Rachit Kumar
Rachit Kumar Saxena
Manager-Editorial
Updated on Jun 12, 2020 17:49 IST

IAS Topper Rank 2 Akshat Jain shares his strategy to become IAS. Read below details

IAS_Toppers_Strategy_ Akshat_Jain

IAS topper Akshat Jain, Rank 2 in the IAS exam 2019, is an IIT Guwahati graduate in design. He prepared the general studies by himself and took the coaching for his optional subject Anthropology.

IAS Topper Akshat Jain, in various interviews and interactions, shared his IAS preparation strategy for the future candidates to follow and succeed. He stressed that every candidate must develop a vision for the IAS preparation and then prepared his strategy.

He stressed that the candidates must prepare his own IAS strategy by taking inputs from various IAS toppers of previous years. He stated that every candidate has his or her unique position and he or she should design his or her preparation strategy accordingly. He said that the IAS exam tests the experience of the candidate.

See here: IAS exam pattern 2020

He started by saying that every candidate has a motive behind the preparation and it is unique to the candidate. He stressed that this motive should be strong enough to help in sustaining the motivation during this long and uncertain period.

Upcoming Sarkari Exam Dates

SSC CPO application form 2025

26 Sep '25 - 16 Oct '25

CSIR NET 2025 Dec Application

25 Sep '25 - 24 Oct '25

IBPS Clerk Prelims Result 2025

31 Oct '25

SBI Clerk Prelims Result 2025

31 Oct '25

UGC NET 2025 Dec Application

7 Oct '25 - 7 Nov '25

IBPS RRB PO 2025 Prelims Exam

22 Nov '25 - 23 Nov '25

SSC JE Tier 1 Exam 2025

31 Dec '25

Secondly, he said that hard work is important but hard work with the right direction is essential, only hard work will not do. Hard work coupled with the right strategy is required for the IAS preparation.

Table of content
  • IAS Topper Akshat Jain’s Strategy for IAS Exam
  • IAS Topper Akshat Jain Marksheet
  • IAS Prelims strategy

IAS Topper Akshat Jain’s Strategy for IAS Exam

He describes his strategy in very simple words. He started with preparing IAS main exam and then went for the prelims exam. He said that the candidates should cover maximum main exam syllabus before the IAS prelims exam. He said the IAS mains syllabus is the extension of the IAS prelims syllabus so both can be prepared simultaneously but for IAS prelims exam, more learning of factual information is required.

He mentioned about the three pillars of his IAS preparation strategy.

  1. Preparing short notes
  2. Answer writing
  3. Self-Evaluation and Analysis

Preparing Short notes

During his IAS preparation, Akshat prepared Short notes on every topic written in the IAS syllabus. He stressed the importance of IAS syllabus and previous year question papers very much. The candidates must refer to the previous year question papers while preparing the quick notes.

He stressed that there are two components attached to each topic- static and dynamic. The static portion of the topic can be covered from the standard textbooks and the dynamic part must be covered from the current affairs.

Importance of Revision

He said that short notes and revision time is interlinked. He stressed that the self-made short notes are very important for the IAS exam because various rounds of revision are required in the IAS exam. Each time these composite notes will be helpful and save a lot of time. These short notes combine the static and dynamic component of the topic in one place and are easy to revise the whole topic in one place.

Answer Writing Practice

IAS topper Akshat Jain said that the answer writing practice is the most important component in scoring good marks in the IAS main exam. He started the IAS main answer writing from day one of his preparation.

He started by writing the answers on the Current Affairs topic and gradually moved to the optional and other general studies topics. He suggests that the candidates should also write the answers in the initial stage itself.

He prepared every IAS topic by studying it, preparing the notes of it and writing the answers to the related questions of previous years IAS question papers and questions taken from other sources.

