By Our Special Correspondent
SHILLONG: At a time when not a single candidate from Meghalaya could crack the admittedly stiff UPSC test, The Shillong Times met up with C Jayasharadha, who cleared her Civil Services Exam this time scoring the 59th position. She hails from Andhra Pradesh but camped in the salubrious climate of Shillong to give it all.
In a bare it all interview Jayasharadha shared what she thinks it takes to make it. Some of these tips may come handy for the civil services aspirants for adoption and application.
ST: You cleared the
UPSC this time after four attempts. How difficult was the journey then and how did you crack the exams this time? What was your study schedule? How many hours a day?
Jayasharadha: Yes, this was my 4th attempt at CSE. My first attempt wasn’t really a serious one. I had just come back to India for my job and was still unsure about going the civil service way. I didn’t really prepare anything. I just showed up for the prelims and, to nobody’s surprise, failed.
In my second attempt in 2017, I was ranked 442 and was allocated to IRAS. I was still working with Schlumberger, but I had taken a sabbatical to study for mains. I was hard-pressed for time in that attempt and could only go over the reference books once. I spent about 7-8 hours a day studying. 30% of my time was spent on my optional subject, philosophy, which I grew to love.
Another 30% went into reading three newspapers a day and with the rest I tried to cover the entire General Studies syllabus.
But I had seriously ignored writing practice. A month before mains, I could barely complete 16 out of the 20 questions on the paper.
I had trouble limiting my content and would often end up writing twice the word limit. In mains, I had to leave about 200 marks worth of questions blank.
So, it wasn’t a surprise that I didn’t get the rank I was hoping for, through it did sting. In the third attempt, I couldn’t clear the prelims. I was overconfident about prelims and thought I could manage it while working.
I couldn’t. It was also a bizarre question paper, but that’s more of an excuse than anything else. So for my 4th attempt, I decided to go all out. I quit my job, the hardest decision of this entire journey, and joined railways. I took a year long sabbatical and prepared, mostly from Shillong.
Through Jan to Sep 2019, I seem to have averaged about 6.5 hours a day of studying. But I track my time, so this was 6.5 hours of actual studying, not proximity to books. 8-10 hours was a good day, but there were those off days, travel days, sick days and what not, that brought the average down to 6.5 overall.
I had mapped out what all sources I intended to cover every month and aimed for 20 x 30-min intervals every day, so I wasn’t worried about finishing the syllabus. In fact, I had quite a bit of extra time to do some free-style studying on the internet.
The schedule wasn’t really about different times of the day. I studied whenever I could. But one thing that seriously helped me was afternoon naps.
It kind of makes the day seem like 2 smaller, bite-sized portions.
Honestly, the journey is more frustrating than difficult. The hardest part for me was to stay invested. On a very good day, I managed 10 – 12 hours of study, followed by lulls of barely any studying.
So it was better for me to focus on not burning out. But ultimately, what made the difference was that I could write more this time around.
I still left about 80 marks worth of questions blank, but it was a serious improvement from the previous time.
ST: Why did you choose to come to Shillong for your preparation? Did your stay here help you perform better? Who were your mentors?
Jayasharadha:I didn’t really attend any classes for the preparation, which meant that I could study anywhere with a half decent internet connection. A very good friend of mine lives in Shillong and had rooms to spare. That’s actually why I decided to study from here.
But on hindsight, I have to say that the pleasant weather and peaceful atmosphere helped a lot. Also, I got to meet a lot people in the service and interact with them regularly.
That helped me calibrate my opinions and reinforce my ambition, though to be honest, when it was happening, it felt like plain old chatting.
Among these, Mr. Abhishek Bhagotiya and Mr. Sampath Kumar were the regulars. I am sure they don’t see it that way, but they did mentor me quite a bit during those random dinners and informal chats.
Their opinions were clear and realistic, which came across as unique for someone like me, an outsider to the governance process.
In fact, I worked with Sampath sir closely after my mains, before my interview, and he was a huge influence on how I think about civil service now. That sort of thing is all that matters for the personality test.
Also, I learned a lot about governance in North East in the process. It was my go-to example in a lot of my written answers as well as in the interview.
Hard to quantify how much that boosted my performance, but I am guessing it was a substantial advantage.
ST: Did you need to write much during the preparation period?
