In UPSC-CSE, ethics is one of the essential subjects for scoring higher marks in General Studies Paper IV of the Mains exams.

Civil servants say that in subjects like ethics, one has to look beyond bookish knowledge. We have curated a few useful tips that 2018-batch IPS officer Tushar Gupta shared on Quora.

“I have heard many people say that preparation in ethics paper is not required. This is not at all correct,” he wrote, adding that ethics is a “very simple paper” but requires a different approach.

He further advised aspirants to read D.K. Balaji's articles on ‘insights’ to gain a deeper understanding of the type of answers and personality the UPSC seeks in candidates.

“First, print the ethics syllabus and then cover it from a source (preferably coaching printouts), which has the least amount of material, 50-100 pages total,” he noted.

He also suggested referring to Mrunal notes by Kavan Limbasiya (AIR 198, CSE 2014) to better understand concepts. “Create your own notes after reading the sources,” he advised.

“Do not read the Lexicon the very first time if you don’t have any idea of the subject. It is not a good book to understand concepts but is a very good book to supplement notes. This would make your theory answers pretty good,” wrote the officer.

“Make examples for all the values in civil services like integrity, accountability, transparency, etc, preferably from your personal experiences,” he stated.

“In case you are unable to find a personal experience, then create a good short incident or use a currently occurring event. Balaji sir’s article explains it beautifully,” he noted.

Tushar also advised making a table of the most important values and filling in as many as the aspirants can.

“Create quotes for all the important topics, so that you can put them in your answers. Collect them over time,” the officer wrote.

In ethics, the most important stage thereafter is answer writing. “Write answers such that they are able to reflect your personality with the required terminology. Don’t mug up coaching notes. Make your own definitions and try to keep your answer original,” he opined.

“For case studies, I had solved Subba Rao’s book on ethics. It has a lot of case studies given in it, and it helps you form a general idea on solving them,” he added.

In the end, the IPS officer Tushar recommended solving test series to get in the habit of completing the paper as that is the most important point to be kept in mind.