UPSC Result 2020 was declared in September 2021 and IAS Topper Divyanshu Choudhary with All India Rank 30 cracked the civil services exam on the second attempt. Such IAS success stories like Divyanshu’s can be inspirational for many candidates who want to join administrative services.
IAS Topper Divyanshu Choudhary Biography
Divyanshu belongs to Jaipur in Rajasthan. He completed his schooling in Jaipur. After high school, he earned a B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics, followed by an MBA from IIM (IIM), Calcutta, and then joined a bank. After 1 year of work he decided to appear for UPSC exams for which he came to Delhi for preparation.
UPSC 2020 was Divyanshu Choudhary’s 2nd attempt to crack the exam. In terms of education, he completed his BTech from BITS Pilani and then his Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from IIM, Kolkata.
- Mathematics (Scored 285 out of 500 in his optional paper in 2020)
- He worked at HSBC Bank for a year but later resigned to pursue his dream of clearing the civil services exam.
- Play sports, and write Hindi stories, and I am also very interested in Indian mythology.
- Several of his stories were also published in regional newspapers.
- The total score for the main games was 1006 and secured 206 points in the personality test.
UPSC Topper Divyanshu Choudhary Preparation Strategy
Divyanshu usually spent 6 to 7 hours a day preparing, of which 60% was devoted to an optional subject (Mathematics). This time automatically varied between 8 and 9 hours during exam days.
The main emphasis was on reading the newspaper diligently and he spent 2 hours carefully going through every corner of the newspaper. The Times of India and The Hindu are the two newspapers he read for IAS preparation.
He also limited his resources and did not study from multiple books. Divyanshu made solving mock tests a habit and attempted more than 50 practice tests for the prelims. Another tip he suggested to score more points in the objective paper is to use the strategy of elimination.
Talking about the change in strategy from the first to the second attempt, Divyanshu believes he has learned from his mistakes and changed his preparation plan. He began to study the same subject objectively for the preludes and subjectively for the main, by preparing proper notes.
IAS Topper Divyanshu Choudhary UPSC Topper 2020 kept his preparation strategy very simple and did not push too much during the preparation and tried to keep as calm as possible. Support from his family and self-motivation are what kept him going.
Divyanshu’s advice to other aspirants
Divyanshu believes that you have to work hard while preparing for UPSC. He says that the optional subject should be chosen carefully. You can use the material available on the Internet for preparation. According to Divyanshu, maximum revision and writing practice are very important for successfully cracking the UPSC exams.