Topper's Interview Pratibha Verma || IAS - 2019 AIR 3
Hello, welcome My name is Pratibha
Verma, and I have secured All India Rank 3
in Civil Services Examination 2019. In
the series of the strategy lectures,
the next topic we are going to talk about is - How
to prepare notes for civil services examination. A
number of students have approached me asking the
same question 'What is the most effective method
of preparing notes?' so that they can get maximum
marks in this examination. From my own experience
of three attempts, I've learned that in my first
two attempts I did not focus much upon this aspect
of our preparation and because of that I had to
face two setbacks in my first attempt I could
not clear the prelims and my second attempt I
could not become IAS. After these experiences,
I realized that only after preparing brief and
very effective precise notes I will be able
to revise all this huge content that we have
to prepare for this examination in a minimum
amount of time. So when I started preparing for
my third attempt where I secured All India rank 3,
one of the most beneficial things in
my opinion that I did was reporting
most of my time in preparing good notes for
the general studies part of mains examination.
So I will be sharing my insights, my method
and my approach towards note-making that has
helped me a lot in this preparation a number
of toppers even before we have talked about the
usefulness about how beneficial this practice is
and in my opinion if you also start making notes
in the way that other toppers have done, in the
way that I have done and you copy the best part,
or you take the best part of this strategy
and include in your own preparation journey.
It would be beneficial for you too. So
with this, let's start with the session.
Let's first talk about why note making is so
important for this examination. So note making
is a practice where you write about all the
important stuff that you are reading from your
books, from your newspaper, from the current
affairs magazine that you are referring to and
consolidating all the information in one place, in
your own handwriting; you are structuring all this
content. Generally what happens is when you are
referring to the newspaper, there is news about
cybersecurity, there is a news about maritime
security or something related to parliament,
something related to the judiciary- an important
judgment is coming in, and all this content on a
daily basis is getting accumulated, is getting
huge. But, you are preparing for civil service
examination where a defined syllabus is given
by the UPSC, and you have to structure all this
content in that framework only. So note making
is important because it organizes the content,
it provides a structure to you which helps you
in creating a visual memory of all the content;
when you're writing all the important information,
be it the static part from your books,
let's say Lakshmikant or art and culture or
environment book, plus the current affairs part,
when you are including all these things on
a sheet of paper in a structured manner,
then it creates a visual memory. So whenever
UPSC is asking a question, let's say about
agriculture and you have written a page of note -
you would immediately recall that page and start
listing out the information that was there. It
actually reduces the amount of time you are taking
in answer writing in the final examination. Hence,
this practice is highly useful to get the maximum
benefit out of all the content that you have
read in a minimum amount of time. The second
most important thing is that you are able to
quickly revise all the content that is there
in 500 pages of books thousand pages of newspaper
in a very less amount of time if you have prepared
a note for one to two pages for each and every
topic you would be quickly able to revise all
these content in just 15 minutes or half an hour,
and that is a very efficient way of preparing for
civil services examination. Third thing that
with note-making, you are able to consolidate
all the matter in one place and when you have all
the information in one place then your memory is
also organized in that manner. This examination
is all about how efficiently you can achieve
this thing, how quickly you can recall all the
subject matter about a particular topic in a
very less amount of time. In that way it becomes
a game of memory and how can you structure your
memory by consolidating all the information in one
place. Next thing, it reduces your distraction.
So what I mean by this is that in the
market you have huge material available,
then you are referring to some online sources,
there are a number of PDFs on a particular
topic now when you come across something like
this or a friend recommends you something like
this then you are automatically inclined to look
into that, but if you have your own notes. You
rely upon it then you know that you don't need to
refer to anything else this reduces your time this
reduces the distraction that people are causing
if you have just read a particular topic from
Lakshmikant or from a current affair magazine.
