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Well , I bought the notes too and one of the main reasons being self preparation . Here is my take on them :
First for their claim of coverage of a range of books : Guys ( and gals ) , spectrum has almost all topics that are covered in bipan chandra's book, or sumit sarkar's book or from plassey to partition or any other book on Freedom struggle . So can it claim to be a " notes " of these books ? See , the point is u may collect all the facts from a book but there is an underlying current that only an author of the stature of bipan chandra ( RIP , Sir ) can deliver . You HAVE to read the book !
Second , as for their claim that so many questions come from their notes , I find it ludicrous that civil services aspirants who aspire to run this country eventually , cant see through this farce .
As for their material , the four basic booklets about the syllabus are alright . Not too good not too bad . One has to study from standard books though . They can only help u revise and more importantly check that you have not missed any topic or point . Also they cover only 80-85 % of the topics . Not all .
After that they give current affairs " notes " which is a misnomer . They are NO notes .They are "copy pastes". In one booklet they have collectd SELECTED articles of economic and political weekly , yojana and kurukshetra of past one year verbatim ( AS IT IS GIVEN IN THE MAGAZINES ) and reproduced it . It also has HD report and World development report which has been edited and printed . Moreover , the collection of these articles is not different for the optionals or even GS papers . They give the same booklet for all optional and GS papers . This was a big let down . I am sure we can sort the articles out by ourselves from the original magazines . Aim here was to get a summary , not reproductions of what we already have !!
Then they give a booklet on news , which is alright ( and again common for all optionals and GS papers !! ) . But better booklets from vajiram , wizard etc float the markets before exam .
Final word :
Notwithstanding their claims of coverage of range of books and many questions coming directly from their notes , as for their current affairs booklets , they make no difference to your efforts as outlined above . For core , yeah , they can be a good source for revision and cross checking ( not studying ) , but then notes of Vajiram ,etc ( Class notes is what i am talking about ) are floating the markets for much cheaper prices . And their quality is much better than crack IAS for sure . So why would you want to shell out 20000/- odd rupees for a job that can be accomplished in under 2000/- at book shops ?
PS : I am writing and posting this article in all threads about crackias.com , reason being i want to share my experience about the notes so that aspirants know exactly the quality of these from someone who has used them and not from someone who has advertised or peddled them . This is especially because i was duped by a big brand coaching for GS ( with most beautiful and most frequent advertisements in HINDU ; rings a bell ?? ) with their marketing strategy . The quality of coaching was not even 10% of the quality of their advertisement !!! I see crackias.com doing the same ... making a big deal of something very ordinary with impeccable advertising campaign . But with platforms like forumias etc , its not going to be as easy duping the student community as time passes .
A few more points about CrackIAS.com :
> Their are such dark watermarks in their current affairs booklets that it is practically impossible to read them . However , the core booklets have a brown watermark and they are pretty readable .
>Their customer service after buying the material is pathetic . They try to dodge you a lot with ur queries .
>Many pages are missing in the core booklets and to ask them for it , is almost like moving a mountain , considering their pathetic customer service .
>Their best work : The synposis they provide for optional papers is well made and helpful for recalling the outlines of many topics . They send it by email though and does not have any watermark . If u can , then get it from ur friends who have taken the course or ask someone on the forumIAS for a soft copy .
> One last recommendation : For PT , there is a book by Rakesh Dwivedi called paper 1 in 60 days published by TMH . I found it good for revision for PT and its more or less like notes and at under 300/- its a fraction of the CrackIAS PT material and more or less of the same quality . Pretty good for revision only , please remember that . There are many pages of data given though just like CrackIAS , which u must skip based on ur understanding of UPSC prelims exam analysing the past papers , especially the recent ones .
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Comments
I bought the notes too and one of the main reasons being self preparation . Here is my take on them :
First for their claim of coverage of a range of books : Guys ( and gals ) , spectrum has almost all topics that are covered in bipan chandra's book, or sumit sarkar's book or from plassey to partition or any other book on Freedom struggle . So can it claim to be a " notes " of these books ? See , the point is u may collect all the facts from a book but there is an underlying current that only an author of the stature of bipan chandra ( RIP , Sir ) can deliver . You HAVE to read the book !
Second , as for their claim that so many questions come from their notes , I find it ludicrous that civil services aspirants who aspire to run this country eventually , cant see through this farce .
As for their material , the four basic booklets about the syllabus are alright . Not too good not too bad . One has to study from standard books though . They can only help u revise and more importantly check that you have not missed any topic or point . Also they cover only 80-85 % of the topics . Not all .
After that they give current affairs " notes " which is a misnomer . They are NO notes .They are "copy pastes". In one booklet they have collectd SELECTED articles of economic and political weekly , yojana and kurukshetra of past one year verbatim ( AS IT IS GIVEN IN THE MAGAZINES ) and reproduced it . It also has HD report and World development report which has been edited and printed . Moreover , the collection of these articles is not different for the optionals or even GS papers . They give the same booklet for all optional and GS papers . This was a big let down . I am sure we can sort the articles out by ourselves from the original magazines . Aim here was to get a summary , not reproductions of what we already have !!
Then they give a booklet on news , which is alright ( and again common for all optionals and GS papers !! ) . But better booklets from vajiram , wizard etc float the markets before exam .
Final word :
Notwithstanding their claims of coverage of range of books and many questions coming directly from their notes , as for their current affairs booklets , they make no difference to your efforts as outlined above . For core , yeah , they can be a good source for revision and cross checking ( not studying ) , but then notes of Vajiram ,etc ( Class notes is what i am talking about ) are floating the markets for much cheaper prices . And their quality is much better than crack IAS for sure . So why would you want to shell out 20000/- odd rupees for a job that can be accomplished in under 2000/- at book shops ?
PS : I am writing and posting this article in all threads about crackias.com , reason being i want to share my experience about the notes so that aspirants know exactly the quality of these from someone who has used them and not from someone who has advertised or peddled them . This is especially because i was duped by a big brand coaching for GS ( with most beautiful and most frequent advertisements in HINDU ; rings a bell ?? ) with their marketing strategy . The quality of coaching was not even 10% of the quality of their advertisement !!! I see crackias.com doing the same ... making a big deal of something very ordinary with impeccable advertising campaign . But with platforms like forumias etc , its not going to be as easy duping the student community as time passes .
A few more points about CrackIAS.com :
> Their are such dark watermarks in their current affairs booklets that it is practically impossible to read them . However , the core booklets have a brown watermark and they are pretty readable .
>Their customer service after buying the material is pathetic . They try to dodge you a lot with ur queries .
>Many pages are missing in the core booklets and to ask them for it , is almost like moving a mountain , considering their pathetic customer service .
>Their best work : The synposis they provide for optional papers is well made and helpful for recalling the outlines of many topics . They send it by email though and does not have any watermark . If u can , then get it from ur friends who have taken the course or ask someone on the forumIAS for a soft copy .
> One last recommendation : For PT , there is a book by Rakesh Dwivedi called paper 1 in 60 days published by TMH . I found it good for revision for PT and its more or less like notes and at under 300/- its a fraction of the CrackIAS PT material and more or less of the same quality . Pretty good for revision only , please remember that . There are many pages of data given though just like CrackIAS , which u must skip based on ur understanding of UPSC prelims exam analysing the past papers , especially the recent ones .