Mains- Optional Strategy ( Electrical Engineering) by Neha Banerjee ( AIR 20, UPSC CSE 2019)

 This post is to discuss about my tryst with the optional paper and my detailed strategy with respect to the Electrical Engineering Paper. 

Choosing the optional 

We need to view optional as an open field which UPSC has provided to us to so that we can mould our preparation to our ease. So it is advisable that we look beyond the myths and make a matured decision. If you see the selection list you will find that it is possible to clear this exam with every optional ( Humanities, Literature, Science, Technical subjects ) . Yes, there are some optionals which finds a good number of selected candidates every year. Yes, there are some optionals which give exceptional scores , say above 320 . But extrapolating these general statistics to one's individual exam strategy needs a rethink  ! To simplify this process , lets look at the factors ( not exhaustive) you should consider while choosing optional 

1) Interest :- one's inclination and curiosity towards a subject . This will help us to sail through the tough times easily 

2) Prior exposure :- familiarity with the subject during graduation, school etc. This saves lot of time which one can utilise for GS

3) Resource availability :- usually optionals having a large number of takers have a good market availability of notes, test series etc. 

4) Performance in the optional:- the highest marks and percentage of selected candidates in previous few years. Though I feel that this factor is given too much importance than what it deserves 

5) Alternate career plans :- We all know how uncertain UPSC CSE is. So , one can plan her back up career with optional also. Ex. ESE exam for engineering optionals.

So going by above points , my subject i.e. Electrical Engineering ticked positively for points 1 , 2 and 5 but negatively for 3 and 4. However when I went through the syllabus and glanced through the previous year papers , I felt more or less confident and decided to go with it. One advantage that I had was being an attentive student during my college days. I enjoyed studying Electrical Engineering from respected professors in IIT Kgp. But I had not decided on my civil service career till my final semester. 

My sources and strategy 

There are some very good youtube videos and blogs, write-ups of previous toppers of CSE with EE optional ( Chahat Bajpai , Surabhi Gautam, Rushikesh Reddy, RishiRaj) . I strongly advise the future aspirants to go though their comprehensive strategies. They have listed out all the standard books etc very well. However, my case was a bit distorted.  I understood the importance of reading textbooks and practising solved examples etc . But due to my job and short time of preparation ( unfamiliarity with GS subjects etc) I had to take short cuts .

 I started studying the optional around June 2018 and completed one round of reading ( covering 80 percent of the syllabus ) within December 2018. I used to interleave it with GS. After this , I completely lost touch with optional and again picked it up in June 2019 after prelims. In this phase I completed the remaining parts of the syllabus and focussed heavily on the previous year question papers. 

Here is the topic wise list of my strategy. They are not as per the sequence given in the syllabus but as per I did them in my journey :-

1) Circuit Theory :- Basics were more or less clear from college. But after analysing the previous year questions, I went through youtube lectures from Gatematic and GateAcademy ( especially for topics like Graph theory). I made short notes on concepts like resonance, 2 port networks, dynamic response etc. 

2) Signals & Systems and Analog Communication:- Here also made short notes from basic concepts learnt in college. Made charts on fourier, laplace , z transform techniques etc. I advise aspirants to do lots of practice from previous year papers for this section. Also took help of BP Lathi book for AnaComm and some Nptel lectures and random websites ( I cannot recall the names , since I visited many of them, took down important points and closed it)  for parts like Noise Analysis, Probability etc.  Usually the questions are asked of similar nature ( ex. PLL technique for FM , Noise in DSB AM etc.) . I had taken some electives like Analog Communication, Data Communication in college completely out of interest ...I did not know about upsc then :P . For core EE students, this part might be a bit difficult and may require multiple rounds of revision. 

3) Machines :- I had a more or less good grasp on this due to classes in IIT kgp. The lectures can also be found at Nptel ( Electrical Machines by Prof. TK Bhattacharya). For left over topics like those on DC Machines , I referred to youtube vidoes ( many channels) and made consolidated notes after understanding.

4) Power Electronics :- This is one of the most conceptually challenging and enriching topics. I had learnt the basic concepts in college from lectures and books like PS Bimbra, Ned Mohan , but I could grasp it only after layers of analysis. It is advised to draw the waveforms ( esp. those on 3 phase converters) and do your own analysis for the average , rms , efficiency calculations etc. Did not make notes as such but practised questions.

