How to clear UPSC with top 100 rank in 2025 | A plan for your studies in 2024!

hi everyone I hope all of you guys are doing well so first of all I would like to wish all of you a very very happy New Year 2024 thanks to all of all of the aspirants who have been watching all the videos that I made in 2023 I'm very sure and I hope that you have learned a lot in the last one year now as we go into 2024 I wanted to address one important thing which is how you can prepare for upsc for the next 1 one and a half years and see yourself at daasa in 2026 so how if you are preparing for upsc exam for the 2025 attempt how from now on you can study properly you have one and a half years it is enough it is enough for the upsc preparation how you can cover various aspects of upsc in this one and a half years in order to see yourself in labasa very soon now for all the aspirants who are appearing for this exam in 2024 you can definitely learn a lot from the way I'm going to strategize for you today so that you can apply some of these tricks to the 2024 exam as well but for most of you who are starting your preparation soon soon now in January February March April in the next two months how you can calibrate your preparation in such a way that in 2025 you're are writing the exam and you are well prepared to qualify so I'm going to cover all the things all the different things starting from when you should start preparing what you should study what are the sources that you should refer to where you should study or where you can get inspiration motivation the right direction to study I'm going to also cover how long it will take you to plan this and do the entire studies how to practice how to do see one is the whole studying part of the exam and the other is practicing part of the exam so studying is different practicing for the exam the previous year questions Etc how to practice ice what kind of studies where to get these particular practice um test papers Etc from that I will be covering that when to stop studying now that is very very important if you're studying a certain subject and you are continuing to study it endlessly that is a very dangerous sign so when to stop studying I will be talking about so all these different things I'll be covering I will also be covering whether you need to enroll into any coaching institutes all these different aspects I'm going to also write them in the YouTube Community but I'm going to talk about them and hopefully you can learn a lot today throughout this session you'll get an overall view of what the upsc exam is all about now before I go into this particular talk I want to also make one thing little bit clear to you guys that see upsc exam is not only about studying and having sources having books it is also about soft aspects intangible things like what is your mental state how are you managing your stress how you man how are you managing your motivation levels how are you managing your sleep cycle your exercise your food habits because you don't want to come out after 1 and a half 2 years of preparation in a state where you don't like yourself that you have put on too much weight or you are not physically fit anymore and uh maybe hopefully not but if you don't qualify the exam then you are questioning the time you have put into this exam okay you want to come out after 2 years as a person who is more learned who has more knowledge who has more understanding of the world and who also feels good so I will also be talking about that aspect of the exam to be honest I did not follow that I did not have any guidance I do not have any guide mentor to tell me that but I wish I did so that I could have maintained there you know I put on a lot of weight during the uh during the whole preparation process so I will be covering all these I will also be telling you about what good YouTube sources you can referred to for the upsc exam different sources I I have a list of books I will also tell you all those list of books books and test series Etc that you can take so I will be covering all these different things today so stay tuned and uh watch each of the sections so that you can get an idea all right so first of all let's start with how you are going to start plan and strategize your preparation for 2025 now let's say you have an entire 1 and a half year in front of you you have around 18 months in front of you you have to plan for these 18 months and every day is going to be critical every month every week is going to be critical to we have to be very good at using this 18 months and remember that time management is very very important for upsc time management is super important so we don't want to be wasting these 18 months we're going to utilize them to the best and then we are going to give our best attempt and maybe one or two more attempts and we know that we have put all of our whatever capabilities we have into the exam and then we don't have to bury and I'm I assure you that if you're not able to qualify upsc if you are apping for some other exam for any professorship assistant professorship or something you should also that do that so that plan B also I'm going to discuss on the side so that you have something that you can always rely on in case upsc is not coming all right so first of all when we start preparing for upsc when you have 18 months in front of you you want to always plan backwards that okay my exam I have to take in let's say June 20 2025 I have to write my prelims I have almost 1 and a half years how do I start backwards in May 2025 in February June uh in January February March April May in these five months where do I want to be standing and in this 12 months where do I be standing you have to do this entire calculation backwards so the way I would do this calculation backwards is that I will keep the last 3 months completely dedicated for for one and only one thing which is