60 Day Programme, 2019: IASbaba’s most trusted initiative for Prelims

In management institutes, the concept of ‘brand management’ is taught vigorously. One might have the best products or services at disposal but without proper branding, sales won’t JOSH up. Once a brand is established, quality starts speaking for itself and the brand gets stronger with each passing day. Brands having a strong recall value perform better than their competitors. For example, today ‘Maggi’ is synonymous with ‘noodles’ and ‘Nescafe’ with coffee! Why? It's the brand that attracts people and then its the quality that retains them.

The IASbaba story in general and our flagship ‘60 Day Programme’ is very much similar. Today, the ‘60 Day’ has become synonymous with success in prelims. The brand of IASbaba aided by the unmatched quality of ‘60 Day’ has been able to outsmart its competitors by miles. We could easily monetise this initiative and still have thousands of subscribers. But then, for us, the relationship that we have with our students isn’t one of a client and service provider. We value the trust that you have shown in these years, something which inspires us to go that extra mile to help our followers and fans. Just like all these years, this year too, we are coming up with the brand new version of our flagship ‘60 Day Programme’ to help you enhance your chances dramatically in Civil Services Preliminary Examination, 2019. And just like all these years, its FREE this year too.

For those, who are new to this website, we are providing a brief description of the ’60 Day’ Programme, its features, its glorious history and its potential to give you that extra edge in Prelims.

The ‘60 Day’ plan has been designed to give you 60 days of rigorous practice of high quality prelims questions. These questions will not only check your level of preparation but also act as a guiding light to your preparation. You will be provided with an extensive plan in the form of a micro level time table having details of each day’s coverage in terms of Prelims syllabus, focus areas and sources to be referred. On a daily basis (6 days a week), we will be posting well researched and highly probable 25-30 objective questions on the website. You are supposed to take 30 minutes to answer these questions in strict exam like conditions (of course at the comfort of your home!). You have the option to post the responses in the comment section. At the end of the day, we will be providing Solution with detailed explanation to all the questions. You will be able to verify and compare your answers with the solution and also assess your standing amongst numerous other candidates. In totality, the ‘60 Day’ plan is a troika of high probability quality questions, healthy competition and rightful guidance.

As a testimony to the success and impact of ‘60 Day’, we are providing an exhaustive year wise analysis of HIT RATIO in Prelims:

2015- https://iasbaba.com/2015/08/upsc-prelims-2015-40-questions-from-iasbaba/

2016 - https://iasbaba.com/2016/08/70-hits-from-iasbaba-in-upsc-prelims/

2017 - https://iasbaba.com/2017/06/68in-upsc-civil-services-prelims-2017-how-iasbaba-helped-one-to-get-mains-call/

2018 - 

https://iasbaba.com/2018/06/2018-upsc-prelims-how-iasbaba-helped-in-upsc-prelims-answer-key-explanation-toughest-prelims-history-upsc/

What impact can the ‘60 Day’ have on the final results? We will explain by taking a small example. Imagine you are sitting in the examination hall, appearing in Prelims Paper I. You have attempted 70 questions already but still unsure about a few. Then you stumble upon a question that was asked in 60 Day (and believe us, it has happened to hundreds of students countless times). You choose the right answer and submit your paper hoping for the best! Eventually, you go on to clear Mains as well as Personality Test and secure a good rank as well. When the cut off gets announced by UPSC, you realise that you have scored just one mark more than the cut off! Yes, that one mark can change your life (and it has done so to many of our students in the past). Now, imagine the kind of impact 60 to 80 marks can have! Isn’t that so fascinating to imagine.  

One’s level of preparedness in always different for different subjects. Even within a subject, one’s comfort level may vary with topics. For example, one might be more comfortable in solving questions of Polity than Economics and within Polity also, one might be at ease with questions on fundamental rights than Parliament. The level of comfort and ease that one has with a subject/ topic gets manifested in the examination. However, there is no conscious effort by aspirants to micro analyse these aspects. Now, coming to the second aspect i.e. the mistakes that one commits in answering MCQs, it can be said that there are mainly four reasons behind incorrect responses in the OMR sheet. They are:

1. Lack of information
2. Lack of analytical ability
3. Silly mistakes
4. Excessive risk taking

Let’s analyse them one by one:

