I have
seen people who jokingly refer that UPSC stands for Un-Predictable Services
Commission instead of Union Public Services Commission. This is because UPSC
examination poses to be a difficult nut to crack and students perceive UPSC
expectations and question to be too high to compete with. This is a common
complaint, I always hear from students discussing among themselves in the library,
book stores, examination centers etc. But for this reason no students quit
taking the examination. They perceive UPSC to be heartless, specifically on the
examination day and result declaration date. The problem is if you see your
opponent as huge as a dinosaur, it is implicit you lose your strength because
of fear and subsequently the fight.
I have seen several candidates, who are
dedicated, with excellent knowledge and skill set required to be a civil
servant, but failed the examination for no vital reasons. In most cases there
can be no excuse or reason that optimally suit to explain their failure.
On my analysis and interaction with
so many such students. I can see a
common thread/psychological brake which they apply in their preparation. They
set their task to confront UPSC question paper, its evaluation methods and its
expectation which is usually very high.
It is a bitter truth that as far as you see the exam from this frame of
reference, there is little or no chance to succeed in the examination.
A simple but important paradigm shift
is required to overcome this psychological brake to push hard on the
accelerator to reach your goal as fast as possible.
Consider the
below parable
Two
men A and B are hiking bare foot through a thick forest. Suddenly, they see a
ferocious tiger in the distance, approaching towards them. Both of them started
sweating on the site of the tiger and decided to run away from the tiger to
save their lives. At that moment, B
pulled a Nike shoes from his bag and started wearing it in his legs.
On
seeing this A was surprised and
asked B “What are you doing? Do you
think you will run faster than the tiger by wearing those shoes?”
B replied “I don’t have to run faster
than the tiger, I just have to run faster than you.”
Now tell
me who is going to be eaten by the tiger
and who will survive. It is obvious that A will be eaten by tiger because for A the enemy is the tiger
and he decides to compete with the tiger
which is much stronger and faster than him.
On the other hand B is going to survive,
because he understood the rule of the game.
The hungry tiger needs to prey on one of them and the tiger is stronger and
faster. Hence there is no reason to compete with it. B just changed his competition
with A who is equal to him. B just equipped him little more to be
efficient than A to succeed and
survive.
The tiger doesn’t have any preference among A and B, it is unbiased.
All it wants is to attack one among the two and that too the weaker one who
will be of least resistance to its attack.
In real time A and B are the civil
services aspirants, the tiger is
UPSC. All that UPSC wants is to eliminate and select. So candidates who see
UPSC as the competitor get
eliminated in the exam and candidates who compete with other candidates and see
UPSC as an examination system succeeds. B is the candidate who understands the
exam format in detail and proceeds to equip himself with the required skill
set.
From now on realize that your
competitor is other candidates and not the examination body. Make your
preparation to stand out from all your competitors. Read more, write more and
keep thinking about the preparation, subjects and examination.
To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you never achieve. And
once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don’t isolate.
- Michael
Jordan
All
you have to do is just do more than what other candidates are doing. Read
little extra than the ordinary preparation. Equip yourself with additional soft
knowledge on improving your reading speed, memory techniques, handwriting
(legibility and speed), comprehension skills etc., Keep moving towards your
goal. Keep the map, dictionary and
thesaurus handy. Take notes and take time often to review your notes. Some of the additional skills you can develop is Speed Reading and Speed Writing. You can read more books and take more notes. Imagine you read more books than your competitors, you write faster than your competitors. Doesn’t it provide a winning edge over others who still ponder over guide books and bullet point notes who struggle to write even few pages. Improve your memory, work on that skill, create anagrams, story board, flash cards etc…… One of the my favorite quotes of Mark Twain is “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it is time to reform”. This perfectly applies for UPSC exams.
Be innovative;
just do more than what other candidates are doing. Don’t settle for less.
Subscribe
to facebook/educasium page and read my blogs regularly to stay on top of the
masses.
All the
best
Kind
Regards
Purush & Team
www.educasium.com
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: Educasium IAS Academy Chennai 