You come across something new in the market
then you won't be able to recall all these things
that you have already studied it, you don't need
to refer to any new material. So in that way it
is highly useful that it reduces your distraction,
it aligns your preparation on a particular
path. If you continue in that direction only
definitely you will succeed. Next thing is
that it improves your answer writing skills and
what I mean by this is that when I used to make
my notes I used to write in the exact format in
which I was going to write my answers, so I used
to write my answers in the same format in which
I had made my notes. In a separate lecture, I
have talked about how I used to approach answer
writing in general studies I have said there that
I used to write my answers in point format, I use
subheadings, I used to write an introduction,
subheadings, a number of points, next subheading,
a number of points, way forward and conclusion.
In the similar format, I used to make my notes
so actually in a way I'm preparing for my
answer writing when I'm preparing my notes,
so this practice had created this skill in me
that I don't need to actually prepare any separate
framework or blueprint for answer writing.
I am listing down all the important
information that is going to be used in my
answer in my notes itself and I will show
you the example of this in just a few minutes.
The next most beneficial thing that you can derive
out of note making is that you can answer all the
questions of general studies if you have prepared
your own notes on all the topics; so there
will be a number of questions in the final
examination when you look at it, you will see that
you have never studied it. For example, last year
there was a question on Cyberdome. Why is it
important now; it was very small news in the
newspaper and most of the candidates had not read
it. Only few people knew what Cyberdome exactly
is, but at the same time the question had asked
what is its importance, how is it going to benefit
in long run, I had a note on cyber security topic
even if i don't know anything about cyber dome
I know at least a page full of information about
cybersecurity itself so, I just quickly wrote
one generic line about Cyberdome that it is a
project that is aiming at creating a very a secure
environment secure ecosystem for the cyber systems
and processes in India. I wrote this one line it
is a very generic line it is not wrong i did not
know that it is a project in kerala that is aiming
to reduce the cyber crimes against women and
children i just wrote one genetic line that was
neither wrong nor exactly correct so it was
somewhere in the gray area then i started
with writing about why this project is important
its importance lies exactly where importance of
creating cyber security ecosystem lies i just
listed down all the things i had written in my
notes about importance of cyber security then i
moved on to what are the other government efforts
in this direction i had already prepared notes on
this i was aware about all these things i quickly
listed down what are other government efforts then
i concluded that along with all these efforts and
cyber dome that the government is creating we are
moving towards a secure cyber environment where
privacy of our citizen security and reduction
of harassment or violence or abuse against
all the stakeholders that is happening in cyber
environment will be reduced to a minimum and
the violators will be punished so this strategy of
note making helped me in answering a question that
i knew nothing about similarly there are a number
of examples where i was not aware what they are
asking about i have talked about a question about
overground workers in kashmir i knew nothing about
what overground workers are what zamat islam is
but i knew a lot of things about terrorism because
i had my notes on it and i listed down everything
i had read in that particular topic in this answer
so that's how you can answer all the questions
when you have prepared notes you don't need to
know specific events that are happening in
the country you can just relate the topic
that it is about to the notes that you have
prepared on you so this is a very efficient
way of preparing for this examination the next
thing when i was preparing my notes then one
thing that i kept in mind that maybe this year
i will not get is then again i have to prepare
for the next item then again i will have to go
through all these books all the current affairs
magazine if i have my notes ready now then in next
attempt actually my effort will be very minimum
and i can focus more on answer writing i can focus
more on the interview part i can focus more on
improving my essay part so when i was doing this i
was actually preparing for my next attempt as well
i hope that no one of you have to go through this
endless cycle of giving more attempts every year i
hope that you clear it quickly however there is a
definite possibility that you might have to appear
for the next attempt only 7 or 800 candidates
are selected every year the rest of them have to
appear for the next attempt by doing this you will
be actually reducing your effort you will be less
exhausted when you are preparing for your next
attempt the next thing the next benefit out of uh
note making is that you will be actually covering
the whole syllabus when you are preparing topic
wise notes then you know that you have left
out these topics and when you see that you have
left about five to ten topics of the syllabus you
will be automatically inclined to cover all these
things but when you don't have a structured
and organized preparation then there will be
parts of syllabus that you will be missing out
