IAS Topper 2019 Akshat Jain shares his IAS exam strategy

IAS Topper Rank 2 Akshat Jain shares his strategy to become IAS. Read below details

IAS topper Akshat Jain, Rank 2 in the IAS exam 2019, is an IIT Guwahati graduate in design. He prepared the general studies by himself and took the coaching for his optional subject Anthropology.

IAS Topper Akshat Jain, in various interviews and interactions, shared his IAS preparation strategy for the future candidates to follow and succeed. He stressed that every candidate must develop a vision for the IAS preparation and then prepared his strategy.

He stressed that the candidates must prepare his own IAS strategy by taking inputs from various IAS toppers of previous years. He stated that every candidate has his or her unique position and he or she should design his or her preparation strategy accordingly. He said that the IAS exam tests the experience of the candidate.

See here: IAS exam pattern 2020

He started by saying that every candidate has a motive behind the preparation and it is unique to the candidate. He stressed that this motive should be strong enough to help in sustaining the motivation during this long and uncertain period.

Secondly, he said that hard work is important but hard work with the right direction is essential, only hard work will not do. Hard work coupled with the right strategy is required for the IAS preparation.

IAS Topper Akshat Jain’s Strategy for IAS Exam

He describes his strategy in very simple words. He started with preparing IAS main exam and then went for the prelims exam. He said that the candidates should cover maximum main exam syllabus before the IAS prelims exam. He said the IAS mains syllabus is the extension of the IAS prelims syllabus so both can be prepared simultaneously but for IAS prelims exam, more learning of factual information is required.

He mentioned about the three pillars of his IAS preparation strategy.

1. Preparing short notes
2. Answer writing
3. Self-Evaluation and Analysis

Preparing Short notes

During his IAS preparation, Akshat prepared Short notes on every topic written in the IAS syllabus. He stressed the importance of IAS syllabus and previous year question papers very much. The candidates must refer to the previous year question papers while preparing the quick notes.

He stressed that there are two components attached to each topic- static and dynamic. The static portion of the topic can be covered from the standard textbooks and the dynamic part must be covered from the current affairs.

Importance of Revision

He said that short notes and revision time is interlinked. He stressed that the self-made short notes are very important for the IAS exam because various rounds of revision are required in the IAS exam. Each time these composite notes will be helpful and save a lot of time. These short notes combine the static and dynamic component of the topic in one place and are easy to revise the whole topic in one place.

Answer Writing Practice

IAS topper Akshat Jain said that the answer writing practice is the most important component in scoring good marks in the IAS main exam. He started the IAS main answer writing from day one of his preparation.

He started by writing the answers on the Current Affairs topic and gradually moved to the optional and other general studies topics. He suggests that the candidates should also write the answers in the initial stage itself.

He prepared every IAS topic by studying it, preparing the notes of it and writing the answers to the related questions of previous years IAS question papers and questions taken from other sources.

See here: Most important topics for IAS 2020

IAS Topper Akshat Jain Marksheet

Sl. No	Question Paper	Marks
1	Essay	123
2	General Studies Paper I	99
3	General Studies Paper II	114
4	General Studies Paper III	104
5	General Studies Paper IV	107
6	Anthropology  Paper I	171
7	Anthropology  Paper I	164
IAS Main Written total		882
IAS Personality Test Marks		198
Total		1080

Self-Analysis and Evaluation

The third pillar of his IAS preparation strategy was self-analysis and self-evaluation. He said that after writing the answers, he used to compare his answers with IAS toppers’ answers and the model answers provided by the coaching institutes.

He said through the evaluation, one can judge that the strategy is right or wrong. If one cannot answer the questions related to the topic learnt, his strategy is not right and some essential element is missing. So one should search that element and try to incorporate it.

He said that by comparing his answers; he understood the shortcomings of his answers and try to improve it.

See here: IAS Toppers Stories

Improvement Cycle

He said that these three pillars are interrelated to each other and helped in continuous improvement in the IAS preparation. He enhanced his notes with the current affairs and the toppers answers to improve the quality of study material.

He mentioned that he prepared his current affairs notes online because the topics are dynamic and the online notes are easy to amend.

He said IAS exam is the test of experience. Experience is the key to success in the exam. The candidates should increase their effort to gain the experience in a short span of time by studying, learning, thinking and writing the answers.

Flow charts

He also mentioned that while analysing his answers he came across various other options to represent his information in a better way. Through evaluation, he came to know that Pictures, Flow charts, diagrams are the tools which can represent the information in a better way.

IAS Prelims strategy

He said that once the candidates have prepared the IAS syllabus for the main exam, IAS prelims becomes an easy nut to crack. He stressed that the candidates should start the IAS prelims strategy two to three months before the IAS prelims exam.

For IAS prelims exam, he suggests revising the factual information as many times as one can to keep the information on the day of the exam.

See here: 100 days preparation plan for IAS prelims 2020

Secondly, practice is very important for the IAS prelims also and hence the candidates need to practice with mock test papers and model question papers as much as they can

Time management for the IAS prelims paper is equally important and through the practice, the candidate must learn his performance curve and the number of good attempts which are essential to qualify the exam.

At last, he suggests a consistency in efforts pay it’s divided. He said the candidates should be consistent in his efforts throughout the IAS preparation. Inconsistency in the efforts will lead to nowhere. He said that the candidates should relish the experience gained during the hard work and IAS preparation.

He said the motto of the candidate should be “Karna hai to Karna hai”

Also Read: 

IAS Topper Kanishak Kataria's Strategy

IAS Topper Junaid Ahmad's Strategy