the prelims I will focus my entire energy on practicing prelims previous year question papers test series Etc in the last 3 months revising the entire syllabus in the last 3 months of prelims only focusing my energy on how to solve pyqs making sure I'm getting 33% marks in seat set exam so that is what I will keep for the last 3 months okay before that now minus 3 months I have 15 months these 15 15 months I have to plan for various things what do I have to plan for number one I have to complet complete the entire main syllabus of GS 1 2 3 4 while studying gs1 12 3 for means you are also studying for prelims no worries no problem of panicking nothing like that because this Mains preparation is going to help you both in prelims and the mains exam so that is great so one GS 1 2 3 and GS4 I have to study in in these 15 months plus I have to finish the entire optional in these 15 months and plus I have to finish the entire essay preparation in these 15 months so 15 months you have for all this now for GS 1 2 3 mostly you have current part and static part so write it down just write make a flowchart where you have Gs 1 2 3 4 okay like GS 1 2 3 4 and in Gs 1 2 3 of static and current part okay so that you can separate out GS4 is mostly static and case studies only then you have your optional and then you have your essay nothing else this is the things that you're going to focus for the 15 months now in this 15 months now the question will be from where to start do I start with essay do I start with ethics do I start with GS 1 2 3 4 do I start with optional my answer to that is start with the syllabus first of all pick up the syllabus read the entire syllabus properly and make a habit of reading the syllabus some part of the syllabus or the syllabus every day for the next two months so that you are totally familiar with each and every component of the syllabus even if I ask you you should know by hand by memory quickly that this is there in GS2 this is there in GS3 this is there in GS4 okay after you start doing that for the first s days don't jump right into the studies let's say you're starting studying on Jan 1st 2 third whatever don't jump right into the studies don't pick up a book and started reading it first make this enti plan that I'm telling you and in this plan first figure out what are the subjects you want to study before in Jan Feb March April and then what are the subjects you're going to study later and then of course you're going to come to a prelims last three months of prelims preparation okay and then remember after prelims you will have around 2 months 2 2 and a half months or 3 months before the mains happen so during this time also it is important for you to utilize that so how you will be utilizing that I will tell you later after the prelims after I have told you this okay so now we know that uh next 15 months we have to study these subjects essay I would not advise you to start right away why because essay now I'm using elimination method I'm going to eliminate all the things I don't need to do right now and whatever is left over I have to do right now so same elimination method you can use in the exams also sometimes for your prelims paper so essay no why because essay requires knowledge it requires practice it requires accumulation of knowledge that you're going to dump on the piece of the paper when you writing the exam so I would not recommend you doing the essay right away there is no point leave it for later leave it for maybe 6 7even months from now you can start preparing for essay when you have good knowledge base you have already studied some history some geography some environment so all these things will help you write a good essay also okay so I will keep the essay for later maybe 6 seven months optional maybe because optional is something I have to study I have to finish it is an important 500 marks out of 2025 marks of upsc are from optional and you require more than 280 290 marks you will definitely need in your optional in able to get the two top 100 rank I'm going to focus on the top 100 rank only so for that 500 marks optional my first job is to pick the optional if you have have picked the optional good for you I would say that you may start first preparing for the optional and finish it in the next 2 two and half months that could be a good strategy if you have not picked the optional I would say spend the next 15 20 days first finalizing your optional and on that I have made a video I will put a link how to choose your optional but it is very important for you to realize that for optional it is should be a subject that you either love that you really like that you can study for hours or it is a subject subject that you have studied in your undergraduation so or graduation so that you can revise it and it's already prepared well for you and then you can get hopefully good marks and or the third the optional which is a relatively stable optional where you can get good marks by giving it giving good effort for example sociology anthropology political science these are evergreen optionals sometimes maybe some fluctuations are there but always most candidates who prepare well enough get good marks in these so you can pick one of these optionals that is your choice you have to look at the syllabus of these optionals read the old pyqs and become comfortable but I would say that if you are someone who has fin finalized your optional study for it for the next 2 and a half months finish it off maximum 3 months finish it off and then you can keep revising it Midway but right now if you don't know what your optional is I would say take 15 days finalize your optional give every day 30 40 minutes 1 hour to figure out which option you want to take and then uh uh you can start preparing for optional in a few months one other thing I would consider for deciding your optional would be maybe if there