strategy for answer writing in mains by IAS topper.

So how to write better GS answers

So I analyzed, joined 3 test series wrote answers, sent them to some friends for feedback, discussed with my father and finally felt following things were important.

– GS and optionals answers are completely different. In optionals, one can write a PhD types answer and be confident of getting good marks – because the examiner who is checking an economics paper would be an economist herself. But in GS this will not work. The examiner who is checking the economics answer in a GS paper in more likelihood would not be an economist. She would be a generalist with limited knowledge and interest in the subject.

– So if you write some specialized answer or use some specific terms or models from your optional while writing a GS answer, good luck! Most probably the examiner would not understand/appreciate it. And she would not spend additional time or effort in going back and study the term/model you wrote. She would simply give a zero.

– Similarly, if you write any unconventional answers like say Aadhar cash transfers are not going to increase inflation and even give a logic based proof from basic economics, the examiner will not give any marks. Because she would have read mainstream media where everybody is saying Aadhar transfers would increase inflation. And she has no interest in taking the pain to understand a contrarian view point in your answer. Her life would be much simpler if she just gives a zero.

– So the bottom line is, our answer should be such that they make the life easier for the examiner. She would be happy while reading them and would give us more marks. So no PhD types stuff… just stick to basic points and present them in a way which is easy to read.

– Next, this exam is not a science exam. This is a generalist exam, a humanities exam. Its like a BA or MA exam. In a science exam, if there are 5 points in an answer but point number 1 is the most important point and rest are insignificant as compared to point 1, so if you cover point 1 only in your answer in great detail showing good understanding, you would get good marks. But in a BA, MA exam this doesn’t work. You have to not only write those 5 points, but also invent 2 more points and write. Only then the examiner would feel that you have covered all ‘relevant’ points. So one cannot ignore the trivial points and has to blindly write everything.

– Going further, in BA MA exams, if the question asks something say what is RBI doing to contain inflation and you answer all the points (including the trivial points) on what is RBI doing to contain inflation, you still won’t get good marks. Your answer still won’t be considered complete. In BA MA exams, an answer would be complete if we also write a bit about what preceded the question and what succeeded it. For example, in this RBI question, if I also write 1 para in the beginning on what is causing this high inflation and 1 para in the end on the effect of high inflation if RBI is not able to control, my answer would be considered better (even though a science student would find all this utter stupidity).

– Now the question arises, how to think of so many points in the exam hall? Well, because this is a BA MA exam and doesn’t require any specialist knowledge, the good thing is, if we just pause and think for 1-2 minutes before writing an answer in the exam hall, we would be able to recollect 70-80% of the points.

– Another thing which helps is to beforehand prepare a list of points for few broad topics. For example, one can remember 10 points on how to improve citizen charter, 10 points on how to remove corruption, 8 points on how to contain inflation, 7 on small states or not, 10 on problems of panchayats and so on… The good thing is these broad topics are limited and most questions in the GS exam come only as a subset of these broad topics or ask a particular aspect of these broad topics. Once you remember this block of points on any broad topic and a question comes asking you to look at the topic from a particular angle, you can easily and very quickly modify your existing points to meet the demands of the question. Then you just have to write 1 para each on what came before the question and what happens after the question, and your answer is complete.

– Finally on presentation style. Many coachings tell many things. Don’t believe in any of them. Just use common sense. The examiner is a human being who is checking your copies not because of any interest but because its her job. She would like to get over with it as soon and with as little mental pain as possible and attend to rest of her life. So just present your answers in a way which you think makes her life easier. Personally, I preferred writing point and section wise answers this time with proper section and sub sectional headings. It gives an impression that I have covered all aspects, given a thought to the answer before writing and created a structure. But the choice is yours.

Conclusion

Through this article, I just hope to help some others who may be finding themselves in the same small, rudderless boat in the middle of the Pacific as I found myself after the result last year – and may be again will find after this year’s results.

Anyways, I understand that merely reading the above words is not sufficient in improving answer writing. One has to practice. I didn’t have any systematic guidance and practiced in near darkness. May be I am still in dark. But I want to try my best to make life easier for other deserving students. So mebbe if somebody wants, he/she may post her answers along with the question to any GS questions here in the comments. I would try to come back with feedback. It may take some time due to heavy training activities and interview prep here, but I would surely come back. If I feel I won’t be able to do justice to the question, I would clearly say so. Other fellow readers may also chip in. Les see how it goes. Even if a few are able to benefit by this to whatever extent, the purpose would be served.

Interview script of IAS TOPPER GAURAV AGGRAWAL.This is for your motivation and for having feeling how interview happens in UPSC.it is based on memory,but interesting.

Overall interview was very cordial. Whatever be the marks, at least beizzati nahi hui .

