Unshackling from the myths about civil services exam
To join Civil Services is the dream of millions of students. This is indicated by an ever-increasing number of aspirants, year after year. Every year approximately one million aspirants compete for less than a thousand vacancies.
So, the result of this exam is just 0.1 %. This kind of tough competition is bound to create apprehension in the mind of students about their own ability to clear the exam, which in simple terms may be called as under-confidence.
Myths about civil services exam
This would also inevitably lead to misgivings and myths about the exam. This blog will try to clear the most commonly misplaced beliefs.
Only borne Einstein with genius intellect can clear this exam
This impression is far from the truth. Even if some people are genetically gifted with sharp acumen, and photographic memory to remember reams of content in one glance, a lesser mortal with an ordinary brain can compensate with extra toil and methodical studying.
Of course, there will be a cost to pay in terms of putting more hours on the study table and less on the bed.
The result statistics are unambiguously revealing that the aspirants who stuck to the right resources, managed time well, and studied with devotion & perseverance are the ones who succeed, irrespective of their genetic inheritance of grey matter.
Educational background matters for success in the civil service exam
Irrelevant! This exam and the selection procedure are stream-neutral, and education medium-neutral. Irrespective of if someone is from Humanities, Commerce, or Science background, the difficulty level is the same for all.
If there are friendlier humanities subjects like History, Geography, and Political Science for Humanities background students, there are Biology & Biotechnology, Science & Technology for Science students, and Economics for Commerce background students.
In any case, all of us have studied Social Science till class 10th, which had components of History, Geography, and Political Science. So, we all have basic knowledge of these subjects and they are not entirely new to us.
It is a game of luck!
Luck can never substitute hard work and perseverance. No one has seen or touched luck. In today’s extremely competitive world, luck has become more of an ever-lasting shield. One could whine and crib over the failures one has gone through and put it all on luck.
Whereas, if one manages to get through the odds and tastes success, no one would call it a game of luck. That is how exploited luck is. One needs to have staunch belief in himself and hard work.
Requires three to four years of preparation and one needs to know everything under the Sun.
To succeed in the UPSC exam, candidates need to have a strong foundation of knowledge and good analytical skills. If one starts preparation well in time, there will not be a need to exhaust years in addition to what one spends while undergoing a graduation course.
There was a time when civil service exam (CSE) preparation was concomitant with post-graduate students. The trend then shifted to students who had completed their Bachelor’s degrees. But today, the awareness level of students is much more and there is no ambiguity in their minds about what they want to do.
Therefore, those who have civil services as their goal in life, start preparing for CSE immediately upon completion of the 12th class, alongside bachelor’s degree studies. The syllabus of CSE is very well defined and there is no need to know everything under the Sun. After all, we are not clones of Chat GPT. For preparation, aspirants need to stick to the given syllabus and recommended reference books along with NCERT books. A good coaching institute can act as a guide and mentor and will certainly help save time and keep the focus of aspirants in the right direction.