on so if you want to reduce that if you want to
eliminate that mistake then you should start with
preparing your own brief notes the next and the
most important benefit out of the note making that
i have derived is that i had a ready material for
essay part now a lot of candidates have asked me
how do you prepare for sn i have told them i did
not prepare separately any content for the essay
part of the examination now essay paper is for
250 marks and there are questions there are essay
topics from every area it can be security it can
be about international relations, health education
women child any doctor and when i was preparing
my notes i kept this thing in my mind that the
things that i am writing here will be used in
my essay also so that i was preparing a content
not just for my general studies preparation but
at the same time for my essay preparation
so i had all the important data statistics
major problem what are the government scheme what
we should do in the future to tackle the existing
problems that we are facing exactly the same
things that we are going to write in our essays
so because of this note making habit i was able to
reduce my time that i would have otherwise devoted
on preparing all the materials separately for
essay for essay now i just had to practice writing
two essays in three hours so that was it because
of note making i derived all these benefits which
i believe have contributed immensely towards
me securing third rank at the all india level
let's talk about how i prepared my notes what
was my approach towards note making so i always
prepared my final revision notes on a4 sheets i
will show you an example of how i used to do this
in just few minutes the second thing was i
always had syllabus and previous year question
for reference what do i mean by this that when
you are preparing notes you have this one book
which is of 500 pages you have lots of newspaper
you have current affairs magazine and you're not
aware that how important a particular topic is
how do you know that in exactly what depth you
are required to go into you get that idea by
referring to the previous year questions that
upsc has already asked to get that idea by looking
at the syllabus of the civil services examination
it has well-defined well-structured topics
and every year upsc is asking questions from
the same topics you don't need to go outside
those topics so that's why you need to keep
the syllabus and previously question on the table
with you when you are reading any material when
you are preparing notes i prepared notes only
for the mains examination a lot of students
have been asking is it not required for prelims
it is completely up to you for me i felt that i
don't need separate notes or prelims however if
you feel that you need some notes for prelims
material then you have to prepare integrated nodes
for both the prelims and means you don't need to
duplicate your efforts into note making you don't
need to have separate nodes for these two parts
for me i felt that means answer writing was
an area of weakness for me that's why i went
ahead with making notes preparing my notes
only for the mains part of the examination
the next thing was that i used to keep my
notes highly precise my final revision notes
it used to be very precise very organized very
well structured and i used to have some diagrams
if maps are required i used to draw maps there
in a very small size and i used to have short
forms for example if i have to write constitution
i never wrote constitution fully because it takes
a lot of time i just used to write c and a small
circle that meant constitution for me so similarly
for larger words you can create these kind of
things and i always used short forms if i'm
writing a name of an organization or a body
or a phrase that is highly used for example
artificial intelligence i would always write
ai for example cyber physical system always
cyber physical system this is one of the things
that you can do for biotechnology i would write bt
for nanotechnology nt so these kind of short forms
you can use in your notes to reduce the time and
reduce the length and size of your notes i used
to have just two pages of notes maximum two pages
of notes per topic in some cases it just used to
get finished in half a page or one page but if
there are some topics which are quite huge quite
large requires a number of aspects or dimensions
to be included then add the max my notes used to
be of two pages nothing more than that one last
thing that i would like to say is that my notes
actually were not very grammatically correct it
used to be rough notes i'm not writing a book
here that i need to write complete sentences
i need to write a very beautiful introduction or
a very beautiful confusion i had that in my mind
by reading the books i do not need to reproduce
the books that i have read already it has to be
very short you don't need to write sentences you
can prepare your notes in point format very rough
no need to be grammatically correct only the
important keywords they have to be very clear
other than that you don't need to create a
book out of an existing book you just have
to prepare your own very precise notes now what
was my preferred mood for note making so this is
a very common doubt with students whether online
notes are better or the offline notes are better
i did both first of all i created digitized notes
where i wrote all the important information that i
came across when i'm preparing a particular topic
why did i choose to prepare online notes first
because it is very easy to edit it it is very easy
to add any current affairs material that you come
across in current event that is very important for
