Hi friends
Following is an excerpt from a write-up from Insights on India (Link:
insightsonindia.com/2016/05/23/ias-topper-tips-upsc-mains-answer-writing-kirthi-c-rank-14-third-attempt-regular-follower-insights/)
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In my first two attempts, my mains marks were marginally above the cut-off(10 marks) I cleared both the attempts only because of my interview. However this attempt, there is a drastic improvement in my mains marks. Here are the few changes I made in my Mains answer writing approach and I think they helped me enormously.
Diagrams: I drew a lot of diagrams. India and World Maps for geography or International Relations. Also I prepared diagrams for Geo from NCERT books which I thought I would replicate in case Geo questions come in Paper-1.
Side headings: In my first two attempts, my answer was just a flow of paragraphs/points or a mix of both. I realized the importance of side headings for an answer in this attempt. I included side headings in almost all the answers for paper-1,2 and 3 of GS. In paper-2 and paper-3, I used Way Forward as the last side heading for some of the answers.
Flow Charts: I drew flow charts in Paper-3. I got 113 marks in Paper-3 and I think flow charts have a role to play along with side headings. People who got good marks in paper-1 drew flowcharts for society questions
Breadth instead of Depth: Cover as many dimensions as possible in an answer rather than covering the issue in depth with quality analysis. UPSC prefers the no. of dimensions in an answer and I guess it penalizes an in-depth scholarly answer
Introduction: Take the key words of the question and explain them. That becomes the introduction. Eg: An introduction for a question on Cooperative Federalism would mean explaining it
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Please resolve this query once and for all - Do diagrams and flowchart really fetch marks. Insider info is welcome
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