📝 Minutes from an older Sherlocking Meet, relevant as ever:

🧠 Being in the right headspace

💡 Internalise confidence with the backing of hard work, ie through PYQ iterations and basic sources.

🚫 Let no question become an emotional sink. We have to accept negatives and keep moving on. Getting jittery about a few questions hampers clear thinking, so stay calm!
(Lesson from "Who Moved My Cheese?" - don't be too set in disappointment, look for solutions despite all constraints.)

🤺 It's not as much of a competition as it's made to be by coachings. Self-believe, always.

🔄 What if the pattern changes and the heuristics don’t work?
Ans-Even if the questions are factual, educated guesses can still be made, provided your basic sources are properly done and you have enough overarching peripheral knowledge.
eg. Lake Question in Pre-22

🏃‍♂️ You are still comparatively ahead of the competition. After giving multiple attempts, a big chunk of aspirants end up either depressed, distracted, or disappear from the scene. Early enthusiasm+ Right guidance puts you ahead. Stay focused, stay calm and believe in yourself.

🗓️ Even the honorable ASG had quipped how UPSC Prelims bas ek mahine bhar ka exam hai. The real difficulty isn’t even half of the projected value.

🧩 Both papers are technically CSAT. When analysing PYQs focus on the reasoning part, and approach the questions from multiple angles iteratively.

🔑 UPSC key is the final source. There’s no point in questioning it. Rather mould your brain into thinking the way UPSC works.

📚 Patchy, non-exhaustive revision of 2-3 subjects per day is better than extensively revising one subject over a couple of days.

⏱️ Finish sectional tests in 20 days, then move on to FLTs.

📖 PYQ analysis - context > content. Treat PYQ as a "living document " to develop a knack for elimination.

@UPSCneil

🌟 Applying MS Dhoni's exceptional mindset to UPSC journey 🌟

🤹 As Prelims gets closer, anxiety about mock scores, sources, revision, number of study hours etc is getting common.

▪️Thoughts like - 'what if I don't get through?' , 'what if I am never able to crack UPSC', 'what if I disappoint my parents' etc are unfortunately plaguing a lot of students. 😪

🔥Watch this 43 seconds short featuring MS Dhoni and write down his words.

https://youtube.com/shorts/JJ7120-C8OQ

🎯READ his words whenever you feel stressed or anxious or pressurized or unmotivated.

Know that success in UPSC prelims is a lot about the *MINDSET* and *mental conditioning*. 💪

If this mindset can help India win multiple World Cups 🏆, it WILL help you in your UPSC journey.

Work hard. Happy Studying!

🧠 We’re not as smart as we think we’re.

🔄 We’ve been misled by society to “overplan” and be in a continuous state of “anxiety” regarding the future and having “regrets” about the past.

🤝 Surround yourself with the right people, focus only on the task at hand, and good things will happen eventually.

🐒 We’re supposed to be smarter than a monkey, don’t forget!

🌟 @UPSCneil

Sources to Refer:

Prelims:
https://youtu.be/RURAhkezO4E?si=seEFvzs20u1v1g_m

Mains:
https://youtu.be/pNLFPkK0niI?si=oMG5PpDNazZzyaaZ

Sherlocking IGP

https://youtube.com/shorts/BnyHQf-zxgk

A lot of students send queries regarding questions that can be asked in interview regarding their education, especially if they perceive that their education institution is not one of the 'apex' ones.

Watch the short to understand how to handle such questions!

CSAT Comprehension is markedly different to the comprehension questions we’re used to doing since an early age. Hence people find this section impeccably difficult even though in my eyes, it’s the easiest.

Don’t believe me? Checkout the free CSAT 2021 discussion!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFrAJkEb21AxiYQ93At6xVBEYdgN0v-zo

If you want to watch the rest of the series, here are the details:
https://t.me/Neil_You/368

Videos on CSAT that'll help you:

https://youtu.be/oFYqHGFpYfo?si=pZcPaTse3KloxJBv

https://youtu.be/mXJKRLu1Z2Q?si=XwRxkP40LH-AEZnk

Sherlocking IGP

https://youtube.com/shorts/41rPseSkokI

Questions about application of technology, especially if you have a related background, are common. Check out the short to see how such questions can be answered!

