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Basics of GS preparation

In Uncategorized on May 30, 2012 at 03:25The following are some points that may be useful for GS preparation in general. A more detailed unit wise strategy will be uploaded inanother post.

As we all know, these days UPSC has made the GS paper very very challenging. It has become dynamic and more opinion based.Students need to do an extensive coverage of current affairs and they can’t neglect the conventional aspect.

It is important to know the difference between a generalist and a specialist. A generalist is a person who knows “less and less of moreand more”, while a specialist is a person who knows “more and more of less and less”. The Civils Exam in the GS paper is testing theGeneralist approach.

One point that I would like to emphasize upon is how to use YOUR coaching class in your preparation. Please understand this verycarefully that given the current trend of GS paper, everything cannot be served on a pla*er. The student will have to make a lot of effortfrom his side apart from a*ending the classes and memorizing the class notes. The coaching will certainly help you in many ways:

Gives you an approach to the subject. When you see the kind of questions being asked in Test Series and you try and pin-point fromwhere they were asked, you understand what all to read in newspapers and magazines from exam point of view. You understandhow to study GS.It strengthens your fundamentals. The conventional part of GS is more or less static and you can pick that up at a faster pace with

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coaching classes.It highlights issues of current importance. This way it does cover a lot of portion of current affairs too. But the students will still haveto cover a lot on their own.You will certainly be able to move at a faster pace with the coaching class.Finally you can easily clarify your doubts with the faculty members in the class.

Some points from my personal experience in GS:

Study your class notes and Yellow Books multiple times. The current affairs material that would now be given for the Main Exam isespecially very good and should be studied carefully.NCERT books for classes XI and XII (History, Geography, Polity, Economics, Sociology and World Politics). Try to a*empt questionsgiven at back.You can refer to DD Basu, Economic Survey, India Year Book (especially important for Mains exam these days), Economy issue of PD,Atlas and Manorama Year Book.Newspaper reading is crucial given the current trend. You must try and make your own hand-wri*en notes. While readingnewspapers observe the following- abbreviations; new terms; organisations; quotes and examples, which can be used elsewhere; etc.It is very effective for retention and you are able to revise very quickly. Read the editorials carefully and try and understand the mainpoints. After reading, write a summary of the editorial in your notebook. This would help you build your own opinion.You can read selective articles from Frontline and Yojana. If you want to, then you may also look at some competitive magazine.Internet can prove very useful especially for Science and Tech.You may join a Test Series to practice writing and organizing answers. Also in test series, you learn to control your nervousness whenfaced with questions that you do not know.For India and the World- Understand the core issues between India and various nations. The external relations can be structured intopolitical, economic, defence, cultural, S&T, etc. so prepare in these dimensions.

Answer writing in the Exam

You must form original opinions on ma*ers of current interest around you. Try and organize your answer in such a way that itappeals to the examiner.You can use an intelligent mixture of paras and points in your answers.You can make intelligent guesses to answers of questions you don’t know but do this in the end.When direct questions come from conventional areas, you MUST a*empt them very well since such questions would be a*emptedwell by many other candidates. You cannot afford to lose unnecessary marks in this area. For instance, even though less questionsmay be asked from History recently, that doesn’t mean you can now ignore History. In fact that means, you now need to be all themore careful because if any direct question comes, you should be able to answer it correctly.For current affairs, apart from current events in national and international sphere, focus on Govt. Policy decisions. Try andunderstand the rationale behind the decisions. You must know both the positives and negatives of each action of government.For Paper-II, international affairs questions, it is useful if you first give some historical aspect of the relations between the nations andthen talk about the current aspect. You can cover this area well from the Yellow Book.


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Please remember that analysis of issues rather than mere memorization of facts is becoming more and more important and that iswhat the examiner is looking for. Even if the question is factual, it is always a good idea to give some analysis along with it.

Effort from your side

Earlier, I talked about the need to make a lot of effort from your side. By that I mean, you must not only have a mastery over the classnotes, but you must always be open to new information from other sources. You cannot rely only on material given in the class.You must also try and visit the websites of ministries, spend a li*le time on the Internet surfing for information of interest, read somenews magazines and try and read at least the editorials from one other newspaper apart from The Hindu.Newspaper Reading- This is very important.

In the end I just want to say, that for GS especially, do not judge your coaching class by the fact as to how many questions in the exam finallycame from your class discussions. Instead, you must judge the class based on whether it taught you how to approach and handle the GSsubject. Even though, the class will steer you in the right direction, the hard-work has to be yours.

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