Let me complete the syllabus
The UPSC syllabus is vast and there is no scope to finish the syllabus completely. However, you can get the glimpses of important topics. As you will go through the previous year question papers, you will find that only certain topics are frequently asked in the exam. You will have to emphasize only these topics.
Moreover, you must start solving the previous years’ papers as well as tests series. With consistency your confidence will boost, your mistakes will reduce and most significantly you will be able to prime your brain for the exam.
You will be able to test your knowledge, which will help you to improve your weak fronts. You should not chase for perfection rather you must emphasize the completion. There will be numerous bottlenecks but don’t worry about them, with consistency they will disappear.
Inconsistency in Paper Solving
When you will start solving the papers for preliminary and main exam. In the beginning, you will religiously follow the tests. But as you will move further the level of tests will start increasing, it might lead to fluctuation or decline of your score. But you must not give up because it is your training part. That’s where numerous students make mistakes, give up practicing tests series or solving previous years papers due to disappointment.
But you should resist that temptation. Because you must understand that we don’t give tests to score, rather the purpose of solving tests is testing our knowledge or understandings and to train our mind to handle that situation. Because more mistakes you will do in the practice, you will learn to avoid them.
Irregularity in answer writing
Answers can decide the your fate, whether you will be qualified or not. It is the only form of communication between you and the examiner.
Hence it is crucial to pay attention to your answer writing skill. If you are irregular in answer writing, your quality of answers will start degrading, no matter whether you were skillful in answer writing or not.
The answer writing skill is an art of expressing your thoughts, knowledge and understanding. Hence it requires continuous nurturing and timely improvements and that can be achieved only with regularity.
Taking CSAT Granted
This is the most common mistake shooting up nowadays. The reason is not that students don’t practice, the problem is that candidates pay all their attention to general studies.
But when it comes to solving CSAT papers, they think that they will be able to manage for passing criteria. They get busy completing other subjects and failed to manage the time for CSAT.As a result, they score well in general studies paper but fail to get even 67 marks in the CSAT paper.
It is a really disappointing feeling that you are getting disqualified due to CSAT paper. Therefore, we need to prepare a roadmap before starting the UPSC preparation. We must allot time properly on the basis of our strengths and weaknesses.
Using multiple sources or Switching Sources
You must avoid these situations. Rather than piling up notes, study materials you must focus on smart work. There are so many material sources available in the market. They create more confusion and dilemma in the mind of students.
You can prefer a maximum of two sources especially in cases where you are facing challenges to understand the concepts deeply. It is always the best way to keep yourself limited to a single source and revise it often. Instead of reading from multiple sources, you must confine yourself to a single source and revise multiple time.
Additionally, you can prefer to use active learning methods such as writing whatever you understood after reading a particular topic, solving the question papers, explaining to friends, teaching someone or writing on board. In passive learning, you will not get much benefit but in active learning, you will get.
Not clearing the doubts
Whenever you will be having confusion about the concepts or topics, write it down so that you can clear it afterward. Allot some of your time for the doubt-clearing session. Because conceptual clarity reduces your time and efforts.
Spending more time on unnecessary notes making
You must not spend excessive time in notes making. The purpose of notes is to reduce time and effort. The motive of notes making is to simplify and make data easy to use. But sometimes students make lengthy notes or become over conscious about the notes making process. As a result, they fail to manage their notes.
Revisions
The revision is the key to clear any exam. Time to time spaced revisions need to be done. Because with the revision you will be able to recite more data effectively. You can focus on the techniques that you are using for the revisions.
Procrastination
Procrastination meaning avoiding or delaying the tasks. It is the most common challenge for every student. But we can defeat that cycle with a productive and efficient plan. The reason behind procrastination is not weak willpower or lack of consistency among the aspirants.
It is the nature of our brain which works on the principle of pain and pleasure. With the right strategic methods and planning, we can overcome procrastination and enhance our productivity.
Not learning from mistakes
Our mistakes are the great teachers, they provide good mentorship directly or indirectly. We must always keep introspecting our strategy, methods or actions that we are performing on a daily basis. Sometimes it becomes impossible to evaluate our actions.
We commit mistakes consciously or unconsciously. But we must keep tracking our actions. Because every mistake provides good learning. But there are many students even after knowing they don’t rectify their mistakes and repeat the same mistakes again and again.
If we don’t learn from our mistakes it might create hurdles for us in the long run. Therefore, we must learn from mistakes and focus on reducing mistakes as well.
Spending much time on less important topics
If we observe the syllabus we will get to know that the syllabus has wider coverage. But you are not suppose to prepare everything under the sun. There are certain topics frequently asked in the exam. And therefore, only these topics ought to be prepared in a well manner. Along with that, the topics which are in the news ought to be prepared.
Let’s take an example, suppose you spend your week on a particular topic but the probability of that topic is low then instead of covering that topic you must go with the topic that has higher chances.
In such cases, the cost-benefit is very less. Instead of reading on these topics, you must spend time on the topics where the probability of questions is more.
Debates/Discussions
Group discussions and healthy debates are the best sources to refine our constructive thinking as well as getting exposure to diverse perspectives from our peers. But if the discussions are directionless and unorganized, it might waste your time.
Hence you must be very careful while participating in such debates. You must have a clear vision of what outcome you would like to have from discussions and debates.