is a good coaching available who has a good track record who has been out there for a while because they do help um there is definitely mixed experience of students with coaching institutes but I would say if they are reputed if they are if they're good then definitely their courses help their materials help they put in a lot of effort into their material I would go for something like that so that is how you prepare for optional think about optional now let's say you are someone who don't know your optional then I would say first thing that you should always start is either economy okay or po why do I say this because these are both neutral subjects in the sense that they are very important subjects for upsc one of the highest number of questions will come from either economy or polity or environment these three uh environment I say for later once of studied geography I would say then you start studying environment because that way you get a good background of studying environment but economy and poity are subjects which anyways are in the news a lot there are fixed sources for these particular uh subjects you can go to those sources and study those sources and there's a lot of good online YouTube classes also available so if you are studying yourself you can definitely get good classes for these two uh these two particular subjects sorry not options but these two subjects so for economy and polity whatever you feel more comfortable with potic is one of the best subjects to start with for example because I say you can study the source for poity is ncer Constitution at work this is a NC book which is an evergreen amazing book and the lakshmikant book these two books are great enough more than enough for polity and you can also refer to my notes I will post them in the link for revision purposes only not for studying for revision purposes only so that way your poity will be set set so you can spend almost 1 and a half to 2 months on Pol it will take that much time to probably go in depth and get everything out of the way the entire book is thick it will take that much time and along with that you're studying poity if you're staring 6 to8 hours in a day if you're staring poity along with that I would also start covering current affairs current affairs I would start covering in the evening give 2 three hours to newspaper give to current affairs magazine and that will be sufficient in the starting it will not make sense in the starting you will feel like there is so much time the newspaper is taking there is so much time this current affairs magazine is taking but trust me as you give more and more time to it it will be very clear to you all right you just have to do it for a month or so and then things will start becoming clear by themselves see I always say that upsc is not like it's not like a short run or a kind of a Sprint you can't just run and then expect to get results it is a marathon you have to keep up the pace you have to keep running you have to have that stamina you have to have that patience in order to succeed in it so that is why I always say that current affairs is something that you have to uh Master over a period of time you have to go through that hard work that inefficiencies uh in a housel book Morgan housel book he talks recently a book has come out same as ever in that it talks about the fact that lot of people in the name of efficient in the name of being efficient don't go through the hard work don't go through the the actual uh kind of you know when you have to dig something yourself you're getting your hands dirty and all you have to do that even in upsc you have to get your hands dirty because you will do a lot of things wrong and that is okay because you will also learn how to do them right of course you can avoid some things doing uh Wrong by listening to classes like mine but at the end of the day without without getting your uh hands dirty without kind of doing wrong uh things wrongly you cannot uh learn and that learning process is very very important that effic inefficiency of going through things and realizing okay this is not how I should do it this is how I should do it that is very very important so I request all of you to do that and for that uh that will happen to you anyways so in current affairs don't don't shy away from it don't kind of uh become someone who is aers to doing this hard work all right so current affairs every day you have to study for the next 6 seven months non-stop every day maybe some days you can plan to study one subject but mostly I used to Club current affairs with one subject that is how I used to study I did not complicate by studying two subjects at the same time I used to study either optional current affairs or GS subject and current affairs that is how I did it and that is a very good formula to do it all right so finish poity like I told you it will take 1 and a half 2 months and then go to economy it will take another 1 and a half months or so so that way your 3 months will go and in 3 months in Jan Fe March you should be done with your economy and po along with a substantial Port portion of current affairs it will start making sense to you and you will start getting an idea how to do your current affairs okay so I told you now Jan to March or plan to Jan to March is set you don't have to think much apart from that in Jan to March all also start looking at what you're are going to do next it is not only about just planning and studying but also always thinking a little bit of Step uh a step ahead and knowing that okay I have come so far and I have to go so far so what do I do next like a good Mountaineer you know if you're a mountaineer you can't be thinking just of The Next Step you also have to think of the 10 steps from now because this one step will affect where you are in 10 steps if you take a wrong step now it will will not matter at all because