that particular topic and it is very easy to find
your keywords so when i prepared my first notes
it was online it was highly detailed and obviously
it was very easy to edit so i will show you how
i have created my online notes in my next slide
i used to use evernote platform for creating these
notes so it is a a platform which is available for
free you can take that or create your notes on
word ms word or any other platform that you prefer
so it is very easy to organize your content in
these kind of platforms i used to add all the
important current events in that slide or in that
particular topic actually preparing online notes
is very useful where the content is highly
dynamic where a lot of current material a
number of government schemes are coming where
every year some sort of issue or something
new comes up at international level so in those
areas creating online notes is really helpful
you can easily add anything new there it is very
easy to organize your online notes when you're
preparing your notes for the first time and you're
doing it on the paper you commit any mistake then
you don't need to actually mess up those papers if
you're preparing online notes it is very easy to
organize or structure it next thing even at the
online mode i used to write everything in point
format so this was my first set of notes when
i was doing it for the first time and i was not
actually very comfortable with this extensive note
making process so creating online notes actually
helped me a lot by easing me into the process
when i was preparing i had cleared my prelims
for the third attempt then i started writing the
material that i had included in the online mode
at a4 size papers now what i did here i wrote very
brief sentences i wrote exactly the points that
were most important for that syllabus so these
offline notes were absolutely to the point nothing
extra material so basically what detailed notes
i had prepared on evernote i filtered the content
out of that why did i do that because when i was
preparing the online notes a lot of content i
had memorized at that time only i remembered most
of the things so i wrote down just the important
things that i could not remember and the things
i knew will add a lot of value to the answer and
will fetch me good marks so in that way offline
mode was a filtered version of the online content
and after prelims whatever three to four months
of current events happened i added on the paper
itself just one to two lines actually nothing
large or nothing huge happens in two to three
months in most of the issues that we are studying
if you have prepared these things then you just
have to write two to three lines in that period
so just imagine how much your effort is reduced
because of this practice so this practice has
helped me a lot again i told you that my one to
two pages notes were these offline notes on paper
that i revised that i used to revise after prelims
just before the means so because of this practice
my preparation became very efficient highly
effective and i derived maximum benefit out of
the minimum time one of the things that i want
to highlight that how effective note making just
in one to two pages will benefit you in long run
in preparation of means examination if we look
at the topics mentioned for general studies 2
that is paper 3 of the examination it contains
topics from governance constitution polity
social justice and international relations
so these are the topics mentioned here
it is about indian constitutions it is about
the federalism it is about separation of power
and judiciary so in that way a number of topics
are listed here and if you count these topics
that are there in gs2 you would say there are 20
topics so if you make a habit of writing maximum
2 pages per topic then your notes for means
preparation of general studies 2 would be finished
in just 40 pages let's say if you're not that
efficient maybe you have added more information
and for some topics it goes on to three to
four pages even in that case your notes will
be finished in 50 to 60 pages for one gs paper
that is for 250 marks so reading 50 pages for
250 marks instead of referring to let's say 100
pages of current affairs magazine you are reading
per month then you are reading lakshmi khan for
ir you are reading some 100 or 200 pages of book
so instead of reading those 500 pages
just imagine how efficient it is
to revise all the material in from just 40 to
50 pages so this is the most beautiful part
of the note making process that it helps you a lot
when you are revising for the means examination
i will show you an example of how i had created
and organized my online notes that i prepared on
this platform called evernote so here it
is the window of one particular topic i am
showing you the topic of federalism here here
you can say that i have created a folder called
gs for mains i have created separate notebooks
for gs one two three and four i have opened here
the notebook of js2 that contains separate
nodes for all the topics that are important
and that are listed in the syllabus some of the
topics i did not prepare here i directly wrote on
the page because i did not have enough
time so here you can see i have listed
down supreme court judgment constitutional
issues federalism executive legislature
judiciary important constitutional bodies about
civil services civil society local government
for social issues topic for ir multiliteral rba
salient features which is topic of election so
these are the topics that i've listed here and
then i have given numbers one two three four five
in the order of how these things are listed in the
syllabus so constitutional issues is a very first
