this in mind, we have launched our mentorship program this week. The highlight of our free 1-on-1 sessions would be to suggest ways that can help you stay focused during your long preparation journey for UPSC.
How does 1-on-1 Mentorship fights inconsistency in UPSC Preparation?
Our philosophy behind MENTORSHIP is to get you out of this Snooze cycle. This ensures that you are the BEST VERSION of yourself in this journey. If you are under the impression that mentorship is weekly calls you attend, then you are mistaken, my friend. Trust us, your mentor will be your ‘FRIEND, PHILOSOPHER AND GUIDE’.
TO EACH THEIR OWN – Every aspirant is different. Their strengths and weaknesses are different. Their time availability is also different. Identifying this is important so you don’t end up making unrealistic targets and lose momentum. Your mentor will make sure you start slow but remain consistent to build your confidence. Making your schedule structured based on our experience of working with 2500+ students is our first priority.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS – When you see yourself grow, it becomes easier to motivate yourself to push boundaries. Tracking your progress can happen in many ways like mentorship calls or chat sessions or by regular tests. The idea is to ensure that you don’t go off track in your preparation, and even if you do, we have your back.
EVOLUTION – A constant guidance is important to bring consistency to your UPSC preparation. Guidance is not about clearing your doubts or asking you to study when you don’t. It is also about the evolution of your preparation. This is where you and your mentor work as a team. A constant effort to PLAN AND BUILD UP YOUR ABILITY to learn in a faster and more efficient way.RECEIVE PERSONAL GUIDANCE FOR UPSC (REGISTER HERE)
TALK IT OUT – The biggest hurdle in achieving your highest level of consistency is the emotional part. Every now and then, you. surround yourself with negative thoughts, you feel scared and depressed. Instead of resolving these emotional issues, you avoid them as it seems like a waste of your precious time. You have to understand that ignoring emotional troubles does not solve them. What your doing is building an emotional time bomb that may burst a week before your mains or prelims! This is where your MENTOR AS A FRIEND comes in. All our mentors have been through this journey. We understand your fears and anxieties. So, TALK IT OUT.
Don’t let inconsistency keep you away from your dreams.
Fill up the SAMANVAYA form given below. Let us know your problems and we will find a solution to it, just like our students say ” TOGETHER WE CAN AND WE WILL”.
How has Civilsdaily Mentorship, helped Aspirants become Toppers?
The most difficult challenge faced by EVERY candidate is inconsistency. Be it inconsistency in studies, answer-writing practice, covering the syllabus, or revision, every candidate finds it difficult to cope with. Buthow do successful candidates manage to FIGHT Inconsistency so consistently?
In UPSC 2020, Civilsdaily helped 80+ students secure ranks in their exams. In the top 100, every 3rd ranker was a Civilsdaily student.
A very recent success story would be Vishwa Shah, student of Civilsdaily Mentor, Sukanya Ma’am. Vishwa has cleared the GPSC exam to become the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Gujarat. He has penned a thank-you note yesterday. Heartiest Congratulations to Vishwa!
One of our other Civilsdaily Student, Shubham Nagargojecleared the exams in 2020 to become an IPS Officer. Shubham was gracious enough to let us know how he felt about Civilsdaily Samanvaya Guidance under Parth sir.
To know how all of them cleared the exam with our mentorship, visit the UnherdPodcast.
Now that results are announced for UPSC 2021 Prelims, out of 15 out of 25 students of Santhosh Gupta sir have been recommended to Mains. One such student, Rahul expresses his gratitude and extends his appreciation.
Most of our Mentors like Sudhanshu sir, Sajal sir, Santhosh sir, Pravin sir, Parth Verma sir and Sukanya Ma’am were UPSC aspirants themselves and have attended UPSC Mains more than five times and UPSC Interview more than twice. Hence their mentorship is always a blend of the best test series, comprehensive notes and current affairs knowledge.
All of them dedicate their time weekly to give 1-on-1 mentorship to every student where they discuss last week’s performance and next week’s approach.
Be it Telegram, Whatsapp or Habitiat channels, they are always available and clear student’s doubts in a turnaround time of 24 Hours.
Why Civilsdaily Mentors are the GPS for Your UPSC-CSE Preparation
Remember there is always light at the end of the tunnel and if you want to get out of the tunnel you have to follow the direction of the light! Our mentors’ give you direction which is divided into daily modules. All you have to do is study and complete them on time.
As every year passes by, we don’t get confident by the previous years’ performance and become laidback. Instead, we become more hungry to convert all our students into toppers.
How are Current Civilsdaily Students Gearing up for UPSC-CSE 2022?
Initially, our Civilsdaily student Smriti wasn’t confident about Prelims when she began her preparation. Though she had joined Civilsdaily in 2020, she started studying for UPSC-CSE back in 2019. At that time, Smriti had enrolled in multiple institutes. Though, most of these institutes had promised a personal mentor, she was unable to get in touch with them on a daily basis. Also those mentors never scheduled test-series on a weekly basis. Hence, despite preparing for a year, Smriti had scored only 35 marks out of 200 in her first test series by Civilsdaily.
She then started writing 20-25 test series over the course of UAP 2021 and in her last test, her scores have drastically improved. She now scores in the range of 130-135 marks in prelims’ and 110+ in mains’ papers.
In Smriti’s own words she describes her Samanvaya Mentorship Experience to be —
“Our parents provide us financial and emotional support, friends provide us moral support and the right mentor gives you logistic and logical support for UPSC. There are days when I felt I won’t be able to compete against lakhs of aspirants. That’s when my mentor, Ravi sir reminded me of my improvement and encouraged me that I can crack it with the same consistency. We need someone, who tells us we are performing well especially when we cannot see that ourselves. The mentorship at Civilsdaily helped me become mentally stronger as a person. In other institutes, mentors are allotted only for doubt resolution. But at Civilsdaily, I am getting end-to-end mentorship via value added notes, classes, test series and detailed evaluation.”
