Mainak Ghosh: Facts to Know about the UPSC Topper from West Bengal

Mainak Ghosh is one of the top 50 ranked students from the civil services examination of the 2018 batch. He had a rank of 31 throughout India. Mainak Ghosh managed to clear the UPSC exam in his 5th attempt. This article serves as Mainak Ghosh’s biography.

Mainak Ghosh Biography

Mainak Ghosh is the assistant commissioner at the income tax department of Calcutta. He had 5 attempts at the UPSC exam and had cleared once already. In his first cleared attempt he did not score high and ended up joining the Indian Revenue Service. He tried again to get a higher rank and finally made it into the IAS.

Mainak came from a middle class family in Kolkata and studied from Hindu School in his hometown. He had graduated with a degree in Zoology and also did a masters in the same field. He later took up research work Indian Institute of Chemical Biology.

He took the National Eligibility Test and started to work as an assistant professor at Sarojini Naidu College for Women in Kolkata.

Mainak Ghosh Marksheet

Now getting the 31st rank among millions of writers is not easy so let’s look at Mainak Ghosh’s marksheet for the UPSC exam.

Event	Marks
Mains exam	888
Interview round	160
Total	1048

Strategy

Prepare current affairs for the past 12 months for your exams. Cover the current affairs for every subject and this will help you to cover topics from every subject and also will help you to revise better.

Use Laxmikant for polity and ensure you keep revising this book, as you can expect at least 15 questions based on polity every year. Try to revise polity just before entering the exam hall.

Try to write sample GS papers twice or thrice a week and ensure you go through the solutions in detail. This will help to overcome any of your weak spots and can improve your score drastically.

CSAT

According to Mainak a lot of people do not give importance to the CSAT paper while preparing. Ensure that you do not go down the same path but rather give CSAT good importance. You cannot qualify for the second round if you do not do well in the preliminary round.

Keep practicing the numerical part, the level is not very tough for the numerical but no practice will make it very hard. Keep trying to take tests for CSAT once or twice a week and check the solutions properly.

Answering Questions

Students generally try to lengthen their answers by writing unnecessary information. This is not good. It is better to get directly to the point of the question and answer what is exactly required in the exam. This will lead to scoring better and will also impress the evaluator.

Do not over answer if you are not sure about answers. Filling the paper completely is not a requirement for the exam. Candidates can leave the questions they do not have a clue about because if it is written wrong, you will be negatively marked. This is very common among young aged aspirants.

Also Read: IAS Shivani Goyal Biography: Check-out UPSC Preparation Strategy of IAS Rank 15

Create Notes

Notes for your exam are going to be very helpful. Every topper will suggest you the same thing. Creating notes is a necessity for the exam no matter what your goal is.

If you wish to get higher marks, you will need to ensure that you are making notes regularly and with discipline. Writing notes does not equate to scribbling on a notepad. You can also create notes online if you wish to. This is a choice that should be completely personal.

Make sure you maintain notes even for your optional subject!

Conclusion

Mainak Ghosh was an IRS officer who later wrote the exam again and became an IAS aspirant. He achieved an all India rank of 31 in his fifth attempt for the exam.

Mainak is a resident of Kolkata and had been serving as a civil servant from his hometown itself. Use this article to know more about him and receive some tips from the UPSC topper!

Also Read: IAS Level Questions: Have a Look at some IAS Level IQ Questions