Topper’s Corner

Today's toppers were yesterday's aspirants. They don't do different things. They just do the right things differently. Toppers’ Corner is your place to discover the SUCCESS MANTRAS of the toppers. Explore their stories, strategies, analyze their copies, see how they achieved top scores, their profile, and more!

P K SIDHARTH

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AIR-22 | 2023

SAURABH SHARMA

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UMA HARATHI N

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IAS Topper’s Interview: IAS Rank 89 Sumant Sahay, 137 Marks in Essay

Copy

Name	Sumant Sahay
Rank in CSE 2015	89
Total Attempts in CSE	4
Optional Subject	History
Medium	English

IAS Score: What were the basic mantras of your success?

Sumant Sahay: Perseverance, revision, answer writing practice and optimum use of internet to augment the books.

IAS Score: What were your strategies for the lengthy syllabus of General Studies for both Prelims and Mains?

Sumant Sahay: A time bound coverage of syllabus and revision as per the decided plan

IAS Score: Did you integrate your Prelims or Mains preparation or was it separate in the changing scenario?

Sumant Sahay: yes

IAS Score: How did your prepare for essay.

Sumant Sahay: I took essay tests at GS Score.

Download Test Copy of Sumant Sahay (137 Marks in Essay)

IAS Score: What is your advice on notes-making for other aspirants?

Sumant Sahay: Notes should be crisp, concise and in your own language. It should be reduced to a size so that whole syllabus could be skimmed through in 2 days.

IAS Score: How did you manage your time during the preparation?

Sumant Sahay: By sticking to the decided schedule

IAS Score: What was your style (paragraph or point format)Of writing in the exam? How was it distinct from the general writing style? How did you develop this writing style?

Sumant Sahay: A combination of Paragraph and point format. Horses for the courses.

IAS Score: So much focus is being given to Test Series, both for Prelims and Mains, in your opinion how useful are they, in the course of a preparation process? Which Test Series did you join and how useful did you find it to be?

Sumant Sahay: The most important thing that a test series does is that it synchronizes your answer writing to 3 hour time frame and weed out obvious mistakes.

Essay test series at GS Score
GS test series at Vision IAS

IAS Score: Civil Services Exam process is quite strenuous. It requires long hours of constant study. How did you maintain your tempo and what did you do to break the monotony of preparation?

Sumant Sahay: Read novels, watch movies, go out for a vacation

IAS Score: Which sources you referred to prepare for Contemporary Issues.

Sumant Sahay: Newspaper and internet, Mrunal.org

IAS Score: Given the recent boom in online initiatives to support an aspirant, which were the platforms that you find useful enough during your course of preparation. Please list the sites.

Sumant Sahay:

Mrunal.org

Iasscore.in

IAS Score: What is your advice to the candidates who is still in the process of preparing for this examination?

Sumant Sahay: Stick to the schedule that you make, by schedule I don’t mean 8 hours a day or so. A time frame should be decided for a topic beforehand and try to finish it in that.

Sumant Sahay Mark sheet

Paper	Year 2015
Prelims	123.67+167
Essay (Paper 1)	137
GS 1 (Paper 2)	99
GS 2 (Paper 3)	83
GS 3 (Paper 4)	93
GS 4 (Paper 5)	95
Optional 1 (Paper 6)	120
Optional 2 (Paper 7)	118
Written Total	745
Personality Test	187
Total Score	932