Aakash Garg, AIR 5 in UPSC CSE 2024: Strategy Lessons for Working Aspirants

Aakash Garg secured All India Rank 5 in the Union Public Service Commission Civil Services Examination 2024. As with every result in the top ten, the interesting question is not what he read but how the preparation was organised — because the reading list at the top of the merit list is almost identical to the reading list of candidates who did not clear.

Consistency outperforms intensity

Aspirants routinely overestimate the study hours behind top ranks. Sustained six to eight focused hours a day, held for two or three years, produces far more than fourteen-hour days held for three weeks and then abandoned. The variable that predicts outcomes is not peak effort but the absence of long gaps.

Practically, this means designing a schedule you can hold on a bad week, not on your best one. Build in a lighter day, protect sleep, and treat the schedule as a floor rather than a ceiling.

Revision is the actual work

The most common structural failure in UPSC preparation is over-reading and under-revising. New material feels productive; revision feels like standing still. But retention at Prelims level requires repeated exposure, and Mains writing requires the material to be available under time pressure — which only revision provides.

Answer writing from the beginning, not after Prelims

The gap between Prelims and Mains is roughly eleven to twelve weeks. A candidate who starts answer writing there is trying to acquire a skill and revise 1750 marks of content simultaneously. Candidates at the top of the list have almost always been writing weekly for a year or more, so that the Mains window becomes revision and refinement rather than skill acquisition.

If you are preparing alongside a job or a degree

1. Fix two immovable blocks a day — typically early morning and late evening — and defend them absolutely.
2. Use the weekend for the two things weekdays cannot hold: a full-length test and a revision pass.
3. Choose a short optional. Anthropology or Sociology are commonly chosen for this reason: they can be revised repeatedly within limited hours.
4. Consolidate current affairs weekly rather than daily. A single weekly compilation is more sustainable than a daily backlog you never clear.
5. Cut source count aggressively. One book per subject, revised, beats three read once.
6. Take a live online batch if commuting is the binding constraint — the class is the same, and the two hours saved are real study hours.

The part nobody advertises

Preparation over multiple years involves visible setbacks in public view — friends beginning careers, family patience thinning, a Prelims result that lands two marks short. Every top-ranked candidate has navigated some version of this. The candidates who continue are usually the ones with structure around them: a fixed place to study, a peer group at the same stage, a mentor who reviews progress on a schedule, and a plan that already accounts for the possibility of another attempt.

That structure is much of what a serious institute provides. At Pragnya IAS Academy in Ashok Nagar, Hyderabad, it takes the form of a fixed test calendar with All India benchmarking, evaluated answer writing running through the year, and mentoring by faculty and officers rather than motivational talks. To discuss a plan that fits your working hours, call 98804 87071 or message us on WhatsApp.