Civil Services Examination (CSE) is one of the toughest examinations of the country. It is conducted by Union Public Services Commission (UPSC.) Through this examination, candidates are recruited for All-India Services like IAS, IPS, IRS etc. It is a dream of lakhs of aspirants to crack the examination in the first attempt, however, only a few hundred vacancies are announced each year. For example, in UPSC 2020, 796 vacancies are allotted. Similarly in UPSC 2019, there were 896 vacancies. Hence, it is very important for the aspirants to have a perfect strategy to crack this examination.
UPSC has released the final results of UPSC 2019 in August 2020. Pradeep Singh was declared the IAS Topper for civil services examination 2019. Similarly, Kanishak Kataria was the UPSC topper for CSE 2018 exam. It is a good practice to learn from the strategies of these successful candidates and devise your own for IAS 2021 preparation. Here, you will get a blend of strategies suggested by these toppers to help you crack the UPSC exam in the first attempt.
Know the IAS Toppers (2015-2019)
Inspiration goes a long way. The list of civil services examination toppers is given below:
| Exam Year | Name of the CSE Toppers |
| UPSC 2015 | Tina Dabi |
| UPSC 2016 | Nandini K R |
| UPSC 2017 | Anudeep Durishetty |
| UPSC 2018 | Kanishak Kataria |
| UPSC 2019 | Pradeep Singh |
What are the books followed by the UPSC Toppers?
Aspirants always want to know the resources they have to read from, to complete their UPSC syllabus. As the syllabus is vast and comprehensive one, it is always suggested to go through the previous years’ toppers’ booklist. This way, aspirants can limit their resources and focus more on revision.
Most of the toppers segregate their booklist as per the subjects’ needs. Since the UPSC Exam covers multiple subjects like History, Geography, Polity, Economy, Environment etc; toppers refer to a set of books for each subject. Let’s have a look at the booklist for each subject mostly suggested by the toppers:
Books for History
History is divided into five sections for simplification of the syllabus:
- Ancient
- Medieval
- Modern
- World
- Art and Culture
The books that aspirants can refer to, for their history subjects are mentioned below:
| Ancient History | Old NCERT Class 11th History Textbook |
| Medieval History | Old NCERT Class 11th History Textbook |
| Modern History | Old NCERT Class 12th History TextbookRajiv Ahir’s Brief of Modern Indian History (Spectrum) |
| World History | New NCERT Class 9th and 10th History TextbooksNormal Lowe (Selective Reading) |
| Art and Culture | New NCERT Class 11 & 12 Fine Arts and Themes (1-3)Nitin Singhania’s Art and Culture (Selective Reading)Newspaper articles on Indian history (if in the news) |
Books for Polity
Indian Polity is one of the important subjects of the examination. It is a part of UPSC prelims and Mains GS 2. The booklist to understand the basics of Indian Polity is mentioned below:
| Basics | Class 9-12 NCERT for Indian Polity |
| Main Book | M. Laxmikanth’s Indian Polity (Recent Edition) |
| Governance | M.Laxmikanth’s Governance in India (Selectively) |
| International Relations | Class 9 and 10th India and the Contemporary World (NCERT)Newspaper |
Books for Geography
Geography is one of the main subjects of the UPSC Examination. It is covered in prelims and Mains GS 1. Many candidates get confused about the resource to cover geography. However, if we look at the old CSE toppers, we will find that most of them have covered only a few basic books on geography. The list is mentioned below:
| Class 6-12 NCERT Textbooks (Social Science/Geography) |
| Selective Reading of GC Leong’s Certificate Physical and Human Geography |
| Selective Reading of Majid Hussain’s Geography of India |
| Oxford’s Atlas Mapbook for Physical Features, Places in news etc. |
Books for Indian Economy
It is a fact that the candidates who come from non-economics backgrounds fear this subject. Many of us think that Indian economy will be all about numbers, graphs and charts. However, that is not the reality. As per the UPSC previous years’ question papers, most of the economy-related questions are current affairs-based and conceptually-driven. Such concepts can be covered from the following resources:
| Class 12th NCERT – Macroeconomics |
| Nitin Singhani’s Indian Economy or Ramesh Singh’s Indian Economy (Selective Reading) |
| Newspaper and Internet |
Books for Environment
Aspirants can follow the below-mentioned sources for to cover environment syllabus:
- Class 12 Biology – Last four chapters
- Internet – Understand the basics of the environment using any good website or youtube videos.
- Current Affairs
Extra Tips for UPSC Exam by the CSE Toppers
The tips and strategies of the UPSC toppers are of immense importance. Following these strategies, they were able to score good scores. Their scores are mentioned in the UPSC Marksheet that is released by the commission after the announcement of the final results of the examination.
Some of the general tips for the UPSC Examination are:
- Stick to the UPSC syllabus and limit your resources.
- Revise more and often.
- Give mock tests periodically.
- Practise answer writing from an early stage.
- Making notes is a healthy habit for UPSC.
- Stick to one newspaper and follow it religiously.
- Stay calm yet disciplined.
These books and strategies can help aspirants preparing for the upcoming UPSC Prelims 2021 (29th June 2021.) Learning from the mistakes of IAS toppers and ensuring not to repeat those in your preparation will help you crack the examination easily.
UPSC will start the 2021 recruitment process from 10th February 2021. Hence, aspirants should up their ante for one of the most coveted examinations of the country.
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