Attempting mocks and analyzing them is the cornerstone of any good UPSC exam preparation.
Your job as a UPSC candidate is not just to know the syllabus of the UPSC Prelims and Mains, like the back of your hand, but also to know how to apply your knowledge in real time by solving actual UPSC level questions. Solving UPSC Mock Tests is a pretty good way to do so.
That said, attempting mock tests is somewhat like the mock drills conducted in the army. The whole point of it is to recreate the actual UPSC exam experience, but in the confines of your study room without the actual stakes at play.
Assuming that you got my point here, let us take a look at the several benefits of solving UPSC IAS Mock tests 2022.
Benefits of Solving UPSC Mock Tests
- Know you’re the exam structure by heart: The immediate benefit that you’d notice after solving the UPSC mock tests and previous years’ papers is that you’d be able to commit the exam structure to your memory. That would in turn facilitate your understanding of things such as the sections to attempt first and the ones to leave out for later, based on your strengths and weaknesses.
- Know your strong and weak points clearly: It would become easier for you to gauge your performances segment-wise, subject-wise, and level of difficulty-wise. You’d also get to clearly compartmentalize your strong and weak points according to the topics and segments.
- Know the difficulty level of each question: One important benefit would be that you’d be able to easily decipher questions on the basis of their difficulty levels and the topics they encapsulate.
- Become Fast: The next benefit is an obvious one. Taking more mock tests would mean better speed of comprehension and the ability to solve more in littler time
- Become instinctive: Solving UPSC mock tests and previous years papers would make your moves more instinctive while marking the right answers while attempting the objective-type questions.
Now that you know the benefits of solving UPSC mock tests, it should be further noted that you should atleast attempt one IAS mock test or a previous year’s paper after you have already finished with your UPSC preparation. That way after solving the mocks you’d know which portions of the UPSC syllabus you still need to work on.
Anyway, to elaborate on how to solve UPSC mock test, you can go through the next section.
Tips on Solving UPSC Mock Tests
Since, in in the section above, I have mentioned the various benefits of solving the UPSC mock tests, in this section, let me jot down some important tips that you can use while doing so, I.e., solving mocks.
Using the tips given below you shall be able to make use of the Mock tests in the most optimal manner. So, here they are:
- Take your Prelims mock papers sincerely, giving 2 hours each for the GS and CSAT papers. And also, while taking your mock mains papers, take the papers using the official time duration of 3 hours for each.
- While solving the UPSC mocks make sure to solve your papers with a calm mind. The objective shouldn’t be just to solve it in the given time. You should make sure that your answers are right, and also of good quality (in the case of the mains papers). Therefore, 15 minutes here and there above the given time limit can be considered okay, but remember to not take any more time than that.
- Once you are done with a mock, do not consider your job done yet, you’d now have to analyze the questions in the mock thoroughly and also the answers you have written for each. That way you’ll be able to identify the concepts that you are weak at.
- After analyzing a mock answer sheet, do not move over to solving another one without first clearing your weak points.
- After clearing your weak points, go over to solve another mock, and do the same again, that is identify your weak points again. For this, you can take help from a mentor as well. You do not have to do this alone.
- Keep repeating this process till the very end.
- Also, remember to not spend too much time on one question while solving the mocks. Move on to the next question if you are not sure about the answer to the question you are stuck at.
- If you follow the process I have mentioned in the above points, you will start noticing improvement in your scores within a short span of time.
Remember, it is highly important to analyse any mock or previous year paper that you attempt. That concludes the segment of the UPSC mock tests.
The UPSC CSEs are one of the most challenging exams of our time. The unpredictability of the exam and the vastness of its syllabus are well known. It consists of three phases, the Prelims, the Mains, and the Interview rounds, out of which the Mains is by far considered to be the toughest to crack. I have done a detailed analysis of the optional papers of “Commerce & Accountancy” and “Management” of the last four years. Get more information about upsc optional exam analysis .