Similarly our another Civilsdaily student, Ashishsums up his Samanvaya experience with Civilsdaily mentor,Pravin Sir, “Because of Pravin sir’s support, I am able to understand a topic in lesser time.”
This is how Pravin sir evaluates Ashish’s Mains Test Series every week. After every test series evaluation, Pravin sir schedules a 1 hour call to discuss how Ashish can improve his marks and the sources he can refer for key topics.
It’s Your Turn Get the Free 40 Min Counselling Session By a CD Mentor
Civilsdaily mentors are so dedicated, consistent and focused for your UPSC goal, that you will eventually become focused into turning your dreams to reality.
At the core of Civilsdaily UPSC mentorship, lies the fact that each one of you will have a unique journey while preparing for the exam. Some will get through on the first attempt without much effort while others will take both more time and more effort.
We want to understand you better to help you optimize your journey so you can focus on the right things and not waste time on the wrong ones. We are asking you to tap into the valuable experiences of mentors who underwent the same grind and realize the pitfalls and understand the shortcuts to make it.
In the first counselling session, we will understand your weaknesses. We then help you to stick to one plan or strategy throughout your preparation. We will then follow up with you on a daily basis to check if you are right on track. To get an idea of how your 1st 1-on-1 mentorship will look like, watch this sample video —
Everything that has a value in life is a product of consistency — Health, Fitness, Wealth, Relationships and Your UPSC Aspiration as well. Choosing consistency is better than chasing perfection. Nobody can be perfect, but everyone can stay consistent.
Choosing to be a UPSC Aspirant means you have signed up for a roller-coaster of emotions for a period of 1-2 years. Not all days are going to be the same, that is for sure. Some days you’re extremely motivated and positive, and on other days, you might find yourself questioning EVERYTHING about your preparation! It is absolutely normal. This is something extremely inevitable. Even the best of the toppers can have the worst days during the preparation phase simply because it is an extremely long and often a lonely process.
It’s fine to be inconsistent for a short while. Maybe a day or two in the initial phase. But don’t make it a habit. Regular inconsistency won’t fetch you the desired result. But what exactly is inconsistency?
What did Aspirants say made them Inconsistent 1-on-1 Free Counselling Session?
Last month, we had counselled about 4000 aspirants and found out the major reasons why are in inconsistent in their UPSC preparation. Here are few of the responses we received (we have withheld names to respect their privacy) —
1. “I am inconsistent because my thoughts don’t line up with my actions. I like the idea of being an IAS officer, but I am unable to study for it.”
2. “There are days when I brood about the competition and think do I really stand a chance? That’s what keeps me studying for many days together.”, shared another
3. “I am a working professional and I am unable to find time to study for weeks together.”
4. “I am unable to make a timetable that can do justice to both my pace and the vast syllabus of UPSC”
5. “This is my third attempt. The thought of repeating the same cycle of studies and reading those dreary books once again keeps me from staying consistent.”
6. “I feel burnt out. There are days I put in so much effort studying for UPSC that I won’t feel like the next day.”
7. “Social Media. I get distracted often.”
8. “The preparation makes me feel lonely. Sometimes I wish I had a well-wisher who could pull me out of my inconsistent ways.”
What we could understand from this is that self-doubt kills enthusiasm to prepare for UPSC. And fear of failure stops you from staying consistent. It’s important to inculcate consistency as a UPSC aspirant as consistency leads to habits. Habits lead to action and action makes you successful.
Inconsistency is the frenemy of every UPSC aspirant — they look like your friend at first, but they are your enemy in disguise. It doesn’t even let you achieve 10% of your actual potential. You know that you are capable of so many things if you stopped being inconsistent.
Keeping this in mind, we have launched our mentorship program this week. The highlight of our free 1-on-1 sessions would be to suggest ways that can help you stay focused during your long preparation journey for UPSC.
How does 1-on-1 Mentorship fights inconsistency in UPSC Preparation?
Our philosophy behind MENTORSHIP is to get you out of this Snooze cycle. This ensures that you are the BEST VERSION of yourself in this journey. If you are under the impression that mentorship is weekly calls you attend, then you are mistaken, my friend. Trust us, your mentor will be your ‘FRIEND, PHILOSOPHER AND GUIDE’.
TO EACH THEIR OWN – Every aspirant is different. Their strengths and weaknesses are different. Their time availability is also different. Identifying this is important so you don’t end up making unrealistic targets and lose momentum. Your mentor will make sure you start slow but remain consistent to build your confidence. Making your schedule structured based on our experience of working with 2500+ students is our first priority.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS – When you see yourself grow, it becomes easier to motivate yourself to push boundaries. Tracking your progress can happen in many ways like mentorship calls or chat sessions or by regular tests. The idea is to ensure that you don’t go off track in your preparation, and even if you do, we have your back.
EVOLUTION – A constant guidance is important to bring consistency to your UPSC preparation. Guidance is not about clearing your doubts or asking you to study when you don’t. It is also about the evolution of your preparation. This is where you and your mentor work as a team. A constant effort to PLAN AND BUILD UP YOUR ABILITY to learn in a faster and more efficient way.RECEIVE PERSONAL GUIDANCE FOR UPSC (REGISTER HERE)
TALK IT OUT – The biggest hurdle in achieving your highest level of consistency is the emotional part. Every now and then, you. surround yourself with negative thoughts, you feel scared and depressed. Instead of resolving these emotional issues, you avoid them as it seems like a waste of your precious time. You have to understand that ignoring emotional troubles does not solve them. What your doing is building an emotional time bomb that may burst a week before your mains or prelims! This is where your MENTOR AS A FRIEND comes in. All our mentors have been through this journey. We understand your fears and anxieties. So, TALK IT OUT.