As I said, I didn’t practice writing much for my first mains and that was a huge mistake. The second go at mains, I did write about 20 full length GS tests and 12 full length philosophy tests. This helped me get my speed up. Right before the mains, I tried to write for an hour, 7 questions, every other day. That helped too. So, all in all I would have spent about 120 – 150 hours writing.
ST:Do you need to read much? What sort of books did you read?
Jayasharadha:Yes, “much reading” should be the tagline of this exam. 80% of the time was reading. About 1.5 hours a day was spent on newspapers.
I read one full paper, and editorials from 2 others. 2 hours a day on average was Philosophy and the rest for General Studies.
There is a traditional booklist for UPSC prep which everybody follows that includes things like Laxmikant, Old NCERTs, Bipin Chandra etc.
I could read those books thrice through my 2 mains preparations. They’re a must read. But I find it a bit tedious to re-read books, so I tried to cover the same topics through different books to keep things interesting.
For philosophy, I read The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant, The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russel and Philosophy of Religion by John Hick, in addition to the 4 recommended books and Mr.Mitra’s notes. But it was 2 podcasts – “Philosophize This” and “BBC In Our Time – Philosophy” that gave me a competitive edge. They’re amazing.
For general studies I read India after Gandhi, India – an uncertain glory, Development as Freedom, Everybody Loves a Good Drought, From Plassey to Partition, The story of India, Country of first boys, and a few other such renowned non-fiction books, in addition to the usual reading list. This helped me a great deal. They’re beautiful books that leave you with an intricate narrative, rather than just data.
Youtube is also a godsend in preparation. Khan academy’s world history videos are exceptional, so are the Crash Course series on philosophy, history etc. I even counted watching world war documentaries on Netflix as “study time”.
ST: Did you study in Chennai or elsewhere?
Jayasharadha: I’ve written all my exams from Chennai because that is where my family lives.
My first mains I prepared from Chennai and for my second mains, I prepared partly from Bombay, because my mom had been transferred there, and partly from Shillong.
ST: What are some of the handicaps you encountered and which you would like to share with UPSC aspirants?
Jayasharadha: Not being able to finish the mains paper was a huge handicap the first time around. I couldn’t really finish the papers this time either.
So I think that’s a thing to watch out for. I don’t think the solution is to just write bullet points of facts and move on to the next question. Narrative matters. I honestly don’t know what the solution is.
Maybe once you read enough books the time gap between thought and writing reduces further. One cheap trick which worked for me is that I increased my font size so that I would run out of space when I was 50% over the word limit instead of 100%. I don’t think that’s a very mature solution but then again, whatever works.
Another annoying thing is the prevalence of so many “short cuts” in the market.
I was briefly convinced that I had to draw a map or make flowcharts to score points. This added to the stress of time management and seriously impaired my writing abilities.
I didn’t draw a single map or flow chart in the exam. It is hard enough to put your thoughts in the manner they occur to you.
I don’t think we should psych ourselves out by trying to subscribing random shortcuts. That said, when you’re running out of time, flowchart helps.
Attention span is another handicap. It is not easy to study 12 hours a day and I don’t think people need to.
Short bursts of concentrated studying is easier, especially on your sanity.
Almost once a month there come those few days where productivity seems impossible.
It is hard to forgive yourself for these days, especially because self-loathing is a tested procrastination technique for aspirations.
Allowing yourself to slip up while minimising these “off-days” is the hard part. I don’t really know how to do it, only that it needs to be done.
ST: What is your educational background? Is it easier to have done Humanities or the
Sciences in order to score better in the UPSC?
Jayasharadha: I am an engineer. I don’t think educational background matters. I guess if you have a degree in the subject that will become your optional for UPSC, you have less reading to do than others.
But that is something you can make up for by picking an interesting subject. If you have a year to spare, the exam is pretty much an even battlefield.
ST: How important is critical thinking in scoring for the IAS?
Jayasharadha: Very. That is the only way to clear prelims since it is impossible to “know” everything that is asked about.
Intelligent guesses matter. The best part about the preparation is that it hones your critical thinking skills.
After being exposed to different perspectives on so many issues, nothing seems simple anymore.
That is a great thing. If you can internalise that all issues have a dozen angles, each with its own merits and demerits, it becomes very easy to write 200 words on just about anything.