Dear Aspirants,
Greetings from our Team !
Prelims 2016 is over and thankfully we were of some help to you all in your endeavor for CSE 2016.
After Prelims, we were receiving numerous requests to conduct a test series for Mains 2016. While we were definitely overwhelmed by the support and interest shown in us, we thought it would be better to design a test series suiting to the needs of the aspirants and thus we sent a list of questionnaires to our registered students for their valuable feedback.
Clearing this exam is not about how much you know or don’t know , it is all about how qualitatively you can write in a given time frame.That’s what matters and that is the exact reason why many deserving and intelligent students don’t get through and more often than not, the reason is lack of practice.
One can read a 1000 pages on a particular topic but to put it with in 250 words is a real challenge and thus writing tests helps one to filter out the crux of the matter and put forth meaningful and valuable points in exam without beating around the bush.
After going through the feedback given to us by many of you, we have come up with a comprehensive test series for Mains 2016. The test series is designed keeping in mind the recent trends in UPSC CSE Mains exam in the past three years.
Feature of the series:-
- The Test Series will consist of 13 (Thirteen) Tests out of which 8 (Eight) tests will be sectional tests of GS I,II,III and IV and 4 (Four) tests will be full length Mock Tests of GS I,II,III and IV.
- One test will be on Essay.
- We have divided the syllabus of each GS paper in two parts for sectional tests and provided primary and secondary references for each part of them. (Refer to our Mains Test Series Schedule)
- Aspirants are advised to refer the primary references first and go through the secondary references only if the time permits.
- We will be focusing mainly on Current Affairs for GS II and III as has been the recent trends.
- Students will be given Log In credentials after registration and each test will be uploaded on the Students’ Portal latest by 10:00 AM on the day of the test.
- While our Test Series is Flexible and students can postpone the test suiting to their personal studying time table, we would like to advise you to stick to this time table as this will exert extra pressure on you to timely complete the syllabus. We don’t want our students to be the victim of procrastination.
- We will be providing Fixed Space Answer Sheet for each test on our Students’ Portal. The students are advised to print the same and answer for the sake of practice. However, students can also write answers on normal A4 size papers with the questions written on the top of the page.
- We will be receiving the answer copies through our email id upsctree@upsctree.com.
- We will be providing a detailed PERSONALIZED REVIEW of your answers within a week’s time from the date of submission of your paper.
- The students who have joined our ‘Essay Test Series’ programme must be well aware by now of the detailed review we try to provide to our aspirants
- We are committed to ensure the same standards in our Mains Test Series programme as well.
- Evaluation of answers will be done in accordance to the requirement of UPSC. Adequate emphasis will be given on Relevance, Content, Brevity , Language Competency,Economy of words and other aspects that either deal with the quality or quantity.
- We would also be pointing out various Opportunities for Improvements (OFIs) in each answer.
- The evaluated answer sheet will be sent to the students’ individual mail ids.
- The students are free to contact our team of faculties anytime for personal doubt clearance and discussion.
- We will also be providing answer materials for each test in the Students’ Portal after completion of each test.
- Our subscribers must be aware of the quality of articles we publish by covering various perspectives and we would be sticking to the same mantra while preparing the questions for the test series.
- Rest assured, the standard of questions will be at par with UPSC and the Personalized Feedbacks by our team will be going a long way in sharpening your answer writing skills.
Registration and Cost:
The Comprehensive Mains Test Series programme will cost Rs. 6500/- only for the new joiners , for all the 13 Tests with Personalized feedback.
New Joiners can register here – Click Here
We have fixed the cost after taking into account the feedback given to us by our students and the viability of the project.
Our existing students who have already subscribed either our ‘Essay Test Series’ or ‘Prelims Test Series’ can opt for the Test series by paying Rs. 5500/- only .
Existing students can register here – Click Here
We intend to provide as much help as possible and you should not hesitate to ask any queries that you may have irrespective of their nature.We are here to help.
Feel free to write to us , if you have any queries/requests with regards to the program.
Wish you luck !!!
Thank you,
UPSCTREE Team
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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.