Dear Aspirants of Civil Services Examination,    Here I Would like to share some important key points for the Civil Services    Examination-        The Schedule of this Exam is -First you have to give the Prelims exam in the      month of of May then the Main exam in the month of October/November and      the Intreview in the month of March /April .      Generally Students prepare there exam with Prelims but the right way to start      is from Main Examination ,means first you have to go with main Examination      preparation and than the Prelims because -Main examination is Subjective       so it  easily covers the preparation for Objective.      For example if you are preparing for the year 2009 ,you have to start the      preparation of main  from the month of JUNE 2008  TO SEPTEMBER 2008 in        this period your Traditional topics should be completed . Then from the month of OCTOBER 08 TO DECEMBER 08 You need to prepare for the Common Syllabus of Prelims and Main,in this way nearly 60./. of preparation for Prelims is done  because you have prepared  subjective first by which your objective is completely prepared Now only 40./. of your preparation is left  for objective question  which can be done from JAN 09 TO APRIL 09. After prelims you have to work over Ans. Format only   Wishing you the best, Paradigm IAS Academy Mumbai & Pune