then in the 10 steps you're going to fail anyways but if you make sure that your step you're taking right now is good by thinking what is going to happen in 10 steps then that really matters so what is going to happen a little bit in the future also you have to keep in mind so keep in mind you know if you are able to follow this particular plan or not if you're lagging behind a bit if it is taking you 1520 days extra that is okay see this plan some at some places you will get get stuck in some subjects you will be taking more time in other subjects you will be taking less time but the whole idea is to know that I am on average keeping up with my Pace or not all right so for economy and poity once you're finished with that in April now next you should go to history and geography so April May and June you should be done with history geography and you should be done with hopefully at the same time with art and culture because history and art and culture are similar so first I would study history and then art and culture and then I would study the um the geography so in April May and June I would start studying your history geography and art and culture now in history the sources I would recommend to all of you is for Modern India for the freedom struggle bipin chandra's book great book study that or you can use spectum also spectrum is in notes format so I always suggest to all the aspirants first read bipin Chandra and then come to the notes format book which is Spectrum then NC ancient history book for the ancient part and for medial also you can refer to ncrt uh some of that is also covered in Spectrum book all right there are also notes that come of various institutes you can also refer to them for world history okay because world history as it is it is not remaining any more such an important part of upsc but we have to study we have to know the facts so this is how I would study history nothing more nothing less as far as making it interesting is concerned if you are doing self studies on YouTube there are a few channels which teach history really well especially some channels from us and from Europe which tell the history uh of the world in a very good way not of obviously the Indian history Indian History Channels I have not found any nice ones if you found find any nice ones please share I will definitely see them and recommend if they're worthy enough but sometimes on Khan Academy the American Khan Academy which is there you can find some good lectures on history that also you can refer to now as far as uh your geography is concerned simple subject can be done in 30 days max 20 to 30 days I would recommend to do you to do to have Oxford Atlas I would recommend you to have the ncrt physical geography book and then there are uh pmf also has geography notes very good notes so these will be sufficient and there are very good repository of upsc sorry YouTube channels where you can look at the concepts so a lot of these geography Concepts have to do with maps have to do with Landscapes have to do with uh physical Earth forms etc etc so all that you can like for example Amit s Gupta has a very good lecture series on geography so you can refer to that for as a source for studying um when you're studying yourself for uh for geography so this is how I would prepare for geography always keep the maps handy the Oxford Atlas always refer to the Oxford Atlas because the more you visualize in geography the more you relate it with the map the landforms Etc the easier it will become for you all right so that is how I would study so geography history and then art and culture art and culture the best book is obviously ntin singhania's book art and culture book uh earlier his notes used to come now it is a proper book and it's a very good book and there is also ncrt books on art and culture I would put the uh links here uh which you can refer to there are some online sources like ccrt and Etc which I will also post here so that you can study them or use them now art and culture should you should not take you more than 15 to 20 days even though the book is very big it looks like a lot but once you've studied history it becomes very easy because lot of these things are interrelated and you can always make sense of okay this time period refers to this art and culture so like that you can study all right so that is how I would study for April May and June so now I am done with how many subjects I done with economy potic geography history art and culture almost five subjects I'm done with by June in around 5 months plusus 15 days I always say take another 15 days let's say by the end of June half of July mid July you are able to finish these five subjects okay now how many subjects are there total GS 1 2 3 if you say you have history geography poity environment art and culture Science and Tech society and economy so there are 3 4 5 6 7 eight subjects out of eight we have done five subjects now we are we left with around three subjects which are Society Science and Tech now Science and Tech will get covered a lot along with your current affairs that you're doing so I told you when you're studying these subjects also try to study current affairs for 2 three hours a day so with that uh you're studying newspaper you studying the vision is current affairs magazine of the month that comes out so along with that the Science and Tech will also get prepared because lot of Science and Tech questions are not technical in nature but they are more current affairs based what is happening in the world of Science and Tech so you can always prepare them for the current affairs magazine so Science and Tech will get covered anyways so like this your now out out of eight or six subjects are covered now you're left with Society okay you left with society and did I count it wrong I have done history I have done geography I have done polity environment oh