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(Success Story) Never Giving Up - The Inspirational Story Of AIR-11 Nupur Goel

Nupur Goel is an example of what never giving up on your goals can allow you to achieve. Without taking failure to heart, this inspirational young lady kept on pursuing her dreams and finally achieved the envious all India rank of 11 on her 6th and final attempt int 2019’s Civil Services Examination. It is a testament to her mental strength that she kept on performing consistently despite the hurdles she faced.

Nupur’s Background

Nupur is from Narela in Delhi. She has done her schooling from DAV Centenary Public School in Narela. She has done her B.Tech in Electronics and Communication from Delhi Technological University. She has done her Masters in Public Administration from IGNOU. She is currently employed with Intelligence Bureau (IB).

Why Civil Services?

Nupur was inspired by her uncle who had once prepared for UPSC, however, could not qualify. He gave her the confidence to take this path. Having been introduced to the world of private and public sectors in her final year of engineering, she decided against sitting for college campusing and instead prepare for UPSC IAS Exams. She took her first attempt in her graduation year of 2014 and qualified prelims and mains, but could not qualify interviews.

The Many Hurdles :

Nupur could not qualify her 2nd attempt preliminary in 2015. She believes that her General Studies preparation is what dragged her down. It was a serious blow having sat for interviews in her last attempt and not being able to qualify prelims itself. But she immediately changed her strategy and ended up qualifying both prelims and mains with a very good margin in her 3rd attempt. However, her interview in 2016 did not go very well and she was unable to qualify yet again.

In her 4th attempt in 2017, she was unable to clear prelims yet again. But Nupur believed in herself and kept preparing for UPSC. A friend of hers made her appear for the Intelligence Bureau examination held by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Although Nupur did not prepare for this exam particularly, her UPSC preparation pushed her through. She received her joining for this job in 2019.

She again failed at the interview level in her 2018 and 5th attempt. Nupur’s family encouraged her constantly to keep trying. Failure was never looked down upon at her home. Her efforts were appreciated immensely instead. This kept her going.

Strategy

Nupur says prelims are cracked by taking mocks. And for mains, the more you write answers, the better you write, the faster you complete answers and the better chance you have of qualifying. She has used all materials available in the market for her preparation.

Essay Writing

For Essay, Nupur insists on dedicated preparation. In her first attempt, she scored 140 marks, which is her highest score in Essay Paper. She suggests having varied opinions and quoting sources from Editorials to enrich your essays. She picked introductions and conclusions by reading Yojana. She also concentrated on practicing philosophical topics as she had noticed UPSC delving more deeply into these topics in recent years. She says writing simple and lucid essays with multiple dimensions is the best way forward.

Ethics :

Nupur says her preparation for her optional in Public Administration helped her in Ethics. She integrated examples from Economic Survey, and other such relevant stories about government schemes and committees to enrich her answers. She strengthened her writing and worked on her weaknesses this year to ensure she scores well.

Message For IAS Aspirants :

Nupur says she has learned a few tricks to ensure your preparation is on track –

Keep sources limited.
Do not skip daily newspapers.
Writing notes allows you to retain more information.
Do not give up on your dream no matter what.

It is a very difficult journey. To fail and pick yourself up and try again is very hard. But it is this journey that makes you an officer. The courage to accept and the determination to improve are the two keys to success.

Best of Luck.

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