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Cp: XXX, you did this, did that, worked here…why left that job for civil services?
Me: mam, it was due to a combination of professional and personal reasons. The professional reasons include the mature of the civil services job. It gives a wide scope for public service, it gives wide decision making powers at our age, it is so challenging and dynamic. Personal reasons included I wanted to come back to India, parental aspirations and also this job has a lot of respect in the society.

Cp: didn’t you like that job? There was so much money as well.
Me: mam, money is not everything. I realised that when one has to work for 30-35 years money cannot be the motivation. One has to look at larger things, so I switches because of factors mentioned earlier.

Cp: What has been the role of media in influencing people in the elections gone by?
Me: Media played a very important role. For example, the way it covered Mr. Modi’s Varanasi road show… the way it was showing the massive crowd… all swayed the people. What was happening in UP was being seen right in our rooms 24×7 in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, all over India. Moreover, there was massive advertising campaign.

M1: what are biosphere reserves?
Me: they are regions of great ecological significance so notified by the government.

M1: difference between biosphere reserves, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries?
Me: Sir I am not very clear about it, but from what I know, sanctuaries are notified as such by the state government, and biosphere reserves by the central government.

M1: And the national parks?
Me: Sorry sir, I don’t know.

M1: You are from Bharatpur?
Me: Sir I was born there…

M1: Bharatpur has a national park or sanctuary?
Me: A national park… Keoladeo National Park

M1: have u been there?
Me: Yes sir, Bharatpur is my nanihal… so as a child I used to go there on morning walk with my nanaji (grandparent).

M1: how should we protect environment?
Me: First we need to empower and involve the local communities. Because they are the ones who are closest to forests, know best about it and are dependent upon it. On the contrary, our laws tend to centralize powers in the hands of the forest department. Second, we need to change our accounting system to one which includes the value of ecological services. Right now it is only GDP where these ecological services are given zero weight. We need to give these services a tangible value in project appraisals.

M1: In project appraisals, what are the social costs?
Me: Typical project appraisals only capture the market prices or costs to private parties. Social costs are the costs to the society. There may be instances where the cost to private party may be different from the cost to the society. For example, if a project is being setup which will lead to migration, the cost of migration for the private operator may be taken as 0, but it will have real costs on society in terms of destruction of family structure, destruction of social capital…

M2: u acted n edited a movie in the college. What was it?
Me: It was a small movie we made based on then released Kaante.  We were a group of students studying in our college who get caught by the dean while cheating in an exam. The dean expels us. So we decide to take a revenge on the professors by looting the bank where they used to keep their savings.  We get caught doing that also and end up as sweeper, waiter etc.

Cp: How did you loot the bank? Through computers?
Me: No mam, we looted it physically like in the movie kaante. 

M2: what was the message of the movie?
Me: It was a fun movie sir.

M2: fun movie.. Still there would be some message.
Me:  Sir the message was that if one resorts to shortcuts in life, bad things happens to him ultimately. 

M2: You talked about media earlier. Social media.. what is it and what are its pros and cons?
Me: Social media is via internet, sites like facebook, twitter, google, blogs where users can share and interact. Its advantage is that it can preserve freedom of speech, specially in cases of autocratic government. For instance, in Turkey, the government tried to curb Twitter but it failed. Now this advantage also leads to its disadvantage. Because of the anonymity it offers and difficulty in suppressing its content… if we suppress one handle, people can create a new one and publish… it can lead to many problems. We saw last year how it led to exodus of people of North East from Bangalore, Pakistan uses it to flare up communal tensions in India…

M2: u blog… What do u blog about?
Me: I write about the things which I am doing, my observations, inferences, learnings. For example, the last blog I wrote was on the budget and economy of India, what are the challenges, what should be done. When I used to work in XXX, I used to write about markets, how to trade.

M2: u want to write a book.. What kind of book?
Me:  Sir, I presently write about things I see, my inferences and observations. So the book would be about that only.. what I see and learn in the field over next 10-15 years.. the problems I see and what policy measures we can adopt to solve them.

M2: u have a well built body n good height… Don’t you play any sports?
Me: (I was thinking I played so many sports, but to answer like that may expose me to questions from any sport) Sir I used to play football in college.

Cp: Yes he has mentioned that in the form…

M2: what position in football?
Me: I was the goalkeeper.

M2: don’t you play cricket?
Me: Yes sir, but only at the gully, street level.

M2: what is the role of the leg umpire?
Me: Sir, first if there is any overhead wide, then he calls it because he is in a better position to see. Then in case of runouts, he can see better. Finally, if the main umpire has any doubts, he can assist him.

M2: should,’t we replace umpire by technology?
Me: There would be practical problems in that. The decision of the third umpire comes after a lot of delay. So if we keep referring each appeal to the third umpire, there would be too many breaks in the game. Secondly, even the technology is not so accurate and we have seen some glaring errors being committed by it.

