Indian civil services exams can be termed as one of the most difficult exam to crack with various stages of exams it does elect the best of the best.
Recently UPSC civil services final results were out and 685 students cracked the exams. Among these was a daughter of two Delhi police personnel, Delhi’s Ishita Rathi, who secured Rank 8 in this year’s UPSC mains.
With hard work, Rathi claimed that she dreamt of serving the country by looking at her parents. The 26-year-old cleared UPSC in her third attempt said she wants to work for women empowerment in the country as only if the women are developed in a country, the country’s growth continues.
Ishita was shocked to find her name in the top 10 list. “This exam is very uncertain. Every attempt is very different from the last attempt. So until the results are out one does not know what strategy worked and what did not work. For me, the journey has been tough, like many other aspirants. I was not expecting such a good rank and I was not even sure if I will make it to the finals but I did and that has been shocking,” she said.
Ishita completed her postgraduate degree in economics from Madras School of Economics, said she did not opt for any coaching to crack the exam. Talking about her preparation she said, “While I did not take any coaching, but for my optional subject (Economic) I took mentoring.” Giving insights from her self preparing journey she says, “After looking at the syllabus I realized that these topics can be covered on my own. There is plenty of free material available now that students can take help from and prepare for the exam on their own.”
“For certain subjects such as geography and polity, NCERTs are very well written so referring to those will clear out basics for the candidates. Supplementing them with reading newspapers and current affairs is helpful. I also took help from popular UPSC preparation books, including Laxmikant for polity, and Spectrum for history. I mostly referred to all the resources that are referred by most toppers and it did help me. But the key in all his was multiple revisions, making your notes and revising them repeatedly,” Ishita said.