🧠 Mental conditioning, as we say, is as important as your content preparedness in this exam.

🎯 There’s a reason that sports psychology is a heavily invested domain where focus similarly is on maintaining the right mindset during crunch hours.

💫 Focus on trying to undo the fear-based conditioning the market and a toxic ecosystem has instilled in you and replace it with a positive anticipation-based one.

🌈 This exam is neither a new beginning nor an end.

⚡ This exam is neither the toughest nor the best.

🌟 This exam, or any exam for that matter, is not worth losing your own self for. Stay in touch with your own authentic self.

✨ @UPSCneil

UPSC will eliminate PYQs to *surprise* candidates in UPSC Prelims 2024?

▪️One of the most common doubts that students have is - what if UPSC eliminates PYQs like it *seemingly* eliminated elimination technique in Prelims 2023? 😢

▪️What if the *surprise* this time around is an all together different set of themes? 😮

▪️Watch this concise video (not even 5 minutes long) where I address such doubts as well as doubts like how many years of PYQs should be covered for non-civil services exams conducted by UPSC like CDS etc -

https://youtu.be/k76nDH8kLxQ

Morning Session tomorrow regarding mindset. We’ll do some difficult exercises which if you execute with me give you tremendous improvements in terms of getting over the past failures.

All enrolled students will get the links by 11PM.

See you around 11.30ishAM tomorrow!

Sherlocking IGP:

Sometimes, one may want more clarity about the feedback received in a mock interview or may even disagree with the feedback. It is a good idea to seek further clarity if the feedback is not clear.

https://youtube.com/shorts/tnjG26BujJM

This is what I mean when I say that "Let go of the illusion of control".

Working hard in the right direction is de minimus, but success, unlike a consumer durable, doesn't come with a guarantee card!

Should certainly ease your nerves.

https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I

Seeing the tremendous positive response on today’s meet, we’ll have another follow up session for the sherlockers tomorrow same time where we’ll pick from where we left today.

Kindly ping @helpdeskupsc for follow ups if any.

Right Community is always the Right Company! ❤️

@UPSCneil
@Neil_You

Confidence while doing PYQs v. while doing Mocks

While the short is intended to be light hearted, it is an unfortunate truth that many candidates lose their self-belief in before the actual Prelims due to the nature of mocks and hence, the low score -

https://youtube.com/shorts/aSQ5FQHyS4Y

Can refer to a previous post for take on Mocks and how to go about them -
https://t.me/Neil_You/1182

Wishes!

Sherlocking IGP

What is instrumentation and control?

https://youtube.com/shorts/dNSOUbweg3M

🗳️📅 With the election dates announced, the fringe has gotten activated, and now insider-giri is in full swing.

🤔📚 Rather than focusing on prep, students are more worried about, “Exam postpone होगा क्या”?

👂❓ What do you want to hear?

🔄✋ If it were to get postponed, will you stop preparing? What will change?

🕵️‍♂️🛡️ Sherlockers anyway are covered against the uncertainty.

🌱💡 I always encourage you to not quit Mains completely. So if hypothetically (which will be the case in all possibility), the exam is postponed, you get more time to hone your Mains on the side.

⏳📆 Now whether you get a week more or a month, could only be confirmed by the honourable commission.

🙅‍♂️🚫 Also, don’t focus on useless arguments like - “अगर exam postpone हुआ तो competition बढ़ जाएगा, इसीलिए सिर्फ़ Pre पर ही focus krenge”! During 2020, the exam was postponed by more than 4ish months, yet the cutoff plummeted.

🌊⛵️ सब एक ही समुंदर के गोतों में हैं, जो अपनी कश्ती लहरों के साथ चलाता रहेगा, और ख़ुद उसमे Anxiety का छेद नहीं करेगा, will get the best chance to clear.

📖🧭 Stick to basics, use your common sense, and stay focused on the end game.

✨🎯 @UPSCneil