UPSCTREE PRELIMS 2016 Analysis
Message:-
The deed is done and the fate is sealed.So, stop worrying about the cut-offs and start preparing for MAINS immediately.Try to use this period as a head start.
We have heard all the noises around cut-offs and our two cents to the issue would be – Anybody scoring in 3 figures has a fair chance.Here are the reasons, WHY ? :-
1)The veterans who were given extra 2 attempts back in 2013 are gone from the race.(Increase in age from 30 to 32 and increase in number of attempts from 4 to 6)
2)The 2011 aspirants who were given an extra attempt last year are not in the race either.
3)Yes, the number of vacancies have decreased but generally speaking the paper was on the tougher side as compared to last year so these two may cancel out each other.
4)Finally,there is no harm in studying for MAINS , even if you don’t qualify this year, you are already one year ahead of your competitors.
Static :-
1)Relegated to backyard
2)Can’t ignore either
3)May reappear in PRELIMS 2017
Conclusion – Finishing the static portion is just the first step, but an indispensible one.You can not afford to go to the exam without preparing for it nor you can afford to prepare exclusively for it.
Dynamic:-
1)Current Affairs (CA) day-in and day-out preparation is sine-qua-non
2)Widening the traditional coverage of CA ; for eg- Butterfly question or Kharai Camel or Movie or things related to daily life are important.
3)This portion became binary – either you know it or you don’t
4)CA of not only this year but also of last year is important
5)Importance of international organisation is on the rise and on a positive side we have tried to cover all the organisations in our MOCK tests.
Conclusion – It seems preparation starts from the grocery store itself.Always keep your eyes and ears open.There is no space for personal likings/disliking as far as CA coverage is concerned (For eg- you may not be a movie-buff but you should know what is happening around the world on the celluloid and same goes for olympics or state animals or anythings else).This is to say, if it was in the news, then it is in your syllabus and hence you should know it (Of course, we will be there to pick the relevant from the sea of irrelevant)
Overall :-
1)UPSC civil service prelims exams used to be on a different plane compared to other tests conducted by UPSC or any other mass recruiter/s, however this gulf is alarmingly diminishing.
2)The change in quality in the standard of question asked has forced a metamorphosis in the prelims syllabus.Hitherto, the usual items that an UPSC aspirant used to ignore or study at max once have become the first ones to be picked up by the UPSC.So let nothing pass around you without passing through you.
3)This PRELIMS has made the competitional aspect of the exam brutally clear.Certainly the gulf between the average score and higher scores indicate the same.
4)Moreover, UPSC has asked question from those few months (especially of September- December )when aspirants are busy preparing for MAINS.In short,it is increasingly becoming difficult to outsmart UPSC as it is focusing specifically on areas where you tend to defocus.
In conclusion,you can still clear prelims easily provided you are increasing the HARDWORK (day-in-day-out) quotient of your preparation vis-a-vis your SMARTWORK (Few weeks/months of work).Contrary to popular belief and relentless propaganda on various platforms , what UPSC demands is basic awareness on any topic rather than in-depth knowldge on it unless the topic is from a specific part of the syllabus (For eg- Environment).
Finally, we are glad that , our intuition to focus more on history, economy, envirnoment, and international organisations during our mock tests paid rich divedends to our aspirants and we are hopeful that more than 90% of our UPSCTREE saplings will get through 🙂 .
On a side note, we will be launching our PRELIMS 2017 program soon and the details will be with you in a few days time.
At this moment, we are planning on the MAINS and will roll out a questionnaire to understand your requirements so that we can be of real help.
The ESSAY initiative will continue as planned and based on popular demand a shorter version of the whole program will be launched soon.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.