5) Power System and power system protection :- Referred selectively to books like Nagrath Kothari , Glover Sarma for mostly solved examples on conventional topics like Power flow, Fault analysis, Economic dispatch , equal area criterion etc. For the protection part, it was not formally covered in college..so learnt basic concepts on relays , circuit breakers from youtube channels like Smile& Learn. I learnt the theory parts ( numerical relays, solid state relays etc 0) from a solution book by Made easy , mostly after prelims. This area also requires dealing with theory, schematics and common techniques ( like problems on Mho relay, Current transformers etc) . So we need to be a bit patient here. 

6) Controls :- This was almost fully covered in college but there were some topics ( ex on signal flow graphs) which I had to do from youtube videos. This is a very scoring area and presentation matters a lot. Example, any question on root locus, Nyquist area needs to solved in steps clearly. So one can refer to books like Ogata for solved examples ( though I did not refer to any book). Out of the 6 topics in Paper 2 , Controls can be the most prominent topic in terms of scoring. So advisable to practise a lot.

7) Analog Electronics :- I did not refer to any book , but had notes of my college lectures on topics like diode, bjt, mosfet, opamps , filters , frequency response etc. For  rest of the topics like oscillators,  jfet , multivibrators etc I watched lectures from Youtube channels like All about Electronics , Neso academy . This is a lengthy area but solving previous year questions can make things easy. 

8) Digital Electronics :- Revised the basics from college course and Morris Mano. Here I think it is very important to analyse trends of previous year papers to get hold of important topics like on PAL, PLA, FPGA , questions on converting on flip flop to the other, counters , Boolean functions etc. 

9) EM theory :- This topic was not known to me by college courses. I relied on Nptel lectures of Prof. RK Shevgaonkar and made notes . But the problems in this section could be mastered only after multiple rounds of practice and retaining (  mean inter relating Maxwell equations, smith charts, transmission lines etc.)

10) Digital Communication :- This area is also generally not known for core EE students. For me also this was unknown. Again I referred to a nptel lecture and youtube videos ( from random channels) to get the concepts and made rough notes. . Most importantly I learnt the general type of questions asked from this block ( sampling rate, baud rate,fdm, waveforms in bpsk, qpsk etc. )

11) Microprocessors :-  Though  I knew the basics of Assembly language coding from courses in college, here I had to focus specifically on 8085 . So Ramesh Gaonkar pdf was the source. I made short notes on the architecture, instruction set, interrupt control etc. For peripheral devices , I understood the interfacing etc from youtube videos in tutorials point . Went through the 8285 ppi , 8086 etc from pdfs available in websites . This section is actually scoring especially if you practice the coding problems

12) Measurements, Instrumentations :- Had an idea about the topics here from 2 courses in college. But did not get time to revise. So noted down important question trends from previous year and had a very half baked preparation for this. 

Afternote and Tips 

1)Along with the above mentioned sources , my main source was the previous year papers. I used to solve them and learn from them parallely ( not like doing theory now and practising later.) . Infact , in the post prelims stage, this was my main area of focus

2) You will also notice that I did not refer to standard books much . This was due to time constraints from my job and covering GS subjects. However if I would have to give a second attempt, I would refer to those books and their solved examples. Ironically I had started with Ashfaq Hussain ( Machines), Badriram ( Power system protection) and CL Wadhwa( Power systems) ,Sadiku ( Em theory) in the lockdown period before the results came out. 

3) Speaking about my actual experience of giving the exam, I would say it was not satisfactory at all. This was due to the fact that I had not done enough practise from exam point of view ( sitting for 3 hours , choosing 5 questions among 8 etc). I had not strategized enough on the time management. Moreover I had not given any mock tests ( again I found them expensive and inconvenient ) and also could not give time for the previous year ESE questions. This was a mistake I would not commit in my next attempt ( I already started solving gate and ese questions in the lockdown). 

 My final tips would be that the final game depends on how well you write and show your solutions on paper. So practising in a time bound manner becomes very important.  

Disclaimer :- The sources and strategy enlisted here was completely fine tuned with my situations ( work constraints, prior knowledge etc) . I would request the readers not to emulate them but take the best of whatever they can.