M3: (Some long story of Bangalore local government acquiring land for a foreign company) government acquiring land for private companies.. Isn’t this abuse of governmental power?
Me: Sir, if we leave land entirely to private players i.e. the private company buys it directly from the owners, there would be a market failure. Because say a company wants 100 acres to build a factory and buys 99 acres. The remaining 1 acre guy would get a veto power on the project. He may say give me 10 times the price of land otherwise you will not have your project. So we need governmental intervention in acquisition of land. But the real issue here is that the original owners must get full compensation and rehabilitation. What we should do is to give a part of the developed land back to the original owners… the value of developed land is generally much more than that of undeveloped land… this way even they can become stakeholders in growth and there won’t be any protests and development can happen.

M3: difference between vision. Mission, aims and objectives?
Me: Sir vision is at the top… its the broad overarching destination.. for example, the government can have the vision that the governance reaches to that last person.. the poorest man. Mission are the strategies which one can adopt to reach vision. The mission can be, use of technology for better delivery of services, climate friendly (:O I don’t know how this came to my mind) mission, poverty elimination mission…

M3: Aims and objectives?
Me: (thinking and trying) Aim could be we will reduce poverty by 2% per annum.

M3: Isn’t that target?
Me: Sorry sir, I am unable to tell about aims and objectives.

M3: difference between planned and market economy?
Me: Market economy is one where private sector plays a dominant role. The decisions of price and quantity produced are governed by market forces of supply and demand. Planned economy is like the one we have. There can be 2 types… one we had before 1991 where state was dominant, it used to fix the price and quantity produced mainly via PSUs. Then after 1991, we have moved to indicative planning.

M3: what are SEZs and your view on it?
Me: SEZs are special economic zones where the private operators are given a host of incentives to operate. It was a good concept… We have seen how SEZs have led to huge development in China. But the SEZ policy has come in for criticism that it has become a land grab scheme. Private operators are acquiring land in the name of SEZ but are not setting up any industry there, merely using it for real estate. Then the idea behind SEZ was to provide good infrastructure facilities also. But the size of our SEZs is so small. China has 5-6 large SEZs where it has provided all facilities.

What we really need is a proper implementation of the policy. We need to have a few large SEZs instead of hundreds of small ones and then provide good governance and infrastructure there.

M4: your hobby is following macroeconomy and forming trading views. How?
Me: Sir I used to do this earlier in my job.

M4: but that was ur job, not hobby..
Me: Yes sir, earlier it was my job. But after quitting, I have pursued it as a hobby.

M4: Do you know about the trends in TV sector? Do you watch TV?
Me: No sir, not much (watch). As for the trends, I don’t know about the individual companies but for the sector overall…

M4: ownership of media houses (Ambani deal) by corporates and politicians. There was a news even today. Is such a thing dangerous for economy, for democracy?
Me: Yes sir, it is very dangerous for the economy and democracy because freedom of media may be compromised. Most of these media houses are running into losses which lead them prone to such acquisitions.

M4: The media can also blackmail the government and corporates..
Me: Yes sir, and as we saw in the coal scam coverage last year, Zee news was accused of demanding bribes from Jindal for suppressing the adverse coverage.

M4: can we prevent it? How?
Me: By separating the editor team from owners.

M4: but is separation of editing team and management possible? How is it possible when both are in the same company?
Me: It is possible. In my previous job, there was a part of the bank which worked closely with companies and had access to private information. We, on the other hand, were on the public side and had no such access. This separation was made possible by our internal compliance team, auditors and central bank. Similarly in media, this separation should be enforced by their compliance, auditors and an external regulatory agency.

M4: what are the things the new government should be doing in the economy?
Me: Sir, firstly, the new government should address the policy issues. For example, retrospective taxation, increasing fdi, cutting red tape, giving more confidence to bureaucrats…

M4: but they are against fdi in retail.
Me: Yes sir, FDI in retail is a bit of a grey area. But in other sectors, they are saying to allow FDI up to 49% via automatic route except for 3-4 sectors. Even in defence they are allowing FDI up to 49, 74 and 100% depending upon the kind of technology which is brought in.

M4: what other things?
Me: They should control the fiscal deficit. Although the previous government claimed reduction of headline number to 4.6%, but the quality of this fiscal deficit adjustment has been doubted by many experts. They say the government has merely pushed many subsidies to the next year. So some of these subsidies have to be removed.

