IAS Toppers Story: Pawan Goel, Rank-131 CSE 2019: Optional the key to success

Mains Stage of UPSC is entirely a game of answer writing skills. It is said that answer writing is an Art and every aspirant should be an artist. In this context many natural questions arise. What is a good answer? How to mange time limit? When to start answer writing? And many more.

We tried to get the answers all of above questions from Pawan Goel, AIR-131 of UPSC 2019. Pawan is basically an Engineer and was very comfortable in his tech life. But one one fine day he encountered a Civil Servant and that was a turning point of his life. He got to know that impact of a Civil Servant is quite wider and his niche in nation building and societal service is extremely potent in comparison to other jobs. After getting a concrete source of motivation, Pawan started the preparation right in his final year. But he couldn’t get success in his first two attempts.

Pawan believes that General Studies are equally scoring for almost all the candidates and hence if someone has to get success, he should keep optional at different bay. Also, the preparation should be integrated because if you fail in any of the stage you are just out of the race.

In an interview with one of our faculty members, Pawan has outlined the following strategies for UPSC. His emphasis was particularly on Answer writing skill.

• Though all papers should be given equal weightage but optional subject should be the nucleus of preparation. Optional can be scoring and it can be as scoring as 60 percent and thus a vital factor in success.
• A good answer has broadly four components i.e a good content, a good structure, a good presentation and above all within the limit of time and space.
• All answers are unique as per the demand of question. And thus there is no thumb rule of any standard answer. But in a very crude manner, an standard answer should have three components i.e Introduction, Body and Conclusion.
• Depending upon the demand of question, you can write an answer para wise or point wise. The decision should be keeping in mind the best presentable form of answer. Either can work if produced smartly.
• Answer writing process is a time consuming process so it should start at possibly early stage but at the same time it should not be in haste. As any answer demands content along with presentation and hence aspirants should put quality time in content enrichment before jumping directly into the answer writing.
• Toppers’ copies available online should be utilized very efficiently. Fresh aspirants should learn the art of answer writing from the copies and they should learn how to write the best answer.
• Answer writing should start only after a stage when you have covered some substantial portion of UPSC syllabus but at the same time it should be part of your daily study schedule. Test Series can be explored at later stage of maturity but in the initial stage you can write one-two answers regularly.
• Handy notes of data, facts, key definitions, etc pays a lot to fetch good marks in Paper. Though approach is almost same for all the papers but paper of Ethics should be done in little different manner. Since in the paper every year many questions are asked from definitions part and hence a notes for definitions can me made.
• Though the answers are written in academic style but lot of scope is there in self innovation. But innovative examples must be relevant and catchy.
• To enhance the three hours sitting capacity, you need to join a good test series and should try to attempt paper in exact exam type environment. This can also improve the Time Management effectively which is vital for the exam.

We are proud that Pawan Goel has chosen GS SCORE in the journey of IAS preparation. GS SCORE has continued the legacy of producing IAS TOPPERS every year.

GS SCORE (iasscore.in) is a teaching platform for Civil Services Examination, both in classroom and online. Learning in GS SCORE is driven by two predominant objectives- excellence and empowerment. For us, excellence is a drive to challenge yourself to be better. Empowerment for us does not mean only stuffing your mind with facts and information but to ignite your mind for imagination and creativity to respond to all kinds of challenges with wisdom and confidence.

For Full Interview of Pawan Goel- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dTkrwOdeZ4

Download Copy of 400 plus Toppers- https://iasscore.in/toppers-copy

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