topic i have given it number two because supreme
court judgment i had to keep on top for ready
difference then second topic is federalism it is
there so in that way you can organize your content
in a highly effective manner now let's look at
the notes i have written the topic here federalism
i have listed the micro topics that are written
in the upsc syllabus it has been these three lines
have been directly lifted from the syllabus what
does it state function and responsibilities of
the union and states it is about federalism
then second thing what is it talking about
issues and challenges pertaining to the federal
structure so you are reading about functions
responsibility issues and challenges so these
four things have to be clearly there in your notes
the next thing is devolution of powers and
finances up to local level so 73rd and 74th
constitutional amendment act and then urban local
bodies and rural local bodies so it is about
the federalism at basically the third tier of the
governance so federalism is about the union state
and local body so this set of notes contains all
the important things that i have read in lakshmi
khan in my current affairs magazine and i have
listed down the important things here so just
look at the notes i have written a definition
of federalism then i have highlighted because
this part is very important for answer
writing that it implies equal partnership
between governments attained as a result of
negotiations this is a very good definition so
i've highlighted this now i have talked about what
are the features of federalism because sometimes
they generally directly ask this question in
upsc so i've just written two words it's dual
government separate domain written constitution
these things have been lifted from lakshmi which
is your reference material for static portion then
not a true federation on the basis of these i have
written about some very prominent people who have
said some things about constitution and then what
ambedkar she had said about federalism so when you
are writing this in notes it is exactly your value
addition part a number of people have asked me how
should we make value addition to the answer this
is how we do it i have written these things from
the lakshmi khan itself not from any new source
i have not researched for it it is there itself if
they are asking a question about federalism i will
write some line from this thing only so here is a
very detailed presentation about how i have made
notes on the topic of judiciary so i listed
the topic judiciary here then what is the
micro topic or what is the exact statement in
the syllabus that is about separation of power
why i have included this in judiciary because
actually separation of power between judiciary
and legislature is a major issue so that's why
i have included it here between various organs
then dispute redressal mechanism dispute redressal
mechanism is a subpart of judiciary it is actually
at a very uh local level but i have included this
in judiciary because judiciary is itself part of
the conflict resolution and similarly these extra
mechanism are also some way connected to judiciary
and then institution structure organization and
functioning of judiciary so in this particular
note i have combined these topics now the next
part that you see these are previous year question
related to judiciary so i have included these
questions in my notes itself you can see here one
question what is quasi-judicial body explain with
the help of concrete example this was a question
asked in 2016 or 17. i have written this question
that critically examined the supreme court's
judgment on njac njc was a topic very closely
related to the issue of judiciary itself so
appointment of judges so i can see that these
topics are relevant from these previous year
questions itself now in this column on the basis
of all the studying that i did all the research i
did i have written just few lines in brief that
this is how i am going to answer it so this is
the kind of practice that is required when you
are preparing your notes now from here actually
my notes start so in the first column i had
talked about issues with judiciary you can
see i have written appointment here appointment
in judiciary is a very big issue so the relevant
article here the relevant cases second judges case
99th constitutional amendment which was about njac
this very question that we have seen here i
have prepared a notes of three to four lines on
this topic then in a separate column i have talked
about what are the cases you can see just one line
that's it first case one line second case one line
third case one line this is what i've done here
then primacy of judiciary why is it
important again government is a major
litigant independence separation of power the
key words these are the keywords that i have
written in my note and just look at the fact
these are my detailed notes even in detailed
notes i have been highly precise in writing my
points then we have talked about independence
of judiciary then i have to highlight why is
it important to maintain independence and what
are the means of securing the independence so
exactly related to this above topic i have listed
down these things now obviously you all know if
you have been studying for quite some time that
there is a collision system i wrote about what
are the issues five to six points issues in high
court appointment there are some very specific
issues two to three that i have listed here
then memorandum of procedure was one of
the solutions proposed for this thing
i listed down important points of that here then
way forward so you can see that i have this full
note here relating to every aspect of the