environment is left sorry so now society and environment I'm left with I told you study environment always after geography because in geography you will become familiar with certain Concepts that are related to environment and it will help you it will help you overall to have context so so uh environment I will start after this in July so in July and by end of August your goal should be to finish the environment subject thoroughly because environment is very very important lot of questions come so I would spend a considerable amount of time on environment to become master of environment there is a book of environment that you cannot get physical copy of but only an online copy PDF is available I will post it in the description so you can download it and study it an excellent book on environment study that before for anything after youve studied that book then study the pmf is environment notes those will be good these two if you do well I'm telling you you will be well prepared for the environment part and along with that obviously you're doing current affairs so like this by end of August your entire gs1 123 preparation is done Society is left Society needs not more than 7 days there is an ncrt book and ramja book on basic concepts like globalization uh the issues related to women old age persons uh now as Our Generations are changing that digital changes are coming Etc so the all these famili structures Etc all these very classic topics of society will not take you more than 78 days so I would say by end of August you can finish all these eight subjects quite well all right and your current affairs will also be quite well done so within 8 to 8 and a half months you are well prepared for GS 1 2 and 3 and remember also your prelims because all these things are going to come in your prelims okay so you are now well placed to have done all these things at least once you have done it now your revision Etc will start but obviously your optional is left and your essay preparation is left okay these two things are left now in August what I would go ahead and do is I would go and ahead and subscribe to the optional classes if possible Maybe a little bit ahead also and do that alongside and Essay classes essay classes are basically nothing test series you subscribe for test series and start taking every week or every in once in two weeks you start writing essays and slowly slowly you start improving as far as the sources are concerned I will post some of the essay booklets that I have created myself uh you can read them for free on on description I will uh put that link so that you can refer to this essay notes that will help you a lot lot and uh just wait for a couple of days I will not put it right away because I have limited amount of time but I will put them all in the description so you can prepare for the essay from those notes also you can get an idea how to prepare for an essay okay but it is mostly about practice the more you practice for essays the better you get so I would say subscribe to a test series for essay and for optional once you start in let's say August you need around three three and a half months to prepare for your optional or maybe maximum four months in 4 months you should be able to completely finish your optional if you have studied it before it will take you little bit less time but of course you have to put in a lot of effort you know you have to be putting in 8 hours 9 hours every day uh because to be honest optional is very vast it contains all the entire undergraduate studies and you're competing you have to be good so for optional four months August uh um August September October November so by November to December end Max by December end I want you to be prepared completely so I have given you around four to five months to prepare for optional that is enough and along with that remember you're also doing your current affairs you're also doing your newspaper on a daily basis now one more thing I'm going to drop here is you don't want to forget all you have studied so far right so you have to also keep revising the important chapters and the important subjects while you are doing your optional so every 2 three days open uh um the important subjects I would like you to revise is poity environment and economy these three subjects poity environment and economy and if possible geography economy and geography you also start revising them alongside with option so obviously you can't give too much time because optional will also take up aot lot of time 2 three hours your current affairs will also take but everyday try to take out one or two hours or maybe someday you have to take you have taken out more time uh when you're not feeling like studying the optional and you revise because that revision will really help you it will help you cover these subjects twice and then Thrice before the prelims and that will really put together your preparation well okay so that is very very important so during these four months also keep revising trying to fit trying to you know let's say on a Sunday on a Saturday like I used to study 7 days a week I did not have break of one day you know I did not have weekends so when you're studying for 7 days a week there is always possibility of finding time to study poity environment somewhere or the other or economy or geography because it is very important that you keep doing that active recall and doing revisions so that you are not forgetting all these things you are remembering the Core Concepts Etc okay anyways so now uh I have told you a very decent plan now we have come to Jan of next year 25 in Jan 25 now you have till around May or June 25 right you have four five months during these four five months last 3 months I told you you will have to focus completely on your upsc prelims preparation so doing a lot of pqs revising revising revising but these two months are left