Upload the syllabus to your brain : REVISION

 UPSC CSE Mains has total 7 scoring subjects including GS, Essay and Optional. If you print the syllabus itself on A4 papers , it would take more than 8 pages to complete this task. Hence one can only imagine the resources a candidate has to read to complete this vast syllabus. Once you have downloaded all your books/resources, in your notes, its time to upload them in your brain. Hence in this post I will explain my method of revising the syllabus before final exam.

The Two most popular ways are revising syllabus directly from books or from hand written notes prepared by candidates themselves. I am not a fan of revision done from books, due to following reasons :-

1. Psychological= Books appear way more bulkier than notes
2. Efforts= I find it difficult turning 700 pages of Spectrum(modern History) to revise the entire syllabus before tests
3. Time= more the pages more is the time required
4. Even if you highlight in books, it will always be unstructured and not in a flow unlike the notes
5. Methods like photographic memory, Active recall are more effective when revising through notes instead of books
6. Mobility= Notes can be carried anywhere(online/offline)

Note: The above mentioned arguments are subjective and depends on individuals caliber and comfort.

My Approach:-

1. Since my JEE days, I had the habit of making notes of everything I read. My mother always used to say "Jab hum koi cheej likh likh ke padhte hai to jyada samay tak yaad rakhte ha" i.e. "We can memorise things for long if we study them by writing". Hence I did the same for UPSC prep as well.
2. Many toppers do suggest not to make notes of Books like Laxmikanth, Spectrum, Nitin Singhania(Art n Culture) as they are already in notes format. I had a different approach, I made notes even for these books separately for mains as well as prelims(uploaded on telegram group)
3. For example Spectrum has 700+ pages , but when I made notes of it, pages reduced drastically in 22. Now these notes can be easily revised multiple times.
4. The power of photographic memory= Once you have completed multiple revision, say 7-8 times, your notes will be printed photographically in your memory. Often in my mocks I couldn't recall what answer was, but could picturize in what part of my notes the answer is present.
5. Active recall, a popular term ,unpopular in practice. In this method you just open the book/notes, see the topic name and try to recall the summary of the topic in a sequence without actually looking at the book/notes. For example if the topic is Cyclones, I would simply close my eyes and try to recall the topic  by the sequence:-
1. What is cyclone?
2. Types?
3. How does each cyclone occur?
4. Any diagrams?
6. After this exercise I would simply open my eyes, look in my notes to check if some points were missed by me.
7. Another method of revision is in format of Question Answer. Though I didn't use it extensively, but you can if it suits. In this method, one prepares all his notes in question formats and writes it on a piece of paper. For example in the chapter "1857 revolt" questions from notes can be framed like "What were reasons and outcomes for 1857", "why it failed", "Why didn't all classes participate" , etc.
8. A less talked method of revision is solving tests. Yes you read it right. When we give tests, not only we produce those things that our brain remembers, but we also identify those things that it can't. Until and unless we don't test our memory, we can never know the effectiveness of our revision

In my initial months of prep, I generally revised the topics read so far once in a week. Later when the exams got closer, for example 3 months before the prelims, Half of my time was alloted only for revision by the methods mentioned above. In the last month before prelims, mains and interview, I condensed all my notes to 1-2 page notes for easy revision. An example of Left Wing Extremism topic attached below.

                                                              Original Notes    

     Short notes of the same

Lastly in this journey of UPSC , where a candidate has to become someone who is good at multi tasking, it is equally important to track our progress. For revision too I prepared a chart that I pasted on the wall ,to track the days of revising different subjects, the format of which is attached below.

Minimum Resources Maximum Revision