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Q.Ira Singhal's tips on Mains answer writing? - If you know 1% of the answer, and repeat the same point over and over again 500 times to fit the word limit, then examiner is not going to be fooled, he has seen thousands of copies, let’s not disrespect his intelligence. I made this mistake in 2013, but realised this only wastes our time and fatigues your hand. - I only wrote what I knew, I skipped questions where I didn't know the answer. - if I knew 10-40%, I only wrote that much, without bothering about reaching the 100% answer length by writing “stories”. - Don't write vague answers that remotely resemble to what is being asked in the question. - I write in bullet points for both general studies and optional papers in Mains - I underline the keywords but I don’t use colored pens like most girls do, I don’t understand how do you hold so many pens in your hands without sacrificing speed and efficiency. - I didn’t have time to write introduction or conclusion. - Good if you write diagrams, especially for geography questions and GS3. - Do read question again and again while writing the answer, to ensure you're not drifting away from what is being asked. - Language matters but don’t write complicated sentences, do better than “medium”, don’t write Shakespeare thing- I tried previous time but didn’t work Q. Experts say we’re supposed to write “balanced answer”…should we drift towards a conclusion? Consider this question asked in GS Mains paper-2 in 2014, "Do government’s schemes for up-lifting vulnerable and backward communities by protecting required social resources for them, lead to their exclusion in establishing businesses in urban economics?" Ans. In ethics paper you’ve to take a stand. In GS2 and GS3 also, If particular question requires, you should give some suggestion / stand. Example: The said question on urban economies- it is an opinion based question. I’d say what’re the benefits of these schemes, what are the possible negatives? and does this exclusion happen? Once you’ve written points, you’ll know whether it can be generalised conclusion- whether we need to have such schemes or not? This type of questions usually come from government data or committee report, there’d would be opinion in it. You should read such report. you’ve to give suggestions in such question Q.If asked about environment vs development in GS3- we can still write the ethical dimensions? Ans.No need to confine the ethical perspectives only in GS4. You can put ethical perspectives in all papers. Same way in GS4, we can put economic and social dimensions. Q.In the Mains answer wordlimit, should we count the flow-chart and mindmaps? Ans. Question paper clearly says "content of the answer is more important than its length." don’t worry about the wordlimit. It could have been a 150 words or 400 words, no matter as long as the points are concrete. Let’s go with rational assumption that a rational evaluator is going to check your answers. There’s a gap in our way of studies, we’re preparing in silos- history, economy, geography but you’ve to create a world in your head. Geography is the reason why History happened the way it did, so you can’t study in silos anymore. Q.What mistakes did you make in previous attempts? Ans. I performed bad in essay paper in first attempt. I could only see the mistake in my approach towards answer-writing after third attempt. Language matters but I didn’t build it within 4 attempts. I’ve read over 1500 novels since schooldays. I’ve not done any practice for mains answer writing, however you should do it, it can help. Venue: SPIPA, Ahmedabad Date: 12 August 2015