now in these two months you can do a lot of answer Writing Practice so around in December or Jan okay so if you are a candidate of aspirant of this year even now December Jan Feb you can start doing some answer Writing Practice so so that before Mains after prelims and before mains you have done it once at least so you have done it once at least so I would do that I would start um and just pick up a book uh my book is there uh which is coming out soon in a few days um with t MRA so you'll be very happy to see it's a very high quality 2021 22 23 Paper solved so all that you're going to get but anyways start I have done so many answer writing classes for you I've have told you every if you just go to the YouTube channel and go to the answer writing playlist you will find so many videos and everything you need to know about answer writing is there all right so I would say go through that prepare and start practicing for upsa answer writing and do it for good two months one and a half two months and then you come into the prelims paper but obviously uh do the essay writing see answer writing you don't need to do whole day you need only two three hours to do it apart from that you have to study only but that putting P pen on the paper is very important to get that orientation to get that feeling is very very important all right now I have told you about the sources I have told you about current affairs I have told you about how to plan this entire and how you will be studying now the important part is uh that you put this plan to work now for that this intangible pract intangible things matter a lot like what are your motivation levels what is your patience level how disciplined you are and for that I have shared a lot of lot of lot of techniques a lot of things that I would do in last video I shared how I used to plan my daily studies how I would uh you know read a number of specific number of pages in a day how how I would use the evening time for active recall I would how before sleeping I would plan for the next day all these things I have told you how I'm a morning person I would utilize my morning time really well now for from apart from all this what is important is that uh you have to really make up your mind you know uh I told you all this but then you will say sir I'm not motivated I feel down sometimes I'm not able to focus I have concentration Focus issues recently I did a video on how we are addicted to mobiles and how the mobiles are hurting our overall attention spans and our overall productivity uh so I gave various ways in which you could get rid of this social media addiction this dup minine addiction that we have so um that is very important you have to develop you know you have to sometimes we have to make this mindset that we have to focus and we don't we uh we have to get this task done and then when we make up that mindset [Music] mindset and then you have to work on you have to kind of that is very very important it is very important for all of you to realize that I'm here to tell you things I can tell you things I want all this aspirant who have till now watched this video that take up this challenge that I will give one and a half years of my life to this full in completely dedicated realizing my mistakes along the way knowing test Ser practice BS but at the end of the day what it comes down to boys down to is self analis self for example let's say you have read entire historys last year last last year then what is the meaning of that the meaning of that is obviously at the end of the day it is important to self evaluate yourself answer writing throughout this entire questions questions anwers obviously St similarly previous question solve after 6 months of preparation 30% questions solve after spending one year in preparation 50 60% solve that kind of checking self cheing self evaluation is very very important or self evaluation definitely but I think I have covered more of the most of the things if you want to join any kind of coaching Institute remember credibility every coaching ins [Music] Willa in the sense not from [Music] to onall sticking to this class is not a problem to choose your optional similarly coaching it is your own choice Jo definitely join it helps lot of students but lot of students it doesn't help also 201 en helps that guidance require definitely I'm not affiliated to anyone I know all of the their Founders know their people genuinely busu but they also want to provide good stuff to students so it is okay go to them with a pinch of salt always use your own mind that is very very important all right so that is my opinion with coaching institutes but don't go ke rank one doesn't matter Vis everyone because it was making it is just lot of times it is ranks that come so coaching institutes use these ranks to Showcase but at the end of the day now when to stop studying that is very important I feel like I feel like recently I think that is good enough time Comfort level 60 70% of P overall there are some good talks done by some other Toppers but this is a monologue it is difficult to give a monologue other good YouTube sources to refer to Amit s Gupta is good Shivan is good onlap overall this is all what I wanted to tell you today Mission labasa 2026 2025 26 I hope I see one of you on the other side many of you on the other side keep me updated send me I will give you email address soon I'm preparing one so that where you can communicate with me but um I hope after watching this video you get a good sense good learning at the beginning of the new year happy New Year again and take care and hopefully in 2024 together we will learn lot of lot of new things all right take care bye-bye

Channel: Manuj Jindal IAS

Views: 373,155

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Id: IF0HtVZ0PBU

Length: 42min 18sec (2538 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 31 2023