Another question which I believe cannot be prepped in advance. Such minute details even if available in certain compilations, are hard to memorise and retain.

I quickly eliminated 'b' and 'd' as '4' looks less logical. This is because 'all' sound extreme & govt ideally would not provide a free legal service to a rich industrialist just because he/she is a senior citizen now.

Now I'm left to choose bw '1' or '3'.

A quick calculation of monthly income gave me a choice bw a person with a monthly income of around 8k and a member of OBC community with a monthly income of 24k. The 3x(times) diff was too much even considering the need for affirmative action so I went with 'a' which again fortunately was the right answer.

People who've read climate change well would instantly recognise '3' to be correct. That eliminates 'a' and 'b'.

It is difficult to be aware of Alma Ata as it is not as famous as some other international agreements.

There are a bunch of Vienna and Hague conventions, so again, it is difficult to memorise each and recall in the exam hall pressure.

'4' looked illogical for two simple reasons.
One, if the '2' in 'Under2' denoted the age of the 'kid', 'toddler rights' would have been a more apt context in my understanding, than 'child' rights, which are usually given in the context of Under 18.
Also having read climate change well, I was aware of the targets of Under2 and Under 1.5 really well. So I backed my peripheral knowledge and common sense and preferred 'c' over 'd' which again fortunately was correct.

Given that I was stuck in 50-50, I would have preferred to attempt it even without the insight I had in the exam hall.

Even in that case, I would have pickled 'c' over 'd' as in absence of any other useful context, possibility of a single statement to be correct is more than that of two statements being correct at the same time.

Key takeaways: Look up these 4 agreements well, locate these places on a map(Alma Ata, Hague), prepare all the CoPs(Under UNFCCC) thoroughly, and be open to using these agreements in Mains way forward eg. In a question on Global warming, you can speak about the need to stick to Under2 coalition's agenda,use of the concept of “talanoa” - storytelling that leads to consensus-building and decision-making.

Another question from Constitution. This just shows that utility of Preamble+first 51 articles+chapter on legislature cannot be overstated.

As basic as it could get, ideally. But in exam hall pressure, sometimes brain fog takes charge, so it's always desirable to still once go over all the other options too.

We know India follows a Parliamentary system, and we have no guaranteed representation to all parties, we don't have direct democracy (rather we have representative democracy), and no confidence bill ensures that govt. could be removed by Parliament.

This leaves no doubt as to the fact that 'b' is the correct option.

Despite 2020 Prelims being arguably one of the toughest paper in recent years, you do see how basic the polity questions have been so far. That's why I encourage people to focus more on the basic subjects i.e. Polity, Modern History, Geography, Economics and Environment than on obscure current affairs & trivia.

Also notice how options are similar to Q5, so don't be surprised if you have a direct question on 7th schedule or on the language of Preamble soon (The kind of questions which have unsurprisingly been asked in the past).

While going over the chapter on Basic Structure in Laxmikanth, we read about the fact that 'basic structure' doctrine is a judicial construct and keeps evolving over time.

So that renders 'Statement 1' incorrect.
Additionally you should glance over the judgments that proclaimed certain ideas to be a part of basic structure. For eg. SR Bommai case: Federalism, Secularism constituting a part of basic structure.

Now this is one of those questions where I still don't understand why the answer is 'd' and not 'b'.

Logically statement '2' makes complete sense.

I've come to accept over the past few attempts that one could always expect some collateral damage in a couple of questions. Again brings me to my initial assessment about prelims being an exam of odds than of certainties.

In these type of ques, heuristic from Q7 comes to our rescue, i.e. focus on negating the premise of given options to arrive at the 'last option standing' than rushing to what you think is right, because such questions are also a matter of interpretation.

Option 'c' was definitely wrong as Gandhiji spoke about trusteeship and not abolition of pvt property.

Wrt Option 'd' I didn't know about economic determinism conceptually but word association hinted towards a system where economics determine one's being. I couldn't relate it to any of Gandhiji's ideas that I have read so backed my instinct and eliminated 'd'.

One of the lessons I drew from this question is to not color the questions with your prism of the job profile that this exam brings, and maintain objectivity. What do I mean by that?

I knew about Gandhiji's idea of Gram Swaraj and decentralising the powers to bring autonomy to people. Also I was aware of the fact that Gandhiji was called a political anarchist by some of his 'critics'. But I kept thinking about how it was highly improbable for the question setter to take up a 'critical' stand of 'Politico Anarchism' towards 'Bapu'.

I did also misinterpret the term 'class struggle' in the exam hall. I related class struggle with the peasant and working class movements Gandhiji was a part of. So I ended up marking 'b' which we know now was incorrect.

