Adapa Karthik, who topped this year's civil services examination, had an 'incomparable determination' to get selected for the service and has even foregone the Harvard research scholarship for this purpose, his teacher and coach P S Raveendran said on Saturday.

"His determination is incomparable. He is very hardworking and in fact opted to do away with a Harvard University scholarship for research to take up civil services exam. I am happy and satisfied with Karthik coming out on top in the civil services exam," Raveendran said.

He said Karthik was very determined to get into the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) list though he got selected twice for the Indian Police Service (IPS).

Raveendran said that a student who wished to take up civil services examination should work for nearly 10 hours a day for two years and select an optional subject of his liking at the graduate level itself.

"The UPSC board is not interested in the academic background of the candidate. What matters is how the candidate performs in the exam and the interview," he said adding in the recent past, many students from the medical and engineering streams were getting into the civil services.