UPSC Preparation Without Coaching: Introduction
UPSC Preparation Without Coaching:- When deciding how to start your preparation of UPSC, this question often bothers us.? Can you clear the UPSC Exam without joining Panacea coaching centers? Is self-study sufficient to clear this exam?
Coaching or Self-Study whats better what will fetch you the required results? Even before deciding whether to start your prep, many sit to decide which coaching centre to join.? Online vs Offline is another question. Here we are going to decide which one is better or who should take coaching and who should go for self-study.?
Even If you can afford the coaching fee, sometimes it is not necessary to join full-fledged coaching. And Sometime Even if you cant afford it, you may still need to take it? What are those reasons for which one should join, and one should avoid it?
Don’t worry, you are going to get every bit of information that is necessary to make this decision easier.
Can You Clear UPSC Without Coaching
Absolutely Yes! There’s no doubt in that. I know people who have joined coaching and couldn’t clear prelims even of PCS Prelims exams. And I have a few friends who have cleared this exam without joining any coaching.
So, there shouldn’t be any doubt about whether you can clear this exam without coaching or not. One can clear this exam without coaching, but not without proper guidance.
Have you ever thought how Ria Dabi cleared the exam in just one year after her sister topped the UPSC exam? Proper guidance is the key. Now there are various speculations on how she cleared this exam; we are not going to get into that, but yeah. You cant ignore the fact that Proper guidance and strategy is needed to clear this exam.
I have friends who joined coaching, and they were going daily, studying diligently, but still couldn’t clear prelims, not because they were not hardworking but because they never worked on an individual strategy. You need to know where you lack and where you need to work less.
Like, if you ask me, I need less time to revise Polity, Economics, Modern History, and more time revising Geography, Ancient History, etc. So, what a Good coaching institute provides is an analysis of your strengths and weaknesses.
Coaching Vs Self-Study: What’s Better
What’s Better.? You tell me: do you know your strengths and weaknesses? Now it’s not only about knowing yourself but also the UPSC exam pattern. UPSC Preparation Without Coaching gets easy when you have analysed the exam pattern of 15 years to 20 years diligently.
What coaching does is make your work easier, but let’s say you have mastery in Geography and the coaching you joined decided to teach and take revision classes of Geography at the end. The exam is in 15 days, and now they decided to focus more on Geography that you have mastered yourself. Your weakness is economics, and the coaching is avoiding that.
In coaching, you get stuck into it; you don’t get enough time to explore your strengths and weaknesses. If you have analysed the exam pattern, you must not get into this trap. I know people who didn’t leave their coaching centres even after completing their courses twice or thrice; they are still paying fee saying leaving coaching would make them feel far away from the exam.
Self-study is always better if you know about yourself and about the exam pattern. Don’t get into the trap of it. But if you are from a science background and know nothing about the exam, you must join a coaching; no matter which one, they will surely teach you the basics, and from there it’s all on you.
How to Start UPSC Preparation Without Coaching
Now that we have established the fact that coaching is not that necessary to clear this exam. And who should take coaching and who should avoid it.
Now, If You have decided not to join any coaching centre, how should you start your UPSC 2027 Preparation Journey? First of all, you need to take a risk analysis and subject analysis, not from the books but from the Previous year papers. Do not use Coaching centre mock tests; use Previous year papers for this,
Once you get the hang of the exam, you must go on to making strategies for the exam. What subjects are boring for you and what kind of things are exciting in the exam? Boring must be done first and kept in revision mode.
Now comes the current affairs. This must not be ignored, and you will not get everything even if you read Indian Express or The Hindu diligently. You will need to find a good source like Vision IAS magazine or Drishti IAS Magazine. Any known coaching centre’s current affairs magazine would work for you. You need compiled sources to revise; you cant revise from a newspaper, and honestly speaking notes making fron newspapers gets a little tedious. So for current affairs, you must rely on some coaching centre’s magazine.
Conclusion
Now that you have completed the article, you must have gotten a better idea of how to start your UPSC preparation without coaching. See, here I need to clear one thing for you before deciding whether to join or avoid coaching: you need to do your own SWOT analysis. Once you are done with that, then decide.
Overall, coaching or no coaching, you can clear UPSC or PCS exams with Coaching if you work hard and smart enough.
Thanks for reading, and best of Luck for your future endeavours. If you have some other questions, feel free to comment below.
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