Jignesh has come from Gujarat to Delhi to prepare for one of the India’s toughest and competitive examination- UPSC. As soon as he stepped in the UPSC hubs of CSE, he was awed by the sight of it. Plethora of bookshops were established at every nook and corner of the area selling each and every coaching's study materials – all of them proclaiming to be the ultimate guide to make you an IAS or IPS. As with every fresher who gets overwhelmed by these sights, he was befuddled and confused.

He thought that he should not lag behind and thus he brought all the books and materials to study. He went to different bookstores where he thought that the divine information could land him in the top coveted ranks. But as the exam came closer, he felt that he couldn’t complete the syllabus on time. And thus, he read some topics and left some of them. He couldn’t qualify the examination.

Another aspirant, Vignesh Acharya was confident that he will be able to complete all the resources in time. He was a senior aspirant who had given multiple attempts. He had seen people falling in the web of buying various resources. He had even warned new aspirants to read selected materials. But some of the freshers thought that he wasn’t giving the right advice and wanted them to be left behind.

Vignesh cleared the exam, whereas his overzealous friends were caught behind.

Bad Information Drives out Good Information
The similarity that we see with many cases is that, aspirants are hankering after numerous sources. They look at various websites and download each and every article that comes through. In this haste, they forget that at the end they will be over burdened by the information. As the saying goes, 'Bad money drives out Good, and thus in this case, Bad information drives out Good information’.

Most aspirants attempt to cover every resource that is available in the market. As the material piles up, stress and anxiety are created. Instead, gain thorough knowledge about the syllabus first. Then, one NCERT book should be focussed on with an additional book used as reference.

In the end, the candidate is left behind with mediocre knowledge, never ending information and is reading the same information again and again which he might have studied from any previous centre- thus wasting his time.

Aspirants need to understand that everyone has his/her own potential, learning ability, perspective and way of understanding things. So instead of following others’ strategies, aspirants should analyse their own weaknesses and strengths.

So, do you know the way out?
Yes, Quality matters over Quantity. Before purchasing any book, you should take the help of technology and do a good research on the books. There are many toppers and the people who have appeared in the examination who have given reviews on some particularly followed books for the major subjects.

Mukherjee Nagar and Old Rajinder Nagar which have been termed as the ‘Mecca and Medina’ of UPSC preparation in India and various local markets of these UPSC hubs are flooded with books of numerous authors and publications. However, only selected books are actually apt for fruitful preparation. But, due to insufficient understanding of the UPSC CSE preparations, many students end up creating piles of books in their room, turning it into a junk pile instead of an ideal learning set up.

An aspirant is always advised to seek information from seniors who have qualified the examination, mentors and genuine sources and then choose what to buy and what not.

Many channels in Youtube also keep sessions of topper’s talks in which they tell about their strategies and the books that they use to follow and the confusions that they used to have in their mind while preparation. Also, proper importance should be given on the point that the book should be upto the mark in terms of syllabus.

You should always remember that you have to follow only one book for a subject and read it as many times as you can. If you try to read all the books of only one subject you might end up having your syllabus unfinished in given time.

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