FAQs

NCERTs are designed for school education and provide a strong foundation requires in UPSC-CSE.
NCERTs help aspirants to understand the fundamentals of the concepts with a holistic approach.

Coaching institutes can be helpful for aspirants as they guide students to develop an approach to make their preparation more effective.
Guidance through mentorship with study material and test series can be very beneficial for aspirants to crack this examination in one year.

The student must strategize the hours of study based on their abilities, needs, and grasping power.
Moreover, it depends on productivity while studying. Hence, it is not about the quantity of time a student spends but the efficiency and quality of studying.
Ideally, 6-7 hours of productive study with good retention is needed to crack UPSC-IAS-CSE.

The optional subject has two papers of 250 marks each. UPSC allocates higher marks in optional papers as compared to general studies (GS) papers. This increases the chances for candidates to clear the Mains examination without scoring higher marks in GS papers

With respect to the preliminary examination, a candidate should appear for 30 to 50 mock tests before the actual exam.
With respect to the mains examination, a candidate should write 30 to 40 tests prior to the actual examination.
Disclaimer: a candidate should not consider mock tests as a platform to test knowledge but rather would consider them as a practice to learn how to attempt a question.

After understanding the UPSC-IAS syllabus a candidate should consider newspaper as value-addition material. For example, students should not try to read each and every line of the newspaper but rather should develop an understanding of the news and makes notes by adding new perspectives to their own content with respect to Editorials/Op-Eds.
A candidate should not overwhelm himself/herself by collecting each and every piece of factual information/news. It is advisable that a candidate should seek guidance from an institute with respect to the newspaper.

There are two newspapers: The Hindu and The Indian Express. A candidate must read one of the newspapers daily adhering to the UPSC-IAS-CSE syllabus.
Saurabh Pandey UPSC offers ‘Smart Current Affairs Monthly Mazagine’ with a greater focus on the UPSC-IAS exam pattern. Other than that Saurabh Pandey UPSC also offers live current affairs classes to help students in reading the newspaper from an exam point of view.

EdTech like Saurabh Pandey UPSC is offering a bunch of online courses which is customizable. These courses include a combination of video lectures as well as content for effective preparation and helping students to understand this examination better.

The student must strategize the hours of study based on their abilities, needs, and grasping power.
Moreover, it depends on productivity while studying. Hence, it is not about the quantity of time a student spends but the efficiency and quality of studying.
Ideally, 6-7 hours of productive study with good retention is needed to crack UPSC-IAS-CSE.