Don’t let inconsistency keep you away from your dreams.
Fill up the SAMANVAYA form given below. Let us know your problems and we will find a solution to it, just like our students say ” TOGETHER WE CAN AND WE WILL”.
How has Civilsdaily Mentorship, helped Aspirants become Toppers?
The most difficult challenge faced by EVERY candidate is inconsistency. Be it inconsistency in studies, answer-writing practice, covering the syllabus, or revision, every candidate finds it difficult to cope with. Buthow do successful candidates manage to FIGHT Inconsistency so consistently?
In UPSC 2020, Civilsdaily helped 80+ students secure ranks in their exams. In the top 100, every 3rd ranker was a Civilsdaily student.
A very recent success story would be Vishwa Shah, student of Civilsdaily Mentor, Sukanya Ma’am. Vishwa has cleared the GPSC exam to become the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Gujarat. He has penned a thank-you note yesterday. Heartiest Congratulations to Vishwa!
One of our other Civilsdaily Student, Shubham Nagargojecleared the exams in 2020 to become an IPS Officer. Shubham was gracious enough to let us know how he felt about Civilsdaily Samanvaya Guidance under Parth sir.
To know how all of them cleared the exam with our mentorship, visit the UnherdPodcast.
Now that results are announced for UPSC 2021 Prelims, out of 15 out of 25 students of Santhosh Gupta sir have been recommended to Mains. One such student, Rahul expresses his gratitude and extends his appreciation.
Most of our Mentors like Sudhanshu sir, Sajal sir, Santhosh sir, Pravin sir, Parth Verma sir and Sukanya Ma’am were UPSC aspirants themselves and have attended UPSC Mains more than five times and UPSC Interview more than twice. Hence their mentorship is always a blend of the best test series, comprehensive notes and current affairs knowledge.
All of them dedicate their time weekly to give 1-on-1 mentorship to every student where they discuss last week’s performance and next week’s approach.
Be it Telegram, Whatsapp or Habitiat channels, they are always available and clear student’s doubts in a turnaround time of 24 Hours.
Why Civilsdaily Mentors are the GPS for Your UPSC-CSE Preparation
Remember there is always light at the end of the tunnel and if you want to get out of the tunnel you have to follow the direction of the light! Our mentors’ give you direction which is divided into daily modules. All you have to do is study and complete them on time.
As every year passes by, we don’t get confident by the previous years’ performance and become laidback. Instead, we become more hungry to convert all our students into toppers.
How are Current Civilsdaily Students Gearing up for UPSC-CSE 2022?
Initially, our Civilsdaily student Smriti wasn’t confident about Prelims when she began her preparation. Though she had joined Civilsdaily in 2020, she started studying for UPSC-CSE back in 2019. At that time, Smriti had enrolled in multiple institutes. Though, most of these institutes had promised a personal mentor, she was unable to get in touch with them on a daily basis. Also those mentors never scheduled test-series on a weekly basis. Hence, despite preparing for a year, Smriti had scored only 35 marks out of 200 in her first test series by Civilsdaily.
She then started writing 20-25 test series over the course of UAP 2021 and in her last test, her scores have drastically improved. She now scores in the range of 130-135 marks in prelims’ and 110+ in mains’ papers.
In Smriti’s own words she describes her Samanvaya Mentorship Experience to be —
“Our parents provide us financial and emotional support, friends provide us moral support and the right mentor gives you logistic and logical support for UPSC. There are days when I felt I won’t be able to compete against lakhs of aspirants. That’s when my mentor, Ravi sir reminded me of my improvement and encouraged me that I can crack it with the same consistency. We need someone, who tells us we are performing well especially when we cannot see that ourselves. The mentorship at Civilsdaily helped me become mentally stronger as a person. In other institutes, mentors are allotted only for doubt resolution. But at Civilsdaily, I am getting end-to-end mentorship via value added notes, classes, test series and detailed evaluation.”
Similarly our another Civilsdaily student, Ashishsums up his Samanvaya experience with Civilsdaily mentor,Pravin Sir, “Because of Pravin sir’s support, I am able to understand a topic in lesser time.”
This is how Pravin sir evaluates Ashish’s Mains Test Series every week. After every test series evaluation, Pravin sir schedules a 1 hour call to discuss how Ashish can improve his marks and the sources he can refer for key topics.
It’s Your Turn Get the Free 40 Min Counselling Session By a CD Mentor
Civilsdaily mentors are so dedicated, consistent and focused for your UPSC goal, that you will eventually become focused into turning your dreams to reality.
At the core of Civilsdaily UPSC mentorship, lies the fact that each one of you will have a unique journey while preparing for the exam. Some will get through on the first attempt without much effort while others will take both more time and more effort.
We want to understand you better to help you optimize your journey so you can focus on the right things and not waste time on the wrong ones. We are asking you to tap into the valuable experiences of mentors who underwent the same grind and realize the pitfalls and understand the shortcuts to make it.
In the first counselling session, we will understand your weaknesses. We then help you to stick to one plan or strategy throughout your preparation. We will then follow up with you on a daily basis to check if you are right on track. To get an idea of how your 1st 1-on-1 mentorship will look like, watch this sample video —
HOW TO ATTEMPT ANSWERS IN DAILY ANSWER WRITING ENHANCEMENT(AWE)?
Daily 4 questions from General studies 1, 2, 3, and 4 will be provided to you.
A Mentor’s Comment will be available for all answers. This can be used as a guidance tool but we encourage you to write original answers.
You can write your answer on an A4 sheet and scan/click pictures of the same.
Upload the scanned answer in the comment section of the same question.