See here: Most important topics for IAS 2020

IAS Topper Akshat Jain Marksheet

Sl. No Question Paper Marks
1 Essay 123
2 General Studies Paper I 99
3 General Studies Paper II 114
4 General Studies Paper III 104
5 General Studies Paper IV 107
6 Anthropology  Paper I 171
7 Anthropology  Paper I 164
IAS Main Written total 882
IAS Personality Test Marks 198
Total 1080

Self-Analysis and Evaluation

The third pillar of his IAS preparation strategy was self-analysis and self-evaluation. He said that after writing the answers, he used to compare his answers with IAS toppers’ answers and the model answers provided by the coaching institutes.

He said through the evaluation, one can judge that the strategy is right or wrong. If one cannot answer the questions related to the topic learnt, his strategy is not right and some essential element is missing. So one should search that element and try to incorporate it.

He said that by comparing his answers; he understood the shortcomings of his answers and try to improve it.

See here: IAS Toppers Stories

Improvement Cycle

He said that these three pillars are interrelated to each other and helped in continuous improvement in the IAS preparation. He enhanced his notes with the current affairs and the toppers answers to improve the quality of study material.

He mentioned that he prepared his current affairs notes online because the topics are dynamic and the online notes are easy to amend.

He said IAS exam is the test of experience. Experience is the key to success in the exam. The candidates should increase their effort to gain the experience in a short span of time by studying, learning, thinking and writing the answers.

Flow charts

He also mentioned that while analysing his answers he came across various other options to represent his information in a better way. Through evaluation, he came to know that Pictures, Flow charts, diagrams are the tools which can represent the information in a better way.

IAS Prelims strategy

He said that once the candidates have prepared the IAS syllabus for the main exam, IAS prelims becomes an easy nut to crack. He stressed that the candidates should start the IAS prelims strategy two to three months before the IAS prelims exam.

For IAS prelims exam, he suggests revising the factual information as many times as one can to keep the information on the day of the exam.

See here: 100 days preparation plan for IAS prelims 2020

Secondly, practice is very important for the IAS prelims also and hence the candidates need to practice with mock test papers and model question papers as much as they can

Time management for the IAS prelims paper is equally important and through the practice, the candidate must learn his performance curve and the number of good attempts which are essential to qualify the exam.

At last, he suggests a consistency in efforts pay it’s divided. He said the candidates should be consistent in his efforts throughout the IAS preparation. Inconsistency in the efforts will lead to nowhere. He said that the candidates should relish the experience gained during the hard work and IAS preparation.

He said the motto of the candidate should beKarna hai to Karna hai

Also Read: 

IAS Topper Kanishak Kataria's Strategy

IAS Topper Junaid Ahmad's Strategy

About the Author
author-image
Rachit Kumar Saxena
Manager-Editorial
With over thirteen years of experience in the government exam and its preparation domain, Rachit knows the life cycle of almost all government exams and related information. He deeply understands the user requiremen Read Full Bio
Download Important Dates for Sarkari Exams Exams

News & Updates

Latest NewsPopular News

Explore Other Exams

Dec '25

SSC JE Tier 1 Exam 2025

30 Jun '25

SSC JE Tier 1 Notification 202...

4 Oct '25 -

6 Oct '25

Application Correction

1 Oct '25 -

3 Oct '25

HP TET Nov 2025 Application Wi...

13 Sep '25

SBI PO Mains Exam 2025

4 Aug '25

SBI PO Prelims Exam Date 2025

25 Sep '25 -

24 Oct '25

CSIR NET 2025 Dec Application

25 Oct '25

CSIR NET 2025 Dec Application ...

22 Nov '25 -

23 Nov '25

IBPS RRB PO 2025 Prelims Exam

6 Dec '25 -

7 Dec '25

IBPS RRB Clerk 2025 Prelims Ex...

Aug '25

Kerala SET 2025 July Exam

12 Jun '25

Kerala SET 2025 July Applicati...

29 Sep '25

KTET Answer Key

18 Sep '25 -

19 Sep '25

KTET Exam Date

12 Oct '25

IBPS PO Main Exam 2025

6 Oct '25 -

12 Oct '25

IBPS PO 2025 Prelims Scorecard

7 Oct '25 -

7 Nov '25

UGC NET 2025 Dec Application

7 Nov '25

UGC NET 2025 Dec Application f...

