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During the preparation of civil services, hard work is the most important thing which can take you on the journey of success. However, hard work is not enough to get success, one should also adopt the strategy of smart work. The strategies for the preparation, what to analyze, how much time should be allocated to different topics, how to give passive reference and much more are equally important to the hard work. An IAS aspirant must make sure that he should not follow some common mistakes which can become hurdles in getting success on the IAS journey. The IAS aspirants must avoid these following mistakes:
It is very important to avoid rumors that are generally spread by the senior persons as well as fellow IAS aspirants. The IAS aspirants must rely only on the government sources for every information related to IAS exam. Without getting into the bigger picture, there are certain people who just spread the half and incomplete information which results in chaos only. IAS aspirants must always keep their eyes on the bigger picture that concerns the nation.
When you will step a foot in the book market, you will found yourself in the pool of books. The market is filled with many books for civil services examination. For each and every topic, one can find a number of books. It is really very difficult to choose the best one. Therefore, candidates prefer to go for many books for a single topic.
But if you refer to the interviews of the appeared candidates then, you will find out that UPSC is like analysis of the topic rather than getting facts. All these books just contain the facts only, established opinions along with the related data. Thus, it is important to read the books for enhancing the knowledge but the most important thing is to analyze the collected facts. However, choosing many books for studying may enhance your knowledge related to the specific topic but they will not let you analyze the facts. Thus, if you are planning to consult too many books, then just stop it as it will enhance only redundancy. It is the wastage of your precious time. So, instead of consulting many books at one time, try to read a single book for many time.
Civil services examinations are the most important one as it is not easy to crack this exam. So, if you are laying emphasis on just reading the books, then you are making mistake. There are varieties of books available in the market. It does not matter how much you are reading as you are just gathering facts and information. Reading constitutes a small part of the preparation for the Civil Services Examination. UPSC exams are not the tests for the testing the knowledge of the person but it is checking the analytical ability, thinking ability, time management and rationality of the appearing candidates in an examination hall. Candidates can perform really very bad if they do not have the writing practice.
Gather information is important but one should know how to use it for further use to get success in the Civil Services Examination. It is very important for the candidates to develop the writing skills as the practice of writing answers will make them quick in writing the answers in the exam. Good reading along with the excellent writing skills will make the candidate to perform better in the exams.
It is a fact that, the aspirants of civil services examination rely on the newspaper as it is the main source of current affairs and analysis of topics. A major portion of the preliminary examination along with the paper 2 and paper 3 of the mains examination is linked to the newspaper only. The aspirants develop the habit of reading the newspaper and spend a lot of time. They just read every detail of the news, every discussion and every opinion that is mentioned in the newspaper. In fact, they opt for reading multiple newspapers.
They must read for the selected news, analysis and opinions. They should adopt the smart way of reading newspaper and the reading should be strategized. The topics to read from it should be related to the major environmental issues, important legislation, welfare schemes and much more. The aspirants should ignore the habit of reading the international news for a very long time as it is not forming a major portion in the exam.
It is the most common mistake done by the IAS aspirants. The long hours of study obviously need some break and you need to sleep. Lack of proper sleep just deteriorates the efficiency of the mind. The human mind has the tendency to process as well as analyze the data from some time span only. However, it is true that cutthroat IAS competition demands for the long hours f study but it is essential to get the proper sleep too. Continuous hours of study will not help in achieving your aim. The sound sleep will definitely enhance your efficiency. Getting 7-8 hours of sleep is required to keep your mind fresh. Your mind will be more efficient after a sound sleep.
Nowadays, IAS aspirants are focusing only on coaching centers. They have forgotten the importance of self-study. The candidates who are going to coaching centers for the preparation of the IAS exams should make sure that they get enough time for self-study too. Most of the candidates think that the attending classes are more important rather than studying by themselves. They are making a wrong move as these coaching centers can provide a guidance only. They can make you clear about some topics and concepts. They can make you practice a wide range of questions. But the objective of cracking IAS cannot be fulfilled by this. You have to rely on the self-studies, self-reliance and hard labor to get success in the IAS exam.