Along with the scanned answer, please share your Razor payment ID, so that paid members are given priority.
If you upload the answer on the same day like the answer of 11th October is uploaded on 11th October then your answer will be checked within 72 hours. Also, reviews will be in the order of submission- First come first serve basis
If you are writing answers late, for example, 11th October is uploaded on 13th October, then these answers will be evaluated as per the mentor’s schedule.
We encourage you to write answers on the same day. However, if you are uploading an answer late then tag the mentor like @Staff so that the mentor is notified about your answer.
*In case your answer is not reviewed, reply to your answer saying *NOT CHECKED*.
Everything that has a value in life is a product of consistency — Health, Fitness, Wealth, Relationships and Your UPSC Aspiration as well. Choosing consistency is better than chasing perfection. Nobody can be perfect, but everyone can stay consistent.
Choosing to be a UPSC Aspirant means you have signed up for a roller-coaster of emotions for a period of 1-2 years. Not all days are going to be the same, that is for sure. Some days you’re extremely motivated and positive, and on other days, you might find yourself questioning EVERYTHING about your preparation! It is absolutely normal. This is something extremely inevitable. Even the best of the toppers can have the worst days during the preparation phase simply because it is an extremely long and often a lonely process.
It’s fine to be inconsistent for a short while. Maybe a day or two in the initial phase. But don’t make it a habit. Regular inconsistency won’t fetch you the desired result. But what exactly is inconsistency?
What did Aspirants say made them Inconsistent 1-on-1 Free Counselling Session?
Last month, we had counselled about 4000 aspirants and found out the major reasons why are in inconsistent in their UPSC preparation. Here are few of the responses we received (we have withheld names to respect their privacy) —
1. “I am inconsistent because my thoughts don’t line up with my actions. I like the idea of being an IAS officer, but I am unable to study for it.”
2. “There are days when I brood about the competition and think do I really stand a chance? That’s what keeps me studying for many days together.”, shared another
3. “I am a working professional and I am unable to find time to study for weeks together.”
4. “I am unable to make a timetable that can do justice to both my pace and the vast syllabus of UPSC”
5. “This is my third attempt. The thought of repeating the same cycle of studies and reading those dreary books once again keeps me from staying consistent.”
6. “I feel burnt out. There are days I put in so much effort studying for UPSC that I won’t feel like the next day.”
7. “Social Media. I get distracted often.”
8. “The preparation makes me feel lonely. Sometimes I wish I had a well-wisher who could pull me out of my inconsistent ways.”
What we could understand from this is that self-doubt kills enthusiasm to prepare for UPSC. And fear of failure stops you from staying consistent. It’s important to inculcate consistency as a UPSC aspirant as consistency leads to habits. Habits lead to action and action makes you successful.
Inconsistency is the frenemy of every UPSC aspirant — they look like your friend at first, but they are your enemy in disguise. It doesn’t even let you achieve 10% of your actual potential. You know that you are capable of so many things if you stopped being inconsistent.
Keeping this in mind, we have launched our mentorship program this week. The highlight of our free 1-on-1 sessions would be to suggest ways that can help you stay focused during your long preparation journey for UPSC.
How does 1-on-1 Mentorship fights inconsistency in UPSC Preparation?
Our philosophy behind MENTORSHIP is to get you out of this Snooze cycle. This ensures that you are the BEST VERSION of yourself in this journey. If you are under the impression that mentorship is weekly calls you attend, then you are mistaken, my friend. Trust us, your mentor will be your ‘FRIEND, PHILOSOPHER AND GUIDE’.
TO EACH THEIR OWN – Every aspirant is different. Their strengths and weaknesses are different. Their time availability is also different. Identifying this is important so you don’t end up making unrealistic targets and lose momentum. Your mentor will make sure you start slow but remain consistent to build your confidence. Making your schedule structured based on our experience of working with 2500+ students is our first priority.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS – When you see yourself grow, it becomes easier to motivate yourself to push boundaries. Tracking your progress can happen in many ways like mentorship calls or chat sessions or by regular tests. The idea is to ensure that you don’t go off track in your preparation, and even if you do, we have your back.
EVOLUTION – A constant guidance is important to bring consistency to your UPSC preparation. Guidance is not about clearing your doubts or asking you to study when you don’t. It is also about the evolution of your preparation. This is where you and your mentor work as a team. A constant effort to PLAN AND BUILD UP YOUR ABILITY to learn in a faster and more efficient way.RECEIVE PERSONAL GUIDANCE FOR UPSC (REGISTER HERE)
TALK IT OUT – The biggest hurdle in achieving your highest level of consistency is the emotional part. Every now and then, you. surround yourself with negative thoughts, you feel scared and depressed. Instead of resolving these emotional issues, you avoid them as it seems like a waste of your precious time. You have to understand that ignoring emotional troubles does not solve them. What your doing is building an emotional time bomb that may burst a week before your mains or prelims! This is where your MENTOR AS A FRIEND comes in. All our mentors have been through this journey. We understand your fears and anxieties. So, TALK IT OUT.
Don’t let inconsistency keep you away from your dreams.
Fill up the SAMANVAYA form given below. Let us know your problems and we will find a solution to it, just like our students say ” TOGETHER WE CAN AND WE WILL”.
How has Civilsdaily Mentorship, helped Aspirants become Toppers?
The most difficult challenge faced by EVERY candidate is inconsistency. Be it inconsistency in studies, answer-writing practice, covering the syllabus, or revision, every candidate finds it difficult to cope with. Buthow do successful candidates manage to FIGHT Inconsistency so consistently?
In UPSC 2020, Civilsdaily helped 80+ students secure ranks in their exams. In the top 100, every 3rd ranker was a Civilsdaily student.
