Toppers' Talk by Mr. Kushal Jain, AIR 40, UPSC CSE 2021

Mr. Kushal Jain secured an All India Rank of 40 in the UPSC Civil Services Examination, 2021 in his fourth attempt. In all his four attempts, he had reached the interview stage.

Mr. Kushal, who hails from Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh), completed his engineering in Information Science and Engineering from Rashtreeya Vidyalaya College of Engineering, Bengaluru. From there, he went on to work for Microsoft India for one and a half years. Mr. Kushal started his Civil Services Examination preparation journey four years back as a working professional.

Time stamps:

00:20 - The session begins with the overall approach to be followed by Mr. Kushal for his talk.

00:55 - Mr. Kushal provides his educational and work background.

1:35 - Approach for Prelims and sources used for different subjects.

9:09 - Strategy for Current Affairs using newspaper and monthly/yearly compilations.

12:13 - How to solve Prelims questions and effectively use test series.

17:08 - Final Day approach: How to attempt questions in three rounds.

25:30 - Approach for CSAT.

29:37 - Strategy for Mains: Importance of Syllabus and Previous Year Questions.

34:26 - Brainstorming ideas through practicing Test Series Questions.

40:00 - Approach for Ethics: Static/Keywords and case-studies.

48:50 - Strategy for Essay with a special emphasis on philosophical essays.

1:01:02 - Deliberation on Interview/Personality Test preparation and how it is as rigorous as Mains.

1:13:24 - Reflection on past failure and the need to bounce back from failure.

1:15:54 - How to select Optionals using syllabus, Previous Year Questions, etc.

1:19:27 - How to prepare for Optional in general and Sociology in particular.

1:34:07 - Doubt Resolution regarding language, note-taking, newspaper, etc.

1:41:58 - The session concludes with best wishes from Mr. Kushal

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