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Showing posts with label Mains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mains. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Ethics Saga

Ethics is the most scoring and most interesting paper ever. If you understood the concept, it will be more easier and you will literally fall in love with the paper. This Paper will test your conceptual clarity, your personality, your consistency in philosophy and ethical values, and creativity. 


Resources 
✓ Sunyaias Mains books for ethics / PWONLYIAS Prahar ( Choose any one as your main source) 
✓ KM Pathi sir lectures on YouTube 
✓ Indian express ethics simplified 
✓ Dr.Mardy's metaphorical quotes website
✓ Shubam Ajemera telegram - Ethics toppers copy compilation 

Optional 
✓ Ethicraftias vale addition material 
✓ Mains accelerator compilation of CSE Topper telegram channel 
✓ Diagram for ethics compilation by PWONLYIAS 

1. Conceptual clarity 

* Getting a good hang of the difference between ethics vs values , ethics vs morals , ethics vs law etc... is conceptual clarity.

* Mains questions are also reflecting on this trend. 

* Understanding refuge ethics, war ethics, environmental ethics also requires conceptual clarity. 

2. Testing your personality 
 Ethics paper also tests your personality. If your answers are mechanical and has the same formula for all the 19 questions, then the examiner will know that you have mugged up, with little understanding. 
So, you need not dump content in ethics as the other GS Papers , but being true to your values and articulating it in a correct way is important. 

3. Consistency in philosophy and ethical values 
In 19 answers , you should try to maintain some level of consistency in values. In one question, you should not justify ethical egoism and in the other question you should not justify ethical altrusism. Do not give contrasting opinions on different values throughout the answers. 

4. Creativity 
You can add so much creativity in introductions and conclusions. You can introduce the answers with quotes, your understanding of the question, or the definition of the term. You cannot add flowcharts and diagrams also for value addition. 

With these thoughts in mind, attempt PYQ and refer to model answers. Go through toppers copies vigorously for ethics. Try to answer the question first and then look at the topper answer. This way you will get better understanding of that question and how to understand the topic in a nuanced way. 

Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Resources for mains

Even though mains and prelims preparation should go hand in hand, there are some specific resources and materials that should referred to for mains oriented preparation. 

SUBJECT WISE 

1. GS 1 

History 
- same resources as for prelims 
- made short keywords notes 
- for Ancient, Art and culture - made short keywords notes based on PYQs

Geography
- Same resources as for prelims 
- made a separate A4 notes for diagrams

Society 
- Dr.Shivin's Write smart notes/ mindmaps  

2. GS 2

Polity 
- Laxmikant 
- Atish Mathur sir mains notes 
- Chatgpt for Keywords 

Governance and social justice 
- made my own notes from syllabus from various online resources 

IR 
- made my own notes from Visionias monthly current affairs magazine 

3. GS 3 
 Economy 
- Nitin Singhania book 
- Short Keywords notes from the book 
- prahar magazine 

Agriculture 
- Nitin Singhania economy book 

Internal Security 
- Visionias material 
- toppers notes of Mr.VIGNEST TA ( UPSC CSE 2023 ) 

Environment 
- Prahar magazine 
- toppers notes of Mr.Madhav Agarwal ( UPSC CSE 2024) 

Science and technology 
- Visionias monthly current affairs magazine 

Disaster management 
- Made my own notes from Visionias monthly magazine 

4. GS 4 
- enrolled in 2024 Mudit Jain sir module and followed his notes 
- Sunyaias book 
- Prahar magazine 
- video lectures of KM Pathi sir on YouTube 
- Ethics simplified on Indian express 

Apart from all these resources, I used Value added material from Onlyias and went through toppers copies. It is highly recommended to make short notes for each subject so that you can revise it easily on the days before exam. Short notes should contain only the keywords for each topic.