A very recent success story would be Vishwa Shah, student of Civilsdaily Mentor, Sukanya Ma’am. Vishwa has cleared the GPSC exam to become the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Gujarat. He has penned a thank-you note yesterday. Heartiest Congratulations to Vishwa!
One of our other Civilsdaily Student, Shubham Nagargojecleared the exams in 2020 to become an IPS Officer. Shubham was gracious enough to let us know how he felt about Civilsdaily Samanvaya Guidance under Parth sir.
To know how all of them cleared the exam with our mentorship, visit the UnherdPodcast.
Now that results are announced for UPSC 2021 Prelims, out of 15 out of 25 students of Santhosh Gupta sir have been recommended to Mains. One such student, Rahul expresses his gratitude and extends his appreciation.
Most of our Mentors like Sudhanshu sir, Sajal sir, Santhosh sir, Pravin sir, Parth Verma sir and Sukanya Ma’am were UPSC aspirants themselves and have attended UPSC Mains more than five times and UPSC Interview more than twice. Hence their mentorship is always a blend of the best test series, comprehensive notes and current affairs knowledge.
All of them dedicate their time weekly to give 1-on-1 mentorship to every student where they discuss last week’s performance and next week’s approach.
Be it Telegram, Whatsapp or Habitiat channels, they are always available and clear student’s doubts in a turnaround time of 24 Hours.
Why Civilsdaily Mentors are the GPS for Your UPSC-CSE Preparation
Remember there is always light at the end of the tunnel and if you want to get out of the tunnel you have to follow the direction of the light! Our mentors’ give you direction which is divided into daily modules. All you have to do is study and complete them on time.
As every year passes by, we don’t get confident by the previous years’ performance and become laidback. Instead, we become more hungry to convert all our students into toppers.
How are Current Civilsdaily Students Gearing up for UPSC-CSE 2022?
Initially, our Civilsdaily student Smriti wasn’t confident about Prelims when she began her preparation. Though she had joined Civilsdaily in 2020, she started studying for UPSC-CSE back in 2019. At that time, Smriti had enrolled in multiple institutes. Though, most of these institutes had promised a personal mentor, she was unable to get in touch with them on a daily basis. Also those mentors never scheduled test-series on a weekly basis. Hence, despite preparing for a year, Smriti had scored only 35 marks out of 200 in her first test series by Civilsdaily.
She then started writing 20-25 test series over the course of UAP 2021 and in her last test, her scores have drastically improved. She now scores in the range of 130-135 marks in prelims’ and 110+ in mains’ papers.
In Smriti’s own words she describes her Samanvaya Mentorship Experience to be —
“Our parents provide us financial and emotional support, friends provide us moral support and the right mentor gives you logistic and logical support for UPSC. There are days when I felt I won’t be able to compete against lakhs of aspirants. That’s when my mentor, Ravi sir reminded me of my improvement and encouraged me that I can crack it with the same consistency. We need someone, who tells us we are performing well especially when we cannot see that ourselves. The mentorship at Civilsdaily helped me become mentally stronger as a person. In other institutes, mentors are allotted only for doubt resolution. But at Civilsdaily, I am getting end-to-end mentorship via value added notes, classes, test series and detailed evaluation.”
Similarly our another Civilsdaily student, Ashishsums up his Samanvaya experience with Civilsdaily mentor,Pravin Sir, “Because of Pravin sir’s support, I am able to understand a topic in lesser time.”
This is how Pravin sir evaluates Ashish’s Mains Test Series every week. After every test series evaluation, Pravin sir schedules a 1 hour call to discuss how Ashish can improve his marks and the sources he can refer for key topics.
It’s Your Turn Get the Free 40 Min Counselling Session By a CD Mentor
Civilsdaily mentors are so dedicated, consistent and focused for your UPSC goal, that you will eventually become focused into turning your dreams to reality.
At the core of Civilsdaily UPSC mentorship, lies the fact that each one of you will have a unique journey while preparing for the exam. Some will get through on the first attempt without much effort while others will take both more time and more effort.
We want to understand you better to help you optimize your journey so you can focus on the right things and not waste time on the wrong ones. We are asking you to tap into the valuable experiences of mentors who underwent the same grind and realize the pitfalls and understand the shortcuts to make it.
In the first counselling session, we will understand your weaknesses. We then help you to stick to one plan or strategy throughout your preparation. We will then follow up with you on a daily basis to check if you are right on track. To get an idea of how your 1st 1-on-1 mentorship will look like, watch this sample video —
Everything that has a value in life is a product of consistency — Health, Fitness, Wealth, Relationships and Your UPSC Aspiration as well. Choosing consistency is better than chasing perfection. Nobody can be perfect, but everyone can stay consistent.
Choosing to be a UPSC Aspirant means you have signed up for a roller-coaster of emotions for a period of 1-2 years. Not all days are going to be the same, that is for sure. Some days you’re extremely motivated and positive, and on other days, you might find yourself questioning EVERYTHING about your preparation! It is absolutely normal. This is something extremely inevitable. Even the best of the toppers can have the worst days during the preparation phase simply because it is an extremely long and often a lonely process.
It’s fine to be inconsistent for a short while. Maybe a day or two in the initial phase. But don’t make it a habit. Regular inconsistency won’t fetch you the desired result. But what exactly is inconsistency?
What did Aspirants say made them Inconsistent 1-on-1 Free Counselling Session?
Last month, we had counselled about 4000 aspirants and found out the major reasons why are in inconsistent in their UPSC preparation. Here are few of the responses we received (we have withheld names to respect their privacy) —
1. “I am inconsistent because my thoughts don’t line up with my actions. I like the idea of being an IAS officer, but I am unable to study for it.”
2. “There are days when I brood about the competition and think do I really stand a chance? That’s what keeps me studying for many days together.”, shared another
3. “I am a working professional and I am unable to find time to study for weeks together.”
