GUIDING LIGHT ON OPTIONAL PREPARATION:

  1. Off the total marks in Mains i.e. 1750 marks, Marks allotted for each GS subject carrying 250 marks and Essay paper carrying 250 marks, totaling off to 1250 marks. The rest 500 marks are exclusively for Optional.
  2. In UPSC Mains, students who perform exceptionally well in General Studies paper receive average to above average scores due to normalization of scores, very few students get really high scores in General Studies that too only in certain papers, and not all.
  3. Hence toppers always make it a point to make their Optional papers really fluid (thorough) so that they can get good ranks even if they score average marks in General studies.
  4. Moreover, Optional papers require proficiency broadly of the Honors degree level, i.e., a level higher than the bachelors’ degree and lower than the masters’ degree.
  5. Hence it is required of serious aspirants to make their optional rock-solid, in terms of preparation, writing tests and gaining enough knowledge to write any question UPSC throws at them with effective level of proficiency.
  6. Now comes the question, how to choose optional subject, there are no hard and fast rule as to how to choose your optional, if you find that your degree subject is coinciding with list of optional subjects UPSC provides, you can go with it or otherwise you can choose any other optional based on these few broad pointers:
  • Choose a subject of your interest – if you are interested in a particular subject, the preparation will not seem to be burdensome.
  • Choose a subject for which you can find expert guidance (if you don’t have any background of the subject), guidance in terms of preparation, mock tests, concept clarification.
  • Choose a subject which in which probability of clearance is high, in other words, subjects that are trending:
    • Our experts analyzed the trending subjects of past few years and realized that subject like Anthropology, Political Science and International Relations(PSIR), Sociology, Psychology and others are the most trending subjects.

We, Believers, through our experience have understood the proven notion that if any aspirant writing mains, has his/her optional strong, can not only get interview call but also can be featured in final rank list just on the exceptional scores of Mains.

We, Believers, provide expert guidance on various optional subjects: