Pravin’s UPSC Journey: From Three Attempts to Clearing All Stages with PW

Clearing the UPSC exam after multiple attempts requires candidates to identify what went wrong and change their preparation accordingly. Pravin reached the Mains stage in his first attempt but missed the cutoff by a few marks, while his second attempt ended at Prelims. By his third attempt, he had changed his approach, focusing on weaker subjects, revision, PYQs and answer quality.

The turning point came from understanding his mistakes rather than simply increasing the amount of preparation. Pravin identified overconfidence, Essay and GS1 as areas that needed attention and gradually built a more focused strategy. PW resources, including Prahar notes and PYQ-based content, also became part of his preparation during this phase.

How Pravin’s UPSC Journey Began

Pravin’s UPSC journey took three attempts, and each one ended differently. His first attempt took him to Mains, but he missed the cutoff by a few marks. The second attempt ended at Prelims, while his third attempt finally saw him clear all three stages.

“So, in my first attempt I reached till the main stage; I could not clear the mains by a few marks. Then, in the second attempt, I could not clear the prelims itself and this year I was lucky enough to clear all those three stages”

The results of his first two attempts made Pravin look closely at how he was approaching the exam. In the second attempt, he felt that strong mock-test performance had made him overconfident, which affected the way he approached the actual paper.

“I feel I was way too overconfident that year. Okay, so apparently I solved a lot of mocks. I was scoring above 120, I was getting an All India rank in the mocks I was getting around below 50 level. I was overconfident to that level that in the actual paper I kind of read the questions from above only did not go into the depth and answered it like that as if I was sure that it was going to be the answer”

This realisation changed the direction of his preparation. Instead of treating mock scores as the main measure of readiness, Pravin started looking at specific gaps in his performance and worked towards improving them.

How Pravin Worked on His Weak Areas

After the setbacks in his first two attempts, Pravin focused on the areas where he had lost marks. Essay was one of the subjects he specifically identified after analysing his previous Mains performance.

“Last time the biggest difference for me was essay. I scored very low in essay. I scored around 78 marks in essay.”

For his third attempt, he did not limit his preparation to completing more full-length papers. Instead, he worked on Essay and gave greater attention to GS1, particularly Society. He felt that Society gave him scope to strengthen his answers with relevant data.

“But for GS1 strictly, I focused on society. I feel society was a game changer for me this year, I kind of went through a lot of seniors and everyone and I realized that in GS1 the only difference the subject creates is society itself, because everyone is at a similar power level in history and geography. No one writes an extraordinary question or an answer, and everyone is faced with that same dilemma question but society is something which you can write an exceptional answer in which you can put the data in. So I focus on society a lot this year, at least.”

This shift was important because Pravin was now preparing based on the gaps identified from previous attempts. His focus moved from simply attempting more questions to improving the quality of his answers and strengthening subjects where he needed more preparation.

How PW Resources Became Part of Pravin’s Preparation

As Pravin refined his preparation, he also used different PW resources for specific parts of the UPSC syllabus. He mentioned using Society Prahar notes, along with other PW programs such as the Decision batch, PWision and the Interview Guidance Program.

“So apparently this year thank you to the PW team again; this year one of the major things which I relied on from PW was the Prahar notes. So I actually did the society Prahar; this was the first I did, and I was very happy with it. I kind of relied on the data of the Prahar magazine itself”

PYQs were another area where Pravin found PW resources useful, particularly for GS2. He compared this with his previous preparation, when he had not gone through PYQs despite performing well in the subject.

“I actually relied on your content a lot for the PQs. So I extensively relied on GS2 PQs from the PW content and it helped me a lot because in my previous year even though I scored really well in GS2, I apparently did not go through the PQs. This year as you already know that the GS2 paper was extremely tough compared to all of the years. I feel that PW did help me a lot in my preparation.”

The role of PW was therefore linked to specific preparation needs rather than being the only part of his strategy. Pravin also mentioned using the case-law compilation provided by PW to revise GS2 and substantiate his answers.

How Pravin’s Preparation Changed in His Third Attempt and His Advice for Future Aspirants

The changes made after his earlier attempts extended beyond written preparation. During the interview stage, Pravin focused on becoming comfortable with the interview environment through repeated mock interviews and interactions.

“But the thing is, once you start giving mocks a lot, you break that barrier to talk to seniors or talk to any bureaucrat. So you need to break that barrier. You need to give at least sufficient number of mocks to break that. You need to be comfortable in talking.”

For the Prelims stage, his approach was centred on revision rather than continuously adding new material. He advised aspirants to repeatedly revise what they had already prepared, analyse mocks and work through PYQs.

“Just revise whatever you have. You cannot cover everything. Just focus on the things which you have on your table. Revise it as many times as possible till the time that if a question comes from that content, you should be sure that the answer is this. You should not confuse yourself that the answer is A, B or C. You should be sure that the answer is A because it is coming from your content.”

Pravin’s third attempt was therefore not simply about studying more. His preparation evolved through the lessons of his earlier attempts, with greater attention to weak areas, Society, Essay, PYQs, revision and answer quality. His experience shows how analysing setbacks can help aspirants make practical changes to their preparation instead of repeating the same approach.