4. “I am unable to make a timetable that can do justice to both my pace and the vast syllabus of UPSC”
5. “This is my third attempt. The thought of repeating the same cycle of studies and reading those dreary books once again keeps me from staying consistent.”
6. “I feel burnt out. There are days I put in so much effort studying for UPSC that I won’t feel like the next day.”
7. “Social Media. I get distracted often.”
8. “The preparation makes me feel lonely. Sometimes I wish I had a well-wisher who could pull me out of my inconsistent ways.”
What we could understand from this is that self-doubt kills enthusiasm to prepare for UPSC. And fear of failure stops you from staying consistent. It’s important to inculcate consistency as a UPSC aspirant as consistency leads to habits. Habits lead to action and action makes you successful.
Inconsistency is the frenemy of every UPSC aspirant — they look like your friend at first, but they are your enemy in disguise. It doesn’t even let you achieve 10% of your actual potential. You know that you are capable of so many things if you stopped being inconsistent.
Keeping this in mind, we have launched our mentorship program this week. The highlight of our free 1-on-1 sessions would be to suggest ways that can help you stay focused during your long preparation journey for UPSC.
How does 1-on-1 Mentorship fights inconsistency in UPSC Preparation?
Our philosophy behind MENTORSHIP is to get you out of this Snooze cycle. This ensures that you are the BEST VERSION of yourself in this journey. If you are under the impression that mentorship is weekly calls you attend, then you are mistaken, my friend. Trust us, your mentor will be your ‘FRIEND, PHILOSOPHER AND GUIDE’.
TO EACH THEIR OWN – Every aspirant is different. Their strengths and weaknesses are different. Their time availability is also different. Identifying this is important so you don’t end up making unrealistic targets and lose momentum. Your mentor will make sure you start slow but remain consistent to build your confidence. Making your schedule structured based on our experience of working with 2500+ students is our first priority.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS – When you see yourself grow, it becomes easier to motivate yourself to push boundaries. Tracking your progress can happen in many ways like mentorship calls or chat sessions or by regular tests. The idea is to ensure that you don’t go off track in your preparation, and even if you do, we have your back.
EVOLUTION – A constant guidance is important to bring consistency to your UPSC preparation. Guidance is not about clearing your doubts or asking you to study when you don’t. It is also about the evolution of your preparation. This is where you and your mentor work as a team. A constant effort to PLAN AND BUILD UP YOUR ABILITY to learn in a faster and more efficient way.RECEIVE PERSONAL GUIDANCE FOR UPSC (REGISTER HERE)
TALK IT OUT – The biggest hurdle in achieving your highest level of consistency is the emotional part. Every now and then, you. surround yourself with negative thoughts, you feel scared and depressed. Instead of resolving these emotional issues, you avoid them as it seems like a waste of your precious time. You have to understand that ignoring emotional troubles does not solve them. What your doing is building an emotional time bomb that may burst a week before your mains or prelims! This is where your MENTOR AS A FRIEND comes in. All our mentors have been through this journey. We understand your fears and anxieties. So, TALK IT OUT.
Don’t let inconsistency keep you away from your dreams.
Fill up the SAMANVAYA form given below. Let us know your problems and we will find a solution to it, just like our students say ” TOGETHER WE CAN AND WE WILL”.
How has Civilsdaily Mentorship, helped Aspirants become Toppers?
The most difficult challenge faced by EVERY candidate is inconsistency. Be it inconsistency in studies, answer-writing practice, covering the syllabus, or revision, every candidate finds it difficult to cope with. Buthow do successful candidates manage to FIGHT Inconsistency so consistently?
In UPSC 2020, Civilsdaily helped 80+ students secure ranks in their exams. In the top 100, every 3rd ranker was a Civilsdaily student.
A very recent success story would be Vishwa Shah, student of Civilsdaily Mentor, Sukanya Ma’am. Vishwa has cleared the GPSC exam to become the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Gujarat. He has penned a thank-you note yesterday. Heartiest Congratulations to Vishwa!
One of our other Civilsdaily Student, Shubham Nagargojecleared the exams in 2020 to become an IPS Officer. Shubham was gracious enough to let us know how he felt about Civilsdaily Samanvaya Guidance under Parth sir.
To know how all of them cleared the exam with our mentorship, visit the UnherdPodcast.
Now that results are announced for UPSC 2021 Prelims, out of 15 out of 25 students of Santhosh Gupta sir have been recommended to Mains. One such student, Rahul expresses his gratitude and extends his appreciation.
Most of our Mentors like Sudhanshu sir, Sajal sir, Santhosh sir, Pravin sir, Parth Verma sir and Sukanya Ma’am were UPSC aspirants themselves and have attended UPSC Mains more than five times and UPSC Interview more than twice. Hence their mentorship is always a blend of the best test series, comprehensive notes and current affairs knowledge.
All of them dedicate their time weekly to give 1-on-1 mentorship to every student where they discuss last week’s performance and next week’s approach.
Be it Telegram, Whatsapp or Habitiat channels, they are always available and clear student’s doubts in a turnaround time of 24 Hours.
Why Civilsdaily Mentors are the GPS for Your UPSC-CSE Preparation
Remember there is always light at the end of the tunnel and if you want to get out of the tunnel you have to follow the direction of the light! Our mentors’ give you direction which is divided into daily modules. All you have to do is study and complete them on time.
As every year passes by, we don’t get confident by the previous years’ performance and become laidback. Instead, we become more hungry to convert all our students into toppers.
How are Current Civilsdaily Students Gearing up for UPSC-CSE 2022?
