Delayed Prelims 2021 : An Opportunity to Conquer Civil Services Exam

UPSC has recently announced to postpone the  Civil Services Prelims 2021 amid the rising cases of Covid 19. The prelims exam will now take place on 10^th October. This will give approximately 5 months of time to aspirants.While this period is long enough for prelims exam most of the aspirants will be slack and careless. While 50-60 days is considered enough for the prelims exam considering one has completed entire Syllabus and only revision of syllabus is remaining.During this extra time one need to focus on weaker areas and emphasize on revision rather than learning something new. The extra time could be utilized to enhance answer writing skills for mains and essay writing . This extra time can be treated as blessings in disguise for many. The whole new strategy can give you an added advantage in these hard times and help you to score more in the final exam.

However the biggest challenge for any aspirant is to keep the momentum of the preparation on the right track till the goal is achieved. Following are some points, that must be adhered to while dealing with this unexpected prolonged waiting for the prelims-

1. Self Motivation– Despite of diligence and abundance of knowledge it is your confidence and will power that make you victorious. People having low esteem and motivation often have low level of performance and face failure. The single most important point, which separates success from failure during UPSC Preparation is having confidence in oneself along with keeping oneself motivated. Despite having difficulties of higher magnitude people with high confidence level conquer against all the odds.                                                                     
2. Daily Targets rather than Long Term Planning – While preparing one need to think like an officer and should make daily targets rather than a long term plan for studies. The daily targets should be achieved on daily basis. This will train you to embrace failure and help you to rectify your mistakes and cope up with stress . This will also help you with  managing the time efficiently, setting small targets and achieving them daily to get the bigger goal, learning from failures, managing different pulls and push factors. Take the example of prelims postponement, when COVID has derailed almost every pre planned administrative activity, an officer must learn to cope with the unexpected and not let the unknown to hamper the known goals.
3. Mains syllabus Coverage  – UPSC has reputation to follow the calendar, even in worst times, thus there are chances that UPSC Mains might take place in very short period after prelims and thus it is required that, the time which has been extended before Prelims, be utilized to cover the Optional fully along with static part of the Mains. This will not only save you from lethargy of delayed prelims but also add on, in the level of the depth required for some very important topics, which are part of both Prelims and Mains.
4. Multilateral Approach to preparation– This time when the entire news sections and magazines are  flooded with COVID related articles and material, but one should be able to see beyond COVID, off course , it is an important topic, to be covered extensively, yet  syllabus demands much more than it and there are important issues happening daily ,which are not getting covered that much in the UPSC sources, thus one need to be very vigilant and should not skip the syllabus topics from current affairs point of view.
5. Next 2-3 Months importance– The significance of the forthcoming 2-3 months is immense as this can be utilized for preparation of current affairs in an integrated manner that could be fruitful for both prelims and mains. One should prepare micro notes that could be utilized while giving mock test as well as practicing answer writing.
6. Peer discussion– One may utilize smaller study groups and peer groups to discuss the topics and thus prevent oneself from the possible lethargy of prolonged Prelims preparation, one may also explore solving previous years papers and model online test series to, keep the momentum.

The above mentioned measures can help you to form the new strategy and overcoming the prolonged lethargy due to delayed prelims. These tips if adhered properly can help you to sail through not only prelims as well as mains simultaneously.