The study desk
UPSC Today is a Topic Packet desk. Open one topic, work the layers, save what you want to keep.
- Today — the current edition, ranked by study priority.
- Catch up — the last seven days in one merged stack.
- Topics — the same packets, filtered by GS paper, theme, or source.
- Revision — notes you saved from this browser.
- Sources — the official feed behind the packets.
Topic Packets
Each packet has five layers:
- Issue — what happened, in one line.
- Mechanism — the rule, institution, or process underneath.
- Why it matters — the exam angle, not the news angle.
- Prelims Vault — facts and traps for objective questions.
- Mains Kit — a 10-mark and 15-mark prompt, plus a short answer frame.
PYQ links sit under the packet when a past-paper match exists. They are a bridge, not a prediction.
Study priority
Packets are ranked for study time, not as an exam forecast. The band is on the card:
- Must Know — start here.
- Useful — worth a pass after Must Know.
- Background — keep if the theme is already in your notes.
- Skip — leave unless you need the source later. Sources never drop these items; they just leave the study stack.
The score uses syllabus fit, primary source, PYQ overlap, recurrence, depth, and recency. It is an editorial ranking.
Pattern Atlas
Pattern Atlas is the trigger layer: reconstruct the institution, the test, and one trap, then check recall.
Open a card, hide the answer, say the trigger out loud, then reveal. Secure / Weak is your own mark. Due items follow 1 / 3 / 7 / 21 / 60 days.
Recurrence on a card is an editorial estimate from PYQ clusters, not a live count from UPSC.
Practice
Revision
Add to revision from a packet or from Atlas. Notes live in this browser only — there is no account and nothing is uploaded.
The desk does not invent notes. If a day has no exam write-up yet, the packet stays on the official source until that write-up exists.
LOCK and Skip
LOCK keeps the desk on official sources. Skip hides low-priority items from Today; they remain on Sources.