Initially, our Civilsdaily student Smriti wasn’t confident about Prelims when she began her preparation. Though she had joined Civilsdaily in 2020, she started studying for UPSC-CSE back in 2019. At that time, Smriti had enrolled in multiple institutes. Though, most of these institutes had promised a personal mentor, she was unable to get in touch with them on a daily basis. Also those mentors never scheduled test-series on a weekly basis. Hence, despite preparing for a year, Smriti had scored only 35 marks out of 200 in her first test series by Civilsdaily.
She then started writing 20-25 test series over the course of UAP 2021 and in her last test, her scores have drastically improved. She now scores in the range of 130-135 marks in prelims’ and 110+ in mains’ papers.
In Smriti’s own words she describes her Samanvaya Mentorship Experience to be —
“Our parents provide us financial and emotional support, friends provide us moral support and the right mentor gives you logistic and logical support for UPSC. There are days when I felt I won’t be able to compete against lakhs of aspirants. That’s when my mentor, Ravi sir reminded me of my improvement and encouraged me that I can crack it with the same consistency. We need someone, who tells us we are performing well especially when we cannot see that ourselves. The mentorship at Civilsdaily helped me become mentally stronger as a person. In other institutes, mentors are allotted only for doubt resolution. But at Civilsdaily, I am getting end-to-end mentorship via value added notes, classes, test series and detailed evaluation.”
Similarly our another Civilsdaily student, Ashishsums up his Samanvaya experience with Civilsdaily mentor,Pravin Sir, “Because of Pravin sir’s support, I am able to understand a topic in lesser time.”
This is how Pravin sir evaluates Ashish’s Mains Test Series every week. After every test series evaluation, Pravin sir schedules a 1 hour call to discuss how Ashish can improve his marks and the sources he can refer for key topics.
It’s Your Turn Get the Free 40 Min Counselling Session By a CD Mentor
Civilsdaily mentors are so dedicated, consistent and focused for your UPSC goal, that you will eventually become focused into turning your dreams to reality.
At the core of Civilsdaily UPSC mentorship, lies the fact that each one of you will have a unique journey while preparing for the exam. Some will get through on the first attempt without much effort while others will take both more time and more effort.
We want to understand you better to help you optimize your journey so you can focus on the right things and not waste time on the wrong ones. We are asking you to tap into the valuable experiences of mentors who underwent the same grind and realize the pitfalls and understand the shortcuts to make it.
In the first counselling session, we will understand your weaknesses. We then help you to stick to one plan or strategy throughout your preparation. We will then follow up with you on a daily basis to check if you are right on track. To get an idea of how your 1st 1-on-1 mentorship will look like, watch this sample video —
The surge in demand for gig workers, particularly in the shared services and logistics segments, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic led to mushrooming of job discovery platforms.
What is the gig economy?
In a gig economy, temporary, flexible jobs are commonplace and companies tend toward hiring independent contractors and freelancers instead of full-time employees.
A gig economy undermines the traditional economy of full-time workers who rarely change positions and instead focus on a lifetime career. e.g Employee models of Uber, Ola, Swiggy etc
In this economy, tech-enabled platforms connect the consumer to the gig worker to hire services on a short-term basis. Gig workers include self-employed, freelancers, independent contributors and part-time workers.
This project-based gig economy allows the service adopter to cut overhead costs, and the gig worker to get paid for a specific task performed instead of receiving a fixed salary.
The gig economy can benefit workers, businesses, and consumers by making work more adaptable to the needs of the moment and demand for flexible lifestyles.
At the same time, the gig economy can have downsides due to the erosion of traditional economic relationships between workers, businesses, and clients.
Sectors such as media, real estate, legal, hospitality, technology-help, management, medicine, allied and education are already operating in gig culture.
Is Gig economy a new concept?
The ‘Gig concept’ is very common in advanced countries like the US, Europe, who hire part time workers.
With freelancing evolving into the Gig Economy, the concept is attracting a lot of people in India as well.
Gig economy is remunerative and gives a wide range of choices but it also leads to casualization of the labor.
Trends in Gig Economy
The digital gig economy generated a gross volume of approximately $204 bn from worldwide customers in 2018. Transportation-based services contributed to over 50% of this value.
The size of the gig economy is projected to grow by a 17% CAGR and generate a gross volume of ~$455 bn by 2023.
Digital platforms have emerged as enablers for employment creation with the power to easily discover job seekers and job providers in the absence of middlemen.
Due to the rapid developments in technology, the transaction cost for outsourcing non-core activities is reducing and facilitating an increase in the number of tasks which can be performed by each worker.
Thus, firms are shrinking in size and we are witnessing a rise in start-ups which are outsourcing many activities to expert service providers on a contractual basis.
While the gig economy is popular amongst the blue-collar workers in India, there is now huge potential for the white-collar workers as well, due to increasing demand in industries – project-specific consultants, logo/content design, web design etc.
The gig economy is expanding from less skilled services to more skilled jobs.
Gig Economy in India
The COVID-19 pandemic-induced remote working has blurred the age-old skepticism over the efficiency and dependability of contractual or part-time employees, with companies increasingly looking to hire gig workers.
As per a report by ASSOCHAM, India’s gig sector is expected to increase to US$455 billion at a CAGR of 17% by 2024 and has the potential to expand at least 2x the pre-pandemic estimates.
India has emerged as the 5th largest country for flexi-staffing after US, China, Brazil and Japan.
Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Telangana have most opportunities in terms of growth for the flexi-workers.
In another estimate, India is likely to have 350 million gig jobs by 2025, presenting a huge opportunity for job seekers to capitalize and adapt to the changing work dynamics.
At present, India has a pool of ~15 million freelance workers staffed in projects across IT, HR and designing. In addition, India’s workforce is growing by ~4 million people annually.
And as most of them are young millennials, they are showing an increasing preference for gig contracts. This trend is expected to significantly impact gig economy in the near future.
