r/upsc_discussions

Is anyone doing video editing or content writing during prep? This would be my fifth attempt and I am in dire need of earning for my expenses. please help if anyone is doing freelancing any time on how I can get started

Being a digital learner, I find myself somewhat biased towards using a stylus. Journaling on paper is easy and convenient, but can the same experience be achieved with a stylus on a digital screen?

I am currently a PC user, still running on an outdated Windows 7 system, and it lags even while performing simple tasks. I cannot even open 9 PDFs at once.

I was considering upgrading my CPU, but I feel it might cost roughly the same as buying a decent tablet. However, I am unsure about what tablets are truly capable of. For example, can I open 10+ tabs or PDFs while taking notes simultaneously?

• Do tablets really offer more functionality than smartphones?

• In reality, which would be the better investment for studying on this journey?

Your experience would help me make a more informed decision. Thank you.

Guys, I want a free sarrthi ias course of the mains module

If you know anything about it

Kindly DM

Thanks in advance 🙂

I have exam where *education related news and schemes* will be asked. Do you have any pdf or know any source?

I cant go through pib date by date because that would be too hectic(400+ times changing the date)

I want news like recent "samagra shiksha 3.0" , merging of "aicte, ugc", maharashtha tet related case.

I have completed my GS foundation.And optional too. I am skipping 2026 attempt because of lack of revision and good preparation. I have started studying keeping 2027 attempt. Though the study is going good I suffer because of loneliness as I have no friends here. I have joined library thinking this would solve the problem and I might get sincere aspirants. How you guys go about it?

Its my first attempt and ig i have done a decent amount of prep.

I have my college farwell and if I decide to go I will have to spend 7th may to 11th may and plus 6th may will also be gone because i have my final year presentation on thag day. I am very confused that whether I should go or not given it is inly 12-14 days before the D-day

How many seconds in total are there in x weeks, x days, x hours, x minutes, and x seconds?

A) 11,580x
B) 11,581x
C) 694,860x
D) 694,861x

There are total 543 seats in the LS, but to give women reservation they added 307 seats so they could give reservation to women. What am I missing?

I recently joined a new reading room. There are around 30 UPSC aspirants here. Most of them are repeaters, attempting it for the 3rd or 4th time. They come every day, but I never see them putting in enough work. Most of them just sit in circles and make fun of each other. That’s it. They spend 6 hours in the reading room, and about 4 hours just chatting. Why are they not serious? And if you ask them how many times they will repeat, their response is: “Till I get UPSC or till I use all my attempts.” Are they living in a delusional world? It’s roughly 36 days left for prelims, and they don’t seem to care.

20M here . I have started preparation today.
I wanted to learn from people who are in this journey right now , are confident of their preparation or have cleared it ,especially those who’ve made mistakes, faced failures, or even cleared it. just have some questions

If you could go back to Day 1 of your preparation:

• What would you do differently?
• What were your biggest mistakes that cost you time/attempts?
• What should a complete beginner absolutely avoid in the first 6-12 months?
• What’s the current trend of UPSC (Prelims + Mains) that beginners often misunderstand?
• How should someone with average academic background build strong basics?

Also, would you recommend starting completely from self-study (NCERTs + standard books), or is coaching/test series necessary at some stage?

please help your younger brother out

​

2nd year of my college is starting soon and i have decided I want to become IAS and keep CAT as my plan B, so please don't make fun of me

so my 3 month vacation is going to start so I will be completing °polity °Geography in these 3 months ,and till next summer vacations I will complete the whole gs static portion, I will not do current affairs till next year as recommended by shivin sir, from 3rd year of my college ( 2027 ) I will joining a mains test series and start my optional ( physics ) , in 4th year I will preparing for CAT which is my plan B it will help me in CSAT and give prelims test for revision

Study material i will refer for static GS -

" vision lectures

" self made notes

" one standard book per subject

other req material

" yojana

" kurukshetra

" the Indian express

" + add many more as i will experienced

Please suggest changes

Hello Everyone, so basically I want do upsc, like I am in my 2nd year and doing Engineering, my main concern is should I do the job for 2 years and then prepare for upsc alongside job then take it full-time prep or should I prep along with Engineering and take up full-time prep with one year and clear it. I know that upsc is highly competitive but what I feel is covering up basics in prior helps me when I join coaching then I prepare it throughly, but also my another concern is my financial background is not too good, not clearing for long time creates family burden on me, preparing alongside job will it be helpfull because even I don't know will I be having the same mindset then, even due to recession job finding is little difficult nowadays.

So, please if anybody have been through this, please help me, genuine advices are really appreciated.

I’ve been analyzing how people attempt mock tests for prelims, and I noticed a pattern.

Most aspirants:

- Focus only on score

- Don’t track why they got questions wrong

- Repeat same mistakes across tests

Example:

Someone scoring 70 → next test 68 → then 72

No real improvement, just fluctuation.

The real issue is:

There’s no visibility into:

- Question-level mistakes

- Guessing accuracy

- Subject-wise weak zones

I built a small tool to track this deeply (not selling anything, just experimenting).

It breaks down:

- Accuracy per subject

- Guess vs knowledge attempts

- Negative marking patterns

- Trap type catches

- Spaced revision by our AI

- Auto generated personalised AI tests based on your weak areas.

Would love feedback from serious aspirants:

Does this kind of analysis actually help in improving prelims performance?

>

I scored 100 and the pdf shows 74. I cross checked 4 times with answer key, had also taken a picture of OMR. What may be wrong ?

Not feeling motivated after giving mocks. Not getting good marks, stuck in 50-60 range. 2026 will be my 2nd attempt. CSAT is such a boring paper, have maths till 12th but question asked in CSAT is in different league. Why Bhagwan? Why you stuck me here ? Please someone suggest me something to improve marks in CSAT and GS. My preparation is also not so good this year. I wasted the whole year doing shit things, sometimes preparing for some other exam and in the initial months after pre last year, thinking of making a girlfriend blah blah(distraction) because some of my chutiya friends incite me to make a girlfriend in Delhi by saying what are you doing here. After June onwards, coaching classes ended and i started feeling lonely here in Delhi because during coaching i didn't make friends, so for 2-3 months i lived here alone, no one for taking and sharing something. Also, not understanding what to study for Mains. Due to all these fucking reasons I wasted initial months in confusion.shit shit yr, after December onwards prepare for UPSI exam for 2 months along with UPSC and from last 2 months focusing on pre but didn't get marks. Feeling fear of failure this year again. 😞😞