On Being Consistent

By | April 28, 2024

I recently came across an interesting quote on Twitter: “The best performers are not consistently great, but they’re great at being consistent.” (Brad Stulberg) It got me thinking and I have realised that any meaningful, life-defining endeavour comprises of the following traits: These small actions, taken in isolation, do not amount to much. But over time, what they… Read More »

Coaching for the UPSC Civil Services Exam: Is It Necessary? (2025)

By | April 13, 2024

This is a perennial question I get asked the most. And it’s understandable too. Many aspirants who begin their Civils preparation are clueless about this exam’s demands and most cannot simply afford to go to Delhi and take coaching. There are a lot of doubts and misconceptions regarding whether to take coaching for Civils Services. So let me… Read More »

UPSC Prelims Strategy (2025) by Abhijeet Sinha, IAS [AIR 19]

By | February 28, 2024

Hello everyone, I am Abhijeet Sinha. I have secured 19th Rank in Civil Services Exam 2017 and joined the Indian Administrative Service in 2018. I gave two attempts at CSE and scored good marks in both my prelims: 163 in CSE 2016 and 152.66 in CSE 2017. My Prelims strategy was slightly different from others. I almost always attempted over 95 questions, even though I barely knew more… Read More »

How to Ace UPSC Mains Anthropology Optional : Deep Dive into Paper II (2025)

By | February 24, 2024

Note: I’ve published a total of 3 blog posts on Anthropology. The first article primarily talks about my booklist and the basic approach I followed. The second discusses topic wise detailed plan for Paper I. This is the third and final one among the series, and it deals with topic wise detailed plan for Anthro Paper II. 1.1 – Indian… Read More »

How to Ace UPSC Mains Anthropology Optional (2025): Deep Dive into Paper I

By | February 15, 2024

Note: On Anthropology, there are a total of three blog posts, of which this is the second one. The first one primarily talks about my book list and the basic approach. This is the second article among the series and it deals with topic wise detailed plan for Paper I. The third article talks about the detailed plan… Read More »

How to Ace Anthropology Optional in UPSC Mains: Book list and Basic Plan (2025)

By | February 11, 2024

Note: There a total of 3 blog posts on Anthropology. This first article primarily talks about my book list and the basic approach I followed. The second and third articles deal with topic wise detailed plan for Paper I and II respectively. Marksheet Book List These are the sources I referred to for my Anthropology optional. There is… Read More »

How to Answer GS 4 Ethics Paper in UPSC Mains (2025)

By | February 3, 2024

Note: This is a free chapter from my book, Fundamentals of Essay and Answer Writing. I have previously published two excerpts on GS-2 and Introductions to Essay. The book has similar detailed chapters on Essay and answer writing for GS-1,2,3,4, including the Anthropology optional. You can get the book here. GS-IV can be confounding. That’s because the questions in this paper tend to… Read More »