appointment process that have been there
in the news or in the static portion so these
are my detailed notes now when i summarized it
it took just half a page on an a4 size because
of this practice of writing everything down
i had already remembered or memorized most of
the things that i just needed to list down the
important keywords in my final notes i just
wrote mop 2016 5.12345 that's it now let's
look at the next issue that i have mentioned here
which is about the investigation and prosecution
in a case when a judge is accused of something
so if you remember that there was a allegation
against the chief justice of india with respect
to sexual harassment so it was actually very
prominent news and you would have seen that for a
month or two it was continuously popping up in the
newspaper so it was important current event and
i added a row for that here that's it for that
current event i just clicked on add row and listed
down the important three four points that i had
gathered from the newspaper it was not from any
static book or from current affairs magazine it
was directly taken from the newspaper itself so
you can see i just have written one line violation
of existing law which is sexual harassment at
the workplace i have written in short form sshw
and icc with an eminent activist or expert on the
comment the icc's internal complaints committee
under this particular law so in using these
short forms i have prepared my notes now the
removal of judges is another issue that is there
with the judiciary removal of judges is a very
complicated and very lengthy process it requires a
lot of uh discussion at the level of parliament so
it is a highly complicated process and that's why
it is considered an issue because no just ever
has been removed from their position so not just
removal but any kind of disciplinary proceeding
is an issue so this part actually deals with that
problem only so i have written about what are the
issues with impeachment what are the problems
what is the way forward in the point format and
this is exactly how i used to write my answer
so this created a visual picture in my memory
now i have actually noted down an important
case of justice kernan case from the newspaper
there was an article where it talked about
the issues associated with this that was
highlighted and i just added a row here to add
that particular part corruption in judiciary it
is actually related to the accountability how to
hold judiciary accountable to the other organs
of our quality or to towards the people so that
issue has been dealt with here and then there are
suggestions to improve judicial accountability now
here when we are talking about suggestions i used
to include what arc has said what supreme court
or high court has said in different judgments
and there was this particular bill related to
judicial standards and accountability bill i have
listed three important provisions here second
arc here i have highlighted this thing also so
this is a good way to prepare notes that you are
consolidating information from different sources
at one place now it becomes very easy to remember
just these 10 to 12 lines on one particular topic
that could be asked in the general studies paper
so this is the issue of transparency you must be
seeing that office of chief justice of india has
been included recently brought under rdi so it has
been a topic of discussion for quite some time
so judiciary under rti i have talked about why
is it important for including under rti against
inclusion into rti so there are arguments for both
now way forward so this is a way that i have
written this whole topic in just 10 to 12 lines
judicial backlog it is a major issue that
there is huge dependency of cases if you look
at how i have prepared i have given estimate some
data this new project national judicial data grid
is there and then i have written about what
is exact number of cases that are pending
at the each stage so i started with data so if
there is a question on judicial backlog i will
start my introduction with this data this is my
introduction there is a reason for dependency i
have included multiple reasons from a lot of
sources in that way it is a detailed node but
when i would be making my short notes on a4 size
sheets i would actually reduce it to the minimum
just three to four points in this format so i have
highlighted actually uh the important data here
in such as per million these things then impact of
a weak judiciary or the judicial backlog what is
the implication of reasons for this the
implications of this i have actually consolidated
this from lakshmi khan newspaper or current
affairs magazine you can see that i've written
a quotation justice delayed equal to justice
denied it is a short way of writing this quotation
obviously in the final paper i would detail it out
then what are the steps that judiciary has taken
what is the suggestion of economic survey
in 2018-19 survey they had given a number of
suggestions with respect to tackling this problem
and improving ease of doing business so i have
included this current affairs thing also here
now what are the steps that judiciary has taken
written here then way forward for reducing this
so that way the topic is completed till here now
in some magazines i had looked at the issue of
fast track quotes i've included here then this
is a static portion what is the jurisdiction of sc
original appellate important articles because in
uh the gs2 answer it is important that you
mention this particular article it adds a lot of
weight and value to the answer that you're
writing so you can see that i've talked
about revisionary jurisdiction read in very
