What is the Ideal Strategy and Study Plan for the IAS Main Exam?

Before Clearing Prelims

• Be Consistent with Your Preparation: Early birds have the advantage of more time, which is by far their biggest benefit. There is a problem, though. When you have enough time, paying greater attention to consistency maintenance over a lengthy period of time is more important than managing your time. As a result, each day, week, and month should have its own set of goals.
• Sufficient Time Allocation: Adopting the "Mains first" method, which entails beginning your UPSC preparation by developing a UPSC Mains preparation strategy. It is vital given the availability of time.
• A candidate only has about three to four months to prepare for the mains after the prelims. The necessity of practising writing essays and answers further tightens the schedule. Thus, it will be an intelligent move to prepare for the mains part first.
• Choose Your Optional Subject Wisely: The optional subject is the most important component of the mains syllabus. Your level of comfort and interest in the subject should be taken into consideration while selecting an optional subject. This choice should not be influenced by any incorrect assumptions about "which is the most scoring optional."

Your preparation and presentation (the writing of your answers) are what give the optional subject its score, not the optional subject itself.

• There is a strategy to choose the ideal optional subject for the UPSC Mains, though.
• Create a good study plan: After carefully selecting an optional subject, the candidate must immediately begin the preparation process. Allocate the months and schedule your days and weeks well in advance, ensuring that by November - December, you finish the syllabus for the four General Studies papers and Optional subject. It is indeed possible to complete the Mains preparation only if you plan your time with perfection.
• Follow Daily Current Affairs to Keep Yourself Updated: The daily newspaper is one crucial part of the preparation process that must be followed faithfully and continuously. The candidate should stay current on all significant domestic and foreign issues. You can read one or two government publications and sources, such as Yojana, Kurukshetra, PIB, PRS, etc. Additionally, if you have the time, you can begin practising for your first set of answers once you have finished the mains curriculum. Try to get a teacher or senior to review it.
• Give Yourself a Break after Prelims: Giving oneself a rest after prelims is crucial. It's necessary to take a break from your studies because you may have been consistently studying for a year or longer. During the break, prepare yourself for another three to four months of intense preparation. Contemplate about how your exam was; there might be three cases,
  • You are 100% sure you will qualify for the prelims. Devise a suitable UPSC Mains Preparation strategy to ensure your success in Mains as well.
  • You are unsure whether or not you’ll not qualify for the Prelims. Don’t get disheartened by the result. You can still get to start afresh as Prelims is qualifying in nature.
  • You are 100% sure that you would not qualify for the Prelims. Don’t get discouraged. Reflect on your mistakes, try to learn from them, and devise a year-long strategy to follow for next year.
• During this time, also read a lot about preparation strategies that can help you plan the best one for yourself. Take inspiration from your seniors or peers, toppers, or mentors who can guide you best in the most crucial phase of your UPSC mains preparation.

How to cope with the 5-Day Stress (Main Examination)? Typically, the UPSC Civil Services Mains Exam is held over the course of five or six days. It requires the candidates to take nine tests. The tests last three hours. On some days, candidates must take two tests. The examination exercise is highly physically and mentally taxing. Therefore, it is preferable for a candidate to be at the top of their physical and cognitive game. Avoid becoming stressed on test days. Study at the rate that works best for you, and get enough of rest.

After Clearing Prelims

• Make a Detailed Study Plan for UPSC Mains Strategy: Create a thorough study schedule for your mains preparation. As you may already be aware, there are nine descriptive papers in the UPSC Mains, of which two are qualifying language papers, two papers from your optional subjects, one is the essay paper, and the remaining four are general studies papers. Therefore, you should have a clear plan for how to review each subject and prepare the ones you haven't even begun to cover yet.
• Plan the time you'll need to dedicate to each paper: Now, the majority of new candidates are perplexed about how to review everything in the two to three months they have between Prelims and Mains. Here’s what you can do:
  • Have a monthly goal, weekly goal, and daily goal. Stick to that and ensure that you complete each goal. Make small targets so that they seem achievable.
  • Even if your preparation gets disturbed for 1-2 days, don’t wreck the whole plan, rather, divide the portions you have missed across the week.
  • Always keep 2 hours for revising what you’ve read daily. Also, keep the weekends free for answer writing practice revising what you’ve learned in the week.

Enhance Your Answer Writing Practice: Since the Mains paper is descriptive in nature, it is important that you give due time to answer writing in your UPSC Mains Preparation strategy. Whatever that you read, try to summarise in your own words at the end of the day. Dedicate an hour each day to practice answer writing. Get your answers evaluated by your mentors or seniors to get a fair bit of idea of where you stand. Don’t fret about writing bad answers in the beginning. Practice does make one perfect, hence practice answer writing as much as you can.

• Give Regular Mock Tests: Now, mock tests are important because it gives you an exam-feel, it prepares you to write your best answers in a stressful exam situation. Hence, never take mocks for granted. Think of it as an opportunity to understand the answer-writing process, to write brief succinct answers considering the demand of the questions.