10 Oct '25

Special OTET Answer Key

27 Sep '25

OTET Exam Date

The list of exams are recommended based on what other exams do the students in your area show interest in
qna

Student Forum

chatAnything you would want to ask experts?
Write here...

Answered 5 days ago

The Union Public Service Commission will conduct the UPSC Civil Service (prelims) exam on May 24, 2026. The exam will be conducted in two sessions and the General Studies Paper 2 will be qualifying only.

M

Manori Malhotra

Beginner-Level 5

Answered 2 weeks ago

The Union Public Service Commission will release the UPSC IAS 2026 notification on January 14 on its official website - upsc.gov.in. The Commission will also activate the UPSC CSE (IAS) 2026 online application link on its website. The last date for the UPSC IAS application form is February 3, 2026.

...Read more

78438652
Rachit Kumar Saxena

Contributor-Level 9

Answered 3 weeks ago

The candidates should analyse the UPSC CSE previous year question papers to know the trend of the most asked topics. The Commission releases the UPSC question paper on its official website - upsc.gov.in. The candidates can get the UPSC question paper of previous year here. The candidates can downloa

...Read more

N

Nitesh Singh

Beginner-Level 5

Answered a month ago

The Union Public Service Commission will release the UPSC Civil Service (IAS) notification on January 14, 2026. With the release of official notification, the UPSC IAS Application form 2026 will also be activated for the candidates. The last date to apply online for the UPSC CSE (IAS) exam 2026 wil

...Read more

M

Mamona Gupta

Beginner-Level 5

Answered a month ago

The Union Public Service Commission released the UPSC CSE notification 2025 on January 22, 2025. In the official notification, the Commission notified 979 vacancies for the UPSC CSE 2025 exam. But this is a tentative number and the final number of vacancies will be mentioned in the final Result of

...Read more

N

Nishtha Shukla

Beginner-Level 5

Answered a month ago

The Union Public Service Commission will conduct the UPSC CSE (IAS) Main exam (written) from August 22 to 31, 2025. The Commission will conduct the UPSC IAS main exam in offline mode at the designated exam centres. The candidates are informed about their exam centre through their UPSC admit card. 

T

...Read more

S

Saakshi Kumar

Beginner-Level 5

Answered 2 months ago

Yes, the Union Public Service Commission has released the UPSC CSE (IAS) Main exam admit card 2025 on its official website - upsc.gov.in. The candidates are required to log in with their UPSC OTR and password. The UPSC CSE admit card will inform the candidate about their UPSC exam centre.

The UPSC IA

...Read more

R

Rashmi

Beginner-Level 5

Answered 2 months ago

The Union Public Service Commission has released the UPSC CSE (IAS) main admit card 2025 on its official website - upsc.gov.in. The Commission released the admit card for the candidates to download. The candidates are required to download the admit card from the official website by logging in with t

...Read more

78438766
Rachit Kumar Saxena

Contributor-Level 9

Answered 2 months ago

The Union Public Service Commission released the UPSC CSE (IAS) Prelims cutoff 2024 after the declaration of final result. The candidates can see below the UPSC IAS Prelims Cutoff 2024

Category

IAS Prelims Cut off 2024

General

87.98

EWS

85.92

OBC

87.28

SC

79.03

ST

74.23

PwBD1

69.42

PwBD2

65.30

PwBD3

40.56

PwBD5

40.56

Shiksha.com had predicted the UPSC CSE cutoff most accurately in some cases.

V

Vipra Sharma

Beginner-Level 5

Answered 2 months ago

The UPSC CSE (IAS) exam result 2024-25 was released on June 11. The Commission released the final UPSC CSE (IAS) 2024 cutoff for all the categories and stages of exam. The Commission released the UPSC Cutoff 2025 for all the stages of exam as given below:

CategoryCS (Prelim)*CS (Main)#CS (Final)
General87.98729947
EWS85.92696917
OBC87.28702910
SC79.03685880
ST74.23684884
PwBD-169.42663876
PwBD-265.30696913
PwBD-340.56307701
PwBD-540.56361461

M

Manori Malhotra

Beginner-Level 5