Key Drivers for Gig Economy
(1) Unconventional work approach by millennials
Hectic lifestyles of employees in private sectors have created a negative perception of full-time employment among millennials.
Factors such as growth opportunities, flexibility, better work-life balance and option to not acquire a college degree are encouraging millennials to opt for freelancing opportunities as opposed to corporate work culture.
(2) Emergence of a start-up culture
The start-up ecosystem in India has been developing rapidly. For start-ups, hiring full-time employees leads to high fixed costs and therefore, contractual freelancers are hired for non-core activities.
Start-ups are also looking at hiring skilled technology freelancers (on a per project basis) in areas such as engineering, product, data science and ML to bolster their tech platforms.
(3) MNCs are hiring contractual employees
MNCs are adopting flexi-hiring options, especially for niche projects, to reduce operational expenses after the pandemic. This trend is significantly contributing to the gig culture in India.
(4) Rise in freelancing platforms
Rise in freelancing platforms has also aided in the development of the gig economy. Many home-grown platforms such as Upwork, Truelancer and Guru provide access to high-skilled freelancers.
The number of freelancing platforms has significantly increased—from 80 in 2009 to 330 in 2021. These platforms boast of a clientele comprising not only start-ups, but also Fortune 500 companies.
(5) Business Models
Gig employees work on various compensation models such as fixed-fee (decided during contract initiation), time & effort, actual unit of work delivered and quality of outcome.
The fixed-fee model is the most prevalent; however, time & effort model comes a close second.
(6) Impact of Covid-19
According to the survey, India stands to lose ~135 million jobs because of the pandemic and this is likely to push the full-time workforce towards the gig economy.
Moreover, many laid-off employees are focusing on developing skills to avail freelance job opportunities and become a part of this burgeoning economy.
Why is Gig Economy preferred by workers?
One can work on freelancing as well as work full-time somewhere else. Hence it is profitable to the worker as he can hit two targets together and multitask.
It is very beneficial for women who work on this concept when they cannot continue their work or take a break from career due to marriage or child birth.
Retired people can stay active after retirement as this will keep them engaged away from loneliness and depression and can earn as well on their own rather than depending on their children or pensions.
It offers flexibility and diversity to the workers. It offers flexibility when workers can work according to their convenience and schedule rather than routine like in full-time jobs.
The travel costs and energy to travel to the workplace is reduced.
Why is Gig Economy preferred by Employers?
The efficiency, efficacy and productivity of workers in gig economy are much more than that of a stable full-time job.
More Economical for employers – When employment givers can’t afford to hire full-time workers, they hire people for specific projects and pay them.
Start-up companies and entrepreneurs – who do not have big financial space – can grow only if they can leverage the services of contract employees or freelancers.
In a gig economy, businesses save resources in terms of benefits, office space and training. (Reference – Whatis)
Competition and efficiency among workers improved.
Challenges faced in Gig economy
There are no labour welfare emoluments like pension, gratuity, etc. for the workers.
Gig workers may face unfair termination. They may also attain minimum wages and less paid leave.
Workers do not have the bargaining power to negotiate a fair deal with their employers.
Unionization of workers will be difficult.
Confidentiality of documents etc of the workplace is not guaranteed
The gig economy is not accessible for people in many rural areas where internet connectivity and electricity is unavailable.
The social welfare objectives can be neglected if business and profitable avenues of freelancing are prioritized.
What are the major impacts of the gig economy?
Gig economy companies had introduced innovative systems and methods to the labour market. These methods are offering workers flexibility and the freedom to choose how and when they work.
But this chaotic and amoebic environment has helped create an environment of exploitation where workers get minimal protection and low wages.
A government study in the UK recently established that a quarter of the people working in the country’s gig economy are being paid below the national minimum wage.
As most of the gig economy companies act as an aggregator and digital companies, their interaction with the labourers and customers is minimal.
Gig Economy and the women empowerment
The women are considerably placed in a victimised position in the workplace. The flexibility that the gig economy offers women help to come out of the shackles of the male domination.
The financial independence is often considered as the first step towards the women empowerment. The labour of the women will be valued and paid worth for.
Rise and participation of the women in the job market would help in improving the indicators where women participation is considered the least and they will occupy roles as the decision makers.
But women due to lack of certain options are forced to perform the dual responsibility of work and home.
Dual exploitation faced as they are sandwiched between the familial and professional responsibilities where they have to forego their professional lives.
Code on Social Security 2019
To aid gig workers, the govt passed the ‘Code on Social Security’, which will provide workers with life and disability cover, accidental insurance, health & maternity benefits old age protection and others.
Under this code, the central and state governments will primarily fund social security measures, with a nominal contribution (1-2% of their annual turnover) by the aggregator.
Also, the contribution made by the aggregator/platform will not exceed 5% of the amount payable to gig and platform workers.
In addition, the code proposed to establish a ‘National Social Security Board’, which will supervise and formulate schemes for the well-being of gig and platform workers.
Way Forward
The gig economy has been on the rise and is expected to beat the pre-pandemic estimates due the expected influx of gig workers transitioning from full-time employment.
While the government has taken the initial steps to ensure social security of gig workers, the ‘Code on Social Security’ needs to be fine-tuned.
Further, all platform workers should be offered mandatory coverage under the Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana.
This can be facilitated through the employer companies and will ensure employee protection; thus, guaranteeing a sustainable gig economy.
There should be revamped of employee policy assessments and evaluations. An effective evaluation process is required to ensure consistent and quality work, where customized assessment procedures need to be developed.
India should learn from developed countries like the US and basic training and courses on freelancing, etc. should be provided to people.
Career Avenues, choices, counselling should be available to students and workers on gig economy.
Companies will also need a human resource department that can manage a diverse workforce and imbue the company’s culture into gig workers.
