As someone working in the Indian Corporate Law Services and not been able to make IAS, I can tell you that yes it is mostly rote learning and partly logic application. Obviously someone who is dumb but can otherwise memorise an entire book will not be able to clear the exam.
For eg I cleared CLAT in my first attempt. Along with UPSC I cleared CAT with 98 percentile. I chose civil services for my personal reasons, but could have been in an IIM. So I assume that I am an otherwise a smart candidate, with great GK, presence of mind, logical and mathematical aptitude. The only thing that prevented me from becoming IAS was that I could not capture large chunks of information in my head. My answers would not have data that someone like Tina Dabi could throw away at the drop of a hat. I failed to clear prelims on two occasions again because of the same thing. Had it been a test of just aptitude or logic I would have cleared it. But it is more than that. May be rightly so.
Because an UPSC aspirant should not even be thinking about this. If it doesn't work out, good things will happen. But UPSC is way more difficult than all of this. May the force be with you.
Can an UPSC aspirant (no internship, no moot, no research paper, poor academic record but extremely good in constitutional law, criminal law, law of torts, law of contracts, international law because of law optional and other subjects required for UPSC) in his fifth year get into any law firm? If yes, how?
For eg I cleared CLAT in my first attempt. Along with UPSC I cleared CAT with 98 percentile. I chose civil services for my personal reasons, but could have been in an IIM. So I assume that I am an otherwise a smart candidate, with great GK, presence of mind, logical and mathematical aptitude. The only thing that prevented me from becoming IAS was that I could not capture large chunks of information in my head. My answers would not have data that someone like Tina Dabi could throw away at the drop of a hat. I failed to clear prelims on two occasions again because of the same thing. Had it been a test of just aptitude or logic I would have cleared it. But it is more than that. May be rightly so.
` R
~ R