My takeaway thus for handling interpretation based questions is pretty straightforward. If you can't make concrete sense out of most of the given options, better to leave such questions. Or if you're attempting such questions, know that you're playing the odds and tread cautiously.

I was setup for a negative score on this question right from the word go. Simply because I was making a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions. I eliminated 'd' on a half baked hunch, then ignored 'a' by projecting a patriotic mindset on the examiner, and finally gave my own color to the term 'class struggle'

Don't unnecessarily 'intellectualise' the questions/options and stay away from the cardinal sin of overthinking. Simplicity yields the best rewards in this examination.

In my experience, if you're making more than 1(in desperate* times, 2) assumption/s in a question, you're setting yourself up for a negative score.


Also, some of you would also be curious as to why do I keep investing so many words on discussing an approach that fetched me a negative score . The response to that is fairly simple. I've come to also understand over time that sometimes, a faulty approach is a far more powerful tool to learn & improve than a straightforward approach that might yield the answer in one go, but doesn't teach me 'why' it worked.

*Desperate times: When you're anyways not able to attempt more than 45-50 questions, and you know that the attempt looks full of doom & gloom, it doesn't hurt to play the odds and possibly make assumptions that at least enable you to attempt some additional questions.

Similar heuristic to the one used above and in Q7 as the question is again interpretation based. So my focus will be on finding the one option that is 'closest' to the context of the question than the others.

Logically it is the parliament itself that has the power of widening its own scope. So I eliminated 'a'.

Since bureaucracy forms a part of AIS, it can be seen as an agency for strengthening the structure of federalism so I'll hold onto that thought for a while and move onto the next option.

Political stability is incumbent upon the political parties(by means of forming alliances) and their electoral performance. Bureaucrats ideally have little to no role in ensuring that. Moreover we read about political neutrality as being one of the cardinal values required in civil services. Thus, I eliminated 'c'.

Option 'd' looked logically correct. Moreover it is more likelier to be correct than Option 'b' as public policy implementation is a part of the core job profile of a bureaucrat whereas strengthening federalism is an ancillary benefit of the services.

Straight from the chapter on preamble from Laxmikanth. Same takeaway as from other ques on Polity. Do Preamble, First 51 Articles(FR,DPSP,FD) and the chapter on legislature really well. Everything else can wait.

For people who read IMF thoroughly, this was a a direct question.
But there still are ways to get to the right answer with logical guesswork even if one hasn't thoroughly prepped IMF. So two heuristics aid our cause in this question.

Heu#1: Taken from Q#5 , a more specific option is more likely to be correct than a vaguely worded one. And 'b' is as vague an option as it possibly gets.

Heu#2: Usually if two statements are similarly worded with only slight variation, it's very likely that the answer is one of them.
For instance, option 'c' and option 'd' are similarly worded but for the orgs that are mentioned. Additionally, WTO is a facilitator while IMF has a more hands on functioning operating with credit systems. So even if I were not exactly aware of the answer, I would have still marked 'd'.

Another takeaway is to prepare atleast these 3 orgs, i.e. WB, IMF and WTO really thoroughly. Each year or every alternate year, there's atleast one question from one of these 3 organisations.

How many times will I repeat it? Idk, as many times as the need be. First 51 articles of Consti, Preamble and the chapter on legislature needs to be internalised. No excuses on that.

Moreover, to know that '3' is correct doesn't even need too deep an understanding of DPSPs.
That leaves us with 'c' and 'd'. After that, it's a matter of how well you've read the chapter and could back your knowledge in the exam hall.
Though at the outset, statement '2' is tempting as it appears to be an extreme statement, but is correct nonetheless.

Thus, conviction is key in the exam hall. And 'blind' adherence to any rule or heuristic is a sin.

Statement '1' was peculiar so I had to leverage my peripheral knowledge while also backing my convictions.

We know that a person after attaining the age of 18 becomes eligible to vote. Whereas to become a member of legislature, minimum age requirement is 25, after which one become eligible to serve at a ministerial post.
Even if one were to be made a minister without getting a membership of the house, it sounded unlikely that an 18 yr old Voter ID holder could be made a minister. for 6 months. So I eliminated '1'.

For statement '2', I couldn't remember any provision for permanent disqualification. The disqualification from my understanding was contemporaneous to the duration of the punishment plus some additional time on top of it. Moreover, 'data' points are more often than not manipulated by UPSC in questions. Thus, the sentence term of 5 years seemed sketchy. So I marked 'd' which eventually turned out to be the correct answer.

My take on these questions is fairly straightforward. It's difficult to memorise and recall such minute details.
If you could use common sense with your peripheral knowledge, you would have every shot of getting these questions correct with practice.