Koya Sree Harsha secured 6th rank in IAS Exam in his first attempt. He completed his Production and Industrial Engineering from NIT Jamshedpur in 2012. Before preparing for the exam Koya Sree Sarsha worked for four years in Hyderabad. After quitting his job in 2016 he went to Delhi for preparation and secured Rank 6 in CSE 2017.
Selection of Optional
Koya Sree Harsha opted Anthropology and scored 330 marks out of 500 which played a major role in improving rank.
Before choosing Anthropology, he skimmed through various subjects viz. History, Geography, Political Science and Telugu literature. At last, he shortlisted Anthropology and Sociology; and based on marking trend and repetition of questions he opted Anthropology.
- Go for your interest
- Read the syllabus
- See availability of the study material in the market
- Check for the guidance or mentor and Test series availability
- Go through the previous years’ trends of the marking scheme
- Talk to seniors who cleared this exam in previous years with the opted subject
Time Management
Koya Sree Harsha suggests to start preparation as early as possible ideally in June and give 4 Months to reading and notes making of Optional subject so aspirant can revise it in short time.
Reading Current Affairs
- Koya Sree Harsha read Indian Express and The Hindu. According to Harsha, “The Hindu was more of left ideology so to balance the arguments the opted Indian Express”.
- Make notes of issues (not complete fact)
- Keep revising current affairs from current affairs digests and keep it on your fingertip, current affairs are important
Practice Tests
- Start giving test series in February, test practice is key
- After attempting practice tests, analyse your wrong attempts, guess attempts and also correct responses. Give time to the analysis of the answer.
- Identify your strength and weaknesses, and practice more.
- Attempt different test series from different institutes, don’t depend on only one test series.
- Koya Sree Harsha attempted total around 80 tests, and he spends 3-4 hours in analysing answers.
- Give 40-42 tests in a span of two months, it will give you insight. Knowing your weakness and working on it is only the aim of practice paper.
GS Mains Preparation by Koya Sree Harsha
Koya Sree Harsha scored 962 in GS Mains, he scored 3rd Highest among all candidates appeared that year.
Marks Scored by koya sree harsha in GS papers of mains exam:
- GS I – 120
- GS II – 122
- GS III – 146
- GS IV – 102
Try to finish your answer in 8-10 minutes. Don’t write too much information, write direct answers within the word limit. Don’t try to fill all the pages end to end.
Answers must be well-structures having an introduction, and a decent conclusion with an optimistic approach. Practice introduction and conclusion writing.
for GS-I’s Indian History part Koya Sree Harsha suggests Spectrum’s Modern India. He suggests writing about the political, social situation and contemporary situation while answering history questions.
He referred to Vajiram’s notes, and Selective reading of Nitin Singhania for Art and Culture part.
For GS-II’s Polity and Governance part, Koya Sree Harsha read The Hindu, Indian Express, Vision’s CA notes, Laxmikanth, and Vajiram’s notes. While writing answers of GS-II, he started with writing a simple definition of keywords, also included constitution articles, supreme court’ judgement, report of commission/committee etc if possible based on the scope of the question. And most importantly try to link answer to current events.
He referred to NCERT and GC Leong are enough for Geography. Kept India and world map on the table. Try to draw map while answering Geography questions.
Write the answer in the context of current affairs, try to connect the issue to possible current affairs issue whenever possible.
Don’t leave any question unattempted. Answers should be pro-poor and pro-government.