Social media is aghast at the Union Public Service Commission for asking questions that, allegedly, even they themselves do not know the answers to. ¹

The Commission — which has a long history of being unpredictable ² — asked questions that would put even the best-prepared candidates on their toes.

The unfamiliarity of the paper was out of the ordinary. The outrage was natural.

But what was perhaps stranger than the paper itself was the emergence of three trends that, at least to me, felt unprecedented:

• First reaction videos immediately after the GS Prelims paper
• Instagram faculty demanding the resignation of the UPSC Chairperson
• Calls for students to protest and demand a re-exam

This is what flooded social media.

The scale of it all was so massive that the only thing missing was a formal fatwa against the Hon’ble Chairperson.

And then something worse followed.

This time, it wasn’t random outrage from aspirants. It came from some of the very people many of us love, admire, and even adulate.

Source / Image Credits: BookStawa

The Sibling Test of Good Advice

I often use what I call the Sibling Test of Good Advice to judge whether any advice, input, or proposition being offered is genuinely sincere.

I also use it to test myself — whether the advice I am giving is sibling advice or merely consumer advice.

Here is the difference.

You may dislike the service at a restaurant and casually leave it a one-star review. But when your own family visits Delhi, you still take them to that same restaurant because, deep down, you know it is reliable.

Advice works the same way.

The question is simple:

The things people say on YouTube and social media — would they say the same thing to their own sibling?

Because I have often seen toppers and teachers publicly decry an institute or institution, only to quietly recommend the same thing to their own family.³

And that tells you something important.

There is often a gap between performative advice and personal advice.

One is designed for an audience.

The other is reserved for people one genuinely cares about.

So What Should You Do?

The next time an educator tells you that the paper was challenging⁴ (the agreeable part) and then asks you to spend hours consuming reaction content, blame the examiner, demand resignations, or join outrage campaigns, pause and ask one simple question:

Would this person give the exact same advice to their own sibling or family member?

Because if the answer is no, then perhaps the advice was never meant to help you in the first place.

1. They have dropped a question from the Prelims 2026 evaluation because they could not answer a question they themselves framed. Click here.[↩]
2. the “U” in UPSC is often jokingly expanded as “Unpredictable” Public Service Commission[↩]
3. A popular teacher whom I personally studied under made videos telling people not to come to Delhi for preparation — but sent his own nephew to ForumIAS for Mains preparation in offline mode.[↩]
4. In any competitive examination, the recruiter has all rights to set the paper they want, since there is no passing marks, but only choosing top performers, it is only fair – because the cut off falls to adjust for the randomness[↩]

The Prelims 2026 paper got over.

About 72 hours ago.

And this year, I have countless calls.

After many years.

But the worst ones are from people who have given so many attempts at Civils -- that they have more to look back to than to look ahead to.

In fact, as I transition from 30s to 40s, I feel UPSC preparation becomes much like life itself.¹

This year is particularly difficult for selected candidates – who have gotten a rank somehow — but not the service of choice.

( With recent guidelines, selected candidates ( except IAS, IPS, IFS ) can only take one attempt. )

Here are a few reflections on Prelims 2026.

#1 The Paper was lengthy. Lengthy= tough

The easiest way to make a paper tough is to make it lengthy. Lengthy under non-exam/ home conditions is very different from lengthy under exam pressure. In 46 degrees of heat. In a dilapidated government school. With hot winds blowing through the window next to your desk.

#2 CSAT was equally tough

No matter what people say and score , the CSAT paper was no less tricky. People clearing CSAT for 2 attempts have also fallen ²

#3 The Cut off is likely to fall like the rupee ³

When some people ⁴ called me incessantly for the cut off, I called Anshuman. He was the Rank #1 of SFG and Simulators in 2025. When the cut off went as low as 92 in CSP 2025, our Prelims topper would score 30+ marks above the cut-off!⁵

I just wanted to know what the ceiling was. So when Anshuman said –

I am scoring 110 as per provisional official answer key

I was relieved. The cut off should fall to at max CSE 2023 cut-off levels, and maybe even lower. ⁶

I have been running ForumIAS Community for 14 years, and while everyone including *India Bhai* and Vinay at Insights made cut-off predictions — and often got it right, I never did. Not in the past 14 years.

So I asked Anshuman, what the cut off would be – he said 75+/-5 ⁷

Until next time

❤️

Neyawn

1. Getting old in life is also much life getting old in UPSC preparation -- the scariest part is when you have more attempts ( and life ) behind you than ahead of you.[↩]
2. The CSAT fiasco can also help lower the GS cut off, I am told [↩]
3. self censored, no state pressure[↩]
4. one Raj, an old student and a bright kid who cleared the exam in very first attempt, but is yet to get IAS [↩]
5. Anshuman has secured Rank 2 in IFoS this year – so that is his credentials, if you are seeking one [↩]
6. There are other top performers too who have gotten 110+ but no one has exceeded 112 so far[↩]
7. I believe him, given that top scorers this year in my Universe have scored not more than 110-111, and ever year they would score like 120-140 when cut off would be in 90s [↩]

May the Gods in the heavens above shower their choicest blessings!

May you remember everything you have ever studied – correctly.

And last and not the least, may you be blessed with the highest degree of common sense during solving the paper.