What Not To Study For UPSC Prelims Exam

For every IAS/UPSC aspirant the most critical decision is to decide what to study , what to memorise and what can be simply left.

General Studies has no beginning and no end ,but it does have a core area which must be covered and a fringe area which can be covered depending on the time and inclination of the individual.

Core area in GS would include - Current Affairs, Polity, Modern Indian History (since 1857),Geography(essentially map based ,locations are frequently asked) General Mental Ability.These are essentially areas from where questions are most likely to feature in prelims and hence should be first priority.

Fringe areas that should be covered (but in comparatively less time) are General Knowledge, General science(especially biology part), Ancient and medieval history(selective), Economics(very rarely questions are asked,focus on current issues) etc.These areas will figure in exam but the number of questions that would be asked are highly variable.So aspirants should be careful as to how much time they allot to fringe areas and it should be in no case more than the time alloted for core areas.

To illustrate my point, this year (2008 UPSC Prelims) contained lot of questions that are essentially General Knowledge.Now many people might be tempted to go through voluminous books to know everything and will end up remembering nothing .GK cannot be built overnight, it takes time. So those who are not comfortable with GK should not try to mug up each and everything. Rather a more realistic approach would be to target those areas of GK from where questions are most likely. For example knowing inventors of major inventions like plane,submarine,TV etc can be more fruitful than trying to mug up everything not remembering anything when it matters.

I would take the example of History to make my point clear about knowing what not to study. History for non-history background students is tough nut to crack but little bit of smart work can make history a strong area in prelims. I read only class-8 and class-9 NCERT text books for History in my first attempt and was able to answer almost all the history questions while many friends who relied solely on coaching notes were not able to do so. If you are running short of time and don’t have much idea about history then reading the class8-9 history would be much more fruitful than wading through a Bipin Chandra history book.

I would be taking all sections of GS in separate posts and suggesting suitable reading material as well as sharing my way of preparing those areas. And a little bit of information that may be handy for Prelims 2009 in each section. This is to help and guide you in your preparation and should not be the whole of your preparation.

Here are a few points of Understanding The Nature of The UPSC Prelims Examination. Please read all, if you find interesting and helpful to you, respond to it by adding comments.

1. The exam is of objective type, so the emphasis is more on being able to recognize the answer and not recalling it verbatim.

2. The key to clearing prelims is being really good with your Optional subject and an above average score in GS.For example, I had psychology as my optional and having no background in the subject I had to focus much more on psychology than GS to get comfortable with the subject.

3. Eliminating wrong choices is as important as knowing the correct answer.With every elimination of a wrong option your chance of hitting the right answer increases exponentially.

4. Testing yourself on UPSC question papers of previous years will build your confidence as well as allow you to revise the subject. This should be done once you are comfortable with the subject sometimes around March.

5. Keeping cool in pressure situation is critical to success. Everyone gets anxious before exam but good preparation will help you to keep your nerves under control.

6. You are not required to answer all the questions, but you should not miss out on easy questions and should also be able to answer few difficult questions which a large majority would not answer correctly.This would give you the edge.