1. Lack of information: You simply don’t know the information. You are clueless and that’s why you don’t attempt the question. For example, you may have never come across a regime called the ‘Wassenaar Agreement’ during your preparation and you can’t do much about it. Lack of information is pardonable and rectifiable. You can read more and gather more information. That is within your reach.
2. Lack of analytical ability: You know the concept but the question is a twisted one and you are not able to apply the concept. For example, in a question asking you to identify the climate type of a region based on certain given parameters like precipitation, temperature and air density, you might find it difficult to mark the correct option even if you are aware of all the options given in the question! That is clearly a lack of application and you can overcome it by developing a habit of framing questions in your mind while you study any topic.
3. Silly mistakes: This habit is unpardonable. You know the concept, you become happy, you misread the question, you mark the incorrect answer and you are out of the race! Such mistakes reveal your hurriedness while answering the question. A simple mistake of reading ‘chose the incorrect option’ as ‘chose the correct option’ can destroy your chances. It means that you need to have patience and focus while attempting the paper.
4. Excessive risk taking: You are confused between the options and just in order to increase your attempts, you make wild guesses and try your luck only to repent eventually. Risk taking is an art and one must be very careful while doing the guesswork in confusing questions. If you are not lucky enough, it can spoil your chances.

You will realise that these problems will have different meanings for different people. For example, one might find lack of information as the main culprit in answering wrong the questions on Culture while in Polity, lack of analytical ability is usually the culprit. The point here is that you must analyse your preparation on these yardsticks by applying them on different subjects/ topics. If one is having a headache, he/ she can’t have the same medicine for fever. Isn’t it.

This is where our revamped ’60 Day’ comes into picture. It will give you an opportunity to micro analyse your preparation and perform better in the examination.

How to use it? You can download the entire day wise plan at the end of the post.

Now, we present you the following scales (with weightage of each scale given in the bracket) to micro analyse your preparation on a daily basis and that too subject/ topic wise:

Scale 1: Information meter (1)

Scale 2: Analysis meter (2)

Scale 3: Anxiety meter (3)

Scale 4: Risk meter (4)

Suppose on Day 1, questions have been framed from Polity on the topic of Constitutional History. There are 15 questions and you are able to answer 12 out of which 7 are correct and 5 are incorrect. It means you have scored roughly 11.33 out of 30. Now you have to fill on a daily basis, the following matrix to micro analyse your preparation:

Example: Suppose, the filled up matrix gets reflected in the following fashion:

Based on the total value in this matrix, you have to aim for the following measures on the scale:

• Information meter < 4
  • Course Correction: If you are scoring above 4, it means that there are serious gaps in your information base in the particular subject/ topic. Please refer a standard textbook before it’s too late.

• Analysis meter < 4
  • Course Correction: If you are scoring above 4, you need to explore all possible questions in your mind while reading the topic. You should frame questions for your friends and try to trick them by twisting the questions.

• Anxiety meter < 3
  • Course Correction: A score above 3 indicates that you are either too excited or too callous to even read the question. You need to calm down and read the question twice, particularly those questions in which you feel too confident.

• Risk meter < 8
  • Course Correction: You need to curb your risk taking instincts. Make only intelligent guess and don’t leave your chance on fate. Don’t let the previous year’s cut off impact your mind.

• Total N x S score < 20

Moreover, IASbaba will give a cut off figure along with the solutions each day. If your total marks exceed that cut off along with your total N x S score lying below 20, you are on the right track and just need to keep the momentum going.

This exercise will hardly take 5 minutes of your daily time but it might do wonders for you as you will be able to gauge your strengths and limitations better.

Finally it is upto you to take advantage of this framework. We are sure of only one thing- if you follow this programme, assess yourself on the basis of the given framework and keep improving your weaker areas, success will be yours.

We are providing you with the right platform, the right guidance and the right competition. Do you have the right motivation to make full use of this initiative? We think you have. Come, be a part of this initiative and take the first step towards SUCCESS!

Importance of self - tracking:

We could have provided all of you with login id and passwords to monitor your daily performance in the 60 day program.

Instead a simple and most beautiful way which Disqus provides is profile based commenting!

Yes we have seen the most successful candidates who have taken the maximum benefit from this program monitoring themselves by commenting their answers in the box given (disqus comment). And reviewing their performance themselves once in 10 days  on the progress meter.

So let us go ahead and start this beautiful journey !

The program starts from March 4th (Monday). The questions will be posted 6 days a week @ 10 am on daily basis! Solution, along with detailed explanation will be updated by evening between 7pm -8pm.

How's the JOSH??

Comment down to tell us your JOSH!!!

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To Download the 60 Day Plan/Schedule - Click here

Incase you want to practice more Prelims Mcq's, enroll for IASbaba's All India Prelims Test Series (AIPTS) - Click Here

All the Best

IASbaba Team