Hello,

UPSC Civil Service Exam consists of three stages;

Preliminary
Mains
Interview

As you said you are still in your graduation period, so this is the best time to  start preparation in gradual manner as you'll be covering the extensive syllabus in the time to come, with correct planning and strategy you can also sail through very first attempt itself.

I presume you're already acquainted with Preliminary and Mains Syllabus, if not you can download from UPSC site, I'm unable to write it down because of word limit.

You can go through the following steps to initiate UPSC preparation;

The first and most important step towards preparation is to be well acquainted with UPSC Syllabus , learn it by heart, that's the most crucial step to crack this exam, to know what to read and what to skip. In addition to this, have an integrated approach for preparation of both Preliminary and Mains, the reason being  nowadays what's happening is even in prelims, UPSC frame questions based on Mains syllabus, So, don't differentiate between Preliminary and Mains, if you do it'll become huge barrier to your success

Another equally important part is to start reading any newspaper like The Hindu, or Indian Express on a regular basis to be updated as well as gaining knowledge which shall be highly useful to you in future exam preparation part. Put a more emphasis on editorial part, it will not only broaden your perspective but help a lot in answer writing,and make sure whatever opinion you form it should be well balanced. You can also make notes of this,it'll be very useful in answer writing.

Make a timetable,set targets on a daily,weekly and monthly basis,that's the only way to complete this extensive syllabus.

When it comes to reading books ,start with basics, for each subject, you can do with NCERTs for this. This will build your foundation strong,as you progress, move on to other relevant books as mentioned below;

For Prelims, refer the following books:

History ;

NCERT Class XI and XII
India's Struggle for Independence by Bipin Chandra
For Indian Culture, refer art and culture by Nitin Singhania

Geography ;

NCERT Class VI to XII
GC Leong's Physical Geography
World Atlas

Economics ;

NCERT Class XI
Indian Economy by Ramesh Singh

International Relations & Polity ;

NCERT XII Political Science with current affairs
Indian Polity by Laxmikanth

CSAT ;

Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning by RS Agarwal
M Tyra's Quicker Maths

Coming to Mains Exam, you can refer the following books for four General Studies Paper;

GS I - For History , Class XI NCERT book with India's struggle for Independence by Bipin Chandra,India after Independence by Bipan Chandra,History of Medieval India by Satish Chandra

For Geography refer World Geography and Geography of India by Majid Hussain, GC Leong's Physical and Human Geography with NCERT Class XI book.

For GS II - Polity and International Relations , refer Indian Polity by Lamikanth,India's Foreign Policy by Rajiv Sikri

For GS III - For Economics refer Indian Economy by Ramesh Singh, read ARC report along with Economic Survey and Fiscal Budget.

For GS IV - For Ethics refer a book named Lexicon by Niraj Kumar, also you can go through study material of IGNOU.

Remember to keep resources minimal always, read one book many a times instead of many a book one time

Start practicing answer writing in advance, even in a little way, Writing mains is a huge task, for nine paper it requires immense practice along with knowledge. There are many sites which provide questions on daily basis you can avail that. Try to give a holistic viewpoint while answer writing by providing political,economical and social aspect. You can also go through previous year toppers answer sheets available online to get a basic idea on how to write an answer in a well-structured manner.

Practice previous year question paper which you can get from the site of UPSC,in addition mock papers, and test series which you can get it from any of the sites exclusively dedicated to UPSC it's highly important to evaluate your performance while doing so.

If you have any other queries, you can write down in the comment box below.

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