In this short article, I am detailing to-the-points strategy for aspirants.
- Complete NCERT
- Do basic books like Laxmikanth, Spectrum etc
- Do mocks
- Plan your GS & Optional along with pre. But closer to prelims day, your focus should be solely on prelims
- Post prelims join a test series. Be regular with respect to answer writing.
- Enrich and improve your answers . Make notes. I used to make notes on evernotes. This will augument marks.
- Post mains, focus on PT. Don’t overdo mock, prepare yourself thoroughly by yourself and with help of friends. Stay positive.
All the best.
On notes making:
I have compiled my GS notes in the below link. They are mostly on evernote. Being in a job I found evernote useful as I can access it from anywhere. My handwritten notes are very few.
These notes have been made from various sources: forumias material, visionias material, toppers answersheet, economic survey, heavy use of internet, NCERT books etc.
Many of these are not very neat and have been made for revision purpose.
Many notes are very small and serve only an indicative purpose like what are the various things one should cover (like NCERT Crux, Economic survey notes).
IMO aspirants can benefit more from my essay and GS-4 notes as it takes some time to collect good examples, quote for these two papers. I have worked upon these and you can further build upon that.
GS1,GS2,GS3 notes are more of compilation of various things I read. I just segregated them for easy revision.
I also made a number of notes on current affairs.
All these are listed in the link below. If not the line-by-line reading, then a broad perusal might help you in understanding the architecture of notes making.