After devoting three years of her crucial career, UPSC civil services exam aspirant Smriti Mishra evolved into one of the toppers with an unbeatable rank of 4. Taking her father, who is also a civil servant, as her inspiration, Smriti went forward on this tough yet thrilling journey for UPSC. After two failed attempts, her ‘smart-hard work’ as she puts it, paid off.
With two unsuccessful attempts in UPSC CSE prelims, Smriti understood the nuances of her strategy and pulled them up in her third attempt. In an exclusive interview with News18.com, the topper said, “Prelims examinations have evolved and are not a simple paper to crack. Consistent practice of last year’s question papers, hold on comprehension is a must to work on.” She said while attempting the question paper, she first completed the low-hanging or easy questions from the prelims examination.
A native of Prayagraj, Smriti shared her secret of answer writing. She said aspirants prepare for answer writing even before qualifying prelims. For Smriti, the main elements for her answer writing were practice, solving last year’s question papers, current affairs, and self-written notes. While formulating answers and notes, Smriti took guidance from 2021 topper Shruti Sharma’s notes and answer scripts.
“I focused on content enrichment, used multiple examples, cited facts that could be used in other answers as well, gave 30 minutes for each answer, used diagrams, flowchart and wrote quotes and case studies for ethics examination,” Smriti said adding that she also emphasised that aspirants’ answers should reflect a sense of maturity. She compared her answers with toppers and her previous written answers as well, which also played a crucial role in her success.
With her optional in zoology, Smriti said, “I could have thought of re-evaluation of my decision of opting zoology as an optional if this (third) attempt was not cleared.” She scored 281 in her optional which Smriti considered a below average score. Being from a science background, the first task for her was to cover up her basics. “I took help from NCERT books and even read class 6th- 7th books to clear my doubts, understood the timelines for history, and also emphasised current affairs,” said she. Smriti completed her schooling from Agra, and her graduation from Miranda House, Delhi University.
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While preparing for the UPSC interview, she read two newspapers and composed notes out of them. While preparing her Detailed Application Form (UPSC -DAF), she focused on keywords and analysed questions that could be framed in the interview.
When asked what she will try to focus on when allocated a cadre, Smriti said, “I aim to fulfill the task of financial independence of women and their skill development, access of technology for common people, controlling corruption in lower levels of administration, strengthening urban- local governance and imparting civic sense among the masses.” She also emphasised that while Indian courts have adopted the culture of e-courts, why not virtual meetings with collectors be introduced to reduce the length of queues outside the collector’s office?
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