Why do most people fail in UPSC CSE?

Candidates might have heard this before, time and time again but let us repeat it once more; “Your actual competition is not those 9 lakh students who fill up the form for Prelims.

NO! Your real competition is exclusively those 2–3 thousand students who dedicatedly devote themselves for UPSC. This is your real competition that turn their nights into days and days into nights.

Majority of students are confuse in enrolling for UPSC—buying the study material and occasionally going through it— as their ultimate preparation strategy.

It’s NOT!
Those three thousand students who are making progress day and night, who are not concentrating on dumb things—evidently don’t do that. They sit with their heads down to their books, silently, and PREPARE! And repeat the same schedule for months and months, and become the kind which UPSC demands.

Candidates must not forget that UPSC’ complex selection process is designed to pick only the best—the top cream from the crowd who proudly say they are aspirants.

For fact, 90% of the students that call themselves aspirants are not living a life of aspirants. It’s an illusion they carry in their bags by occasionally going through the newspapers—or by taking out a course material and selecting what’s easier to read in that particular day—or just sticking to what they feel like reading—or by having a flexible time-table or by telling stories to their friends of they are about to finish the syllabus in next 60 days. It’s not happening, not with that approach.

Coming back to our primary question, ‘Why do most students fail in Civil Services Examination’, although there are numerous reasons to fail — there are two distinctive reasons that stand out from the rest; Fear and Laziness.

Candidates might come up with a perfect rebuttal by saying – ‘There are thousands of students who religiously devote themselves to UPSC and still miserably fail— what about those students—why don’t they get through?

Another fact is that this passive aggression towards the established process of UPSC would not lead one to his/her ultimate goal to crack it. Your ranting ‘Undoubtedly’ wouldn’t result to anything.

You must acknowledge that except few of your friends and family members, no one cares about your personal struggles. Your personal life is of no-interest to anyone unless you have some value to share with through your life—and to do the same—you must come above struggles.

How to figure out where are you lacking?
The right thumb rule to evaluate your current level and check where you’re lacking is – pick a candidate who has successfully cracked CSE (Civil Services Examination) and go through his/her daily routine when he/she was preparing.

Followed by comparing it to your schedule—and see for the real—how far you really are from the real picture. This would show you how slowly you have been running from the start.

The only way to crack through your Fears and Laziness is—HUSTLE!

“If you are willing to give what it takes — you’ll undoubtedly get it.”

Following the inputs from our subject matter experts—here are the reasons why most of the Civil Service aspirants fail;

Reservation
Tina Dabi was dragged and smashed on the digital world for it. Looking at her status, there was a substantial negative difference in her marks and other candidates who didn’t qualify. A lot of people blamed the entire system for the results which put her to the top.

Firstly, one must understand that reservations are for a certain group of people who belong to either backward casts who faced and still face the discrimination or people who were traditionally left behind due to the unavoidable circumstances in our society.

Promoting a candidate from the same cast/class who made it to the top gives an immeasurable moral boost to lakhs and lakhs of candidates who think – being from a certain cast/class stop them from out-stand in the crowd of millions.

It was a positive move by UPSC and if you’d see the bigger picture—you’ll be mostly fine with it. Although the clauses under reservations are debatable.

Expressing is as important as your knowledge
Most of the hard-working candidates collect insurmountable about of study resources, and read and read—pack as much as humanly possible for their brains.

But you must understand that as much as your knowledge is important for the UPSC—your expression of the same knowledge is also important, equally—if not more.

It’s a fact that if you lack the expression in your language—your way of expressing knowledge in subjective papers will thrash you to the ground. Being good with words and having a command on your language is as important as the fact you have mugged all the facts.

Candidates must also acknowledge that if they can’t write ‘5000 words essay’, in a structure that’s comprehensible for even a 10th grade student—you’re doing something REALLY REALLY wrong—and that itself shows that you’re definitely ignoring a huge chunk of preparation.

By: AK Mishra
(The writer is Director, Chanakya IAS Academy)