M4: which subsidy they should remove?
Me: The fuel subsidy…

M4: won’t increasing diesel prices lead to higher inflation? There are so many critical sectors like railways, trucks which need it.
Me: Sir there are 2 things here. One, yes higher diesel prices will push up inflation, but at the same time, the reduction of fiscal deficit due to lower subsidy will have a reducing effect on inflation and will offset at least a part of it. Next, what we can do is that we can compensate these critical sectors directly via direct cash payments. This way we can reduce the inflationary impact as well as prevent wastage of subsidy. Clearly we don’t want to subsidise the luxury cars running on diesel. 

M4: is it possible politically to remove subsidies on gas cylinders?
Me: It is difficult, but given the strong mandate the new government has, it is possible.

There are 15 males and 10 females in top 25 positions.

Among the top 25 candidates, 24 took the examination in English and one in Kannada medium. Nine of the top 25 candidates are from Engineering stream, three from Medical Science; four from Science and nine from Commerce, Humanities and other Social Sciences background.

Five of them have made to the merit list in their first attempts, 11 in second attempts, seven in third attempts and two in their fourth attempts.

The result also showcases the pan-India distribution of successful candidates.

Among the top 25, there are candidates claiming domicile from as many as 11 states or union territories: Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, it said.

Of these, 20 appeared for the examination from Delhi; two from Jaipur and one each from Lucknow, Bangalore and Chandigarh centres

UPSC सिविल सर्विसेस का रिजल्ट घोषितः ट्रेनी IPS गौरव अग्रवाल ने किया टॉप

यूपीएससी ने 2013 के सिविल सर्विस (मुख्य) परीक्षा के रिजल्ट घोषित कर दिए हैं। गौरव अग्रवाल ने देश में टॉप किया है। वहीं, मुनीष शर्मा ने दूसरा और रचित राज ने तीसरा स्थान पाया है। टॉप 10 उम्मीदवारों में 3 छात्राएं भी शामिल हैं। परीक्षा में सर्वाधिक अंक हासिल करने वाले गौरव अग्रवाल पहले आईपीएस के लिए चयनित हो चुके हैं। इस समय वह पुलिस सर्विस की ट्रेनिंग ले रहे हैं।

(यह भी पढ़ेंः जानिए, टॉपर गौरव अग्रवाल के बारे में)

यूपीएससी द्वारा जारी विज्ञप्ति के अनुसार, दिसंबर 2013 को आयोजित लिखित परीक्षा और अप्रैल-जून 2014 में आयोजित पर्सनैलिटी टेस्ट में कुल 1122 उम्मीदवार चयनित हुए हैं, जिनमें सामान्य वर्ग से 517, OBC 326, SC 187 और ST के 92 उम्मीदवार हैं। यह परीक्षा 1228 खाली पदों के लिए ली गई थी।

बता दें कि 1122 चयनित उम्मीदवारों को भारतीय प्रशासनिक सेवा (IAS), भारतीय विदेश सेवा (IFS), भारतीय पुलिस सेवा (IPS), केंद्रीय सेवाओं और ग्रुप-ए और बी की सेवाओं में नियुक्ति दी जाएगी।

ये हैं टॉप 10 उम्मीदवार
क्रमांक रोल नंबर नाम
1- 249085 गौरव अग्रवाल
2- 016290 मुनीष शर्मा
3- 100841 रचित राज
4- 565614 अक्षय त्रिपाठी
5- 026831 भारती दीक्षित
6- 200409 साक्षी सवाहने
7- 007844 चंचल राना
8- 002320 जॉनी टॉम वर्गिस
9- 355620 दिव्यांशु झा
10- 003713 मेधा रूपम

DEFENCE
Two ships ICGS Achook and ICGS Agrim, the fifth and sixth ships in a series of 20 fast patrol vessels have been inducted into the Indian Coastguard. These ships are new generation fast patrol vessels fitted with highly developed communication equipment and will be positioned in Mumbai.

These fast petrol vessels are being built at Cochin shipyard which is also building India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier.

Spaniard Rafael Nadal maintained his dominance in the French Open as he defeated Serbian Novak Djokovic in the final match. French Open 2014 is Nadal’s 14th career Grand Slam title. World no.1 Nadal also became the first man to win five Roland Garros crowns in a row as he took his record at the tournament to 66 wins against just one defeat. With 14 Grand Slams, Nadal has equaled the mark of Pete Sampras. Now, he is just three behind the all-time record of Roger Federer.

ICICI Bank has overtaken its competitor HDFC in terms of employee number with addition of over 10,000 jobs in the last fiscal. With this, ICICI has emerged as the biggest employer in the private banking space with more than 72,000 employees.
Except HDFC, the employee strength of other five lenders – ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank and Yes Bank has increased by over 20,000 in 2013-14. ICICI Bank has also recorded higher total income and profits than HDFC Bank in the latest fiscal year. The number of employees in HDFC Bank was 68,165 at the end of last fiscal, while the same of ICICI Bank expanded by 10,161 to 72,226.