short way i have listed all the things here
then what are the powers of judiciary obviously
you have seen that in the syllabus itself is
written what are the functions roles and powers of
judiciary so i have just detailed out these things
in this manner what is the position of supreme
court in our polity issue of diversity in supreme
court appointment of judges and retirement law
commission of india which is i have written as lci
had recommended three years of cooling off i had
come across this thing in a current affairs max
so i just wrote one line for the reference
then judicial education to the poor section
of society this actually includes the topic of
pills and access to justice these things here
then in nithya there was a very beautiful chapter
on justice delivery system how it can be reformed
it is not related to judiciary only it is talking
about justice delivery system so i created this
table and included all the important provisions
here so it became a ready source of referring to
what niti iowa had recommended so i would add this
in confusion or some point that they have said
this this distant and important keywords would be
mentioned there now separation of a power is topic
closely related to judiciary and legislature so i
started with just adding its meaning what are the
laws and policy for that what is the meaning
of separation of power which strikes politica
i have started with that in the next section of
this note it is completely separate however it is
closely related to the topic of situation so that
way my notes have been completed so this was how
i prepared my detailed notes and consolidated all
the materials from the static and current affairs
now i will tell you how i minimized all this
information into two pages so i prepared a
second set of notes for final revision i already
told you my final notes were maximum of two pages
so how do you minimize all this information
into half a page one page and two pages so i
started doing this after prelims i referred only
to my first set of notes i added whatever current
material had come between last two to three months
when i was just focusing on prelims and i did not
prepare any notes so i referred to the first
notes i took one reading and tried to estimate
whatever part i already remember and then at the
second reading i started noting it down on a a4
size sheet it was very brief i only mentioned
the keywords important keywords here
these were my final revision notes before the
mains it was a very integrated notes they were
part of static current affairs i used books read
in prelims i mentioned whatever arc or nithya
important points were there in my notes itself
i added two to three lines that was very new and
was part of current affairs magazine obviously it
included all the important judgment and important
data that i knew i am going to use in my answers
that i made these notes in the second reading
and then because of this practice i stopped
referring to any other material it does not
matter who is suggesting this material to you
even if a topper is saying that it is important
if you have prepared your notes then stick to it
do not be distracted trust on the material that
you have prepared with your hard work and then i
told you add whatever new current affairs is there
in this two page note just write a brief
line at the end that this is the current
event that's it now this is a sample of how i
prepared my second notes unfortunately i don't
have a copy of my actual notes right now so i'm
just giving you a framework of how i did that
so again let's take the topic of judiciary so
here i used to divide the page because i'm going
to write in point format it will take very less
space if i'm going to just write one word here
or two words so this is how i'm going to do at one
part i would write the static portion so relevant
provisions of the constitution with respect
to judiciary for example what are its power
what are important articles this article one two
two two and one this and whatever the important
part is i would write in two to five points here
then what are the important cases related to
judiciary first judges case second third njc case
which is most often known as fourth judges case
so this will be listed down here then issues
of judiciary issues of accountability i would
make this flowchart and i would write first issue
second third what is the solution one two three
four solution similarly issue of appointment just
two to three points most important ones and only
keywords so actually i would finish my notes that
i had wrote in 15 20 lines in just half a page
that's how i prepared my offline so this obviously
requires a lot of effort hard work and a lot of
practice to achieve this kind of efficiency but
it actually helps you in answer writing this is
exactly how i wrote my final answers in point
format with heading 1 heading 2 and because i
was continuously doing this with all the topics
of general studies i did a lot of practice in my
notes making itself so answer writing practice
was continuously going on every day every hour
when i was doing this and this has helped me
immensely i think this was the most beneficial
practice that i did when i was preparing for this
examination so i hope that it has provided you
some good insights some good viewpoints and you
can adopt some good practices that i have done and
incorporate into your preparation and i hope
that it will be immensely beneficial to you
and you would be able to prepare each and every
topic of the syllabus in detail with a lot of
efficiency with a lot of effectiveness and it will
definitely lead you to success thank you so much
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