General Studies papers
(I to IV) constitute 1000 Marks in the UPSC Civil Service Mains Examination, each
paper carrying 250 marks. In today’s issue, we are going to discuss the Paper 1
of the examination. To understand what is required to be studies, we shall have
to analyse the Syllabus first.
The Syllabus of the General Studies I
Paper of the Civil Services Mains Examination is being given below as it is
from the Exam Notification for reference.
Indian Heritage and Culture, History and Geography of the
World and Society:
·
Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms,
Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.
·
Modern Indian history from about the middle of the
eighteenth century until the present significant events, personalities, issues.
·
The Freedom Struggle - its various stages and important
contributors or contributions from different parts of the country.
·
Post-independence consolidation and reorganization within
the country.
·
History of the world will include events from 18th century
such as industrial revolution, world wars, redrawal of national boundaries,
colonization, decolonization, political philosophies like communism,
capitalism, socialism etc. - their forms and effect on the society.
·
Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India.
·
Role of women and women's organization, population and
associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their
problems and their remedies.
·
Effects of globalization on Indian society.
·
Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism &
secularism.
·
Salient features of world's physical geography.
·
Distribution of key natural resources across the world
(including South Asia and the Indian subcontinent); factors responsible for the
location of primary, secondary, and tertiary sector industries in various parts
of the world (including India).
·
Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes,
Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone etc., geographical features and their
location - changes in critical geographical features (including waterbodies and
ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.
Though the Syllabus
looks immensely vast, if we take a look at the syllabus above closely, we can
see that the Paper 1 primarily consists of Art and Culture, History of India’s
Independence Struggle, Post-Independence Indian History, World History,
Sociology and Geography. After dividing the Syllabus into the topics mentioned
above, we can now limit our study of the said topics to a few study materials
and reference and textbooks.
Art and Culture – If one has
followed his old high school books on Social Studies well enough, this topic
would be an easy walk. For a text, Spectrum’s
Art and Culture is a nice book to follow. I had studied this book
intensively. Like any other topic in General Studies, one also has to follow
contemporary issues in Art and Culture. UPSC asks things which are relevant and
have some contemporary weightage. While reading a newspaper, one has to keep an
eye on.
History of India’s
Independence Struggle – NCERT books
are good for the pre-1857 part and Spectrum’s
A Brief History of Modern India is a good book for 1857 and beyond. Most of
the questions do not ask one to go into the very depth of history but require
to be analytical keeping in mind the various issues relevant to that period.
Many successful aspirant recommend Shekhar
Bandopadhyay’s From Plassey to Partition. In addition to the above, I had
read Bipan Chandra’s India’s Struggle
for Independence, which also is a very good book.
Post- Independence
History – NCERT‘s Politics in
India Since Independence is a brilliant book which gives everything one
needs to know clearly and concisely. Also again, the personalities are given in
boxes in the book which helps a lot in revising and also memorizing. In
addition to the NECRT book, if one needs some additional material, one can
refer Bipan Chandra’s India since Independence,
which is a good book nevertheless, but it is more of a research book than a
reference. Hence, one can have a casual read only if one is interested.
World History – Old NCERT books of
Standard 9-12 on history are the best books for World History. These are the
books which were there before 2000. They are more than enough for World Histroy.
However, they are difficult to find now in physical form but can be downloaded
from this link: http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/ncert-books-old
Sociology – A general understanding
of Indian Society is required to answer questions relating to sociology. I
believe for this part, a continuous read of the newspapers would benefit a lot.
Though there no specific textbooks, magazines like Yojana and Frontline delve a lot on the current problems facing the
society and how the Government is talking them. The aspirant should not always
be critical of what Government is doing. The intention of the Government is
always correct and hence, the policy decisions are required to be evaluated on
merit and not histrionics. India generally succeeds less on the execution part.
Geography – The basic and the
most important books for Geography are the NCERT books for the Standard 11 and
12. One has to compulsorily study these textbooks. Mrunal.org has got a very
nice collection of articles and materials for the Geography part of the GS
Paper 1 and YouTube has some brilliant videos on the basic topics.
As we all know, these
days UPSC has made the GS paper very challenging. It has become dynamic and
more opinion based. Students need to do an extensive coverage of current
affairs and also, they can’t neglect the conventional aspect. Therefore, newspaper
reading is crucial given the current trend.
One must always try
and make one’s own hand-written notes. While reading newspapers one should observe
the following- abbreviations, new terms, organisations, quotes and examples, which
can be used elsewhere, etc. Reading newspapers carefully and corresponding note
writing is very effective for retention and one is also able to revise very
quickly.
One should read the
editorials carefully and try and understand the main points. After reading, one
should write a summary of the editorial in a designated notebook. This would help
one build one’s own opinion and also quick revision later. I used to have a separate
notebook for all Papers and used to have separate pages for separate topics.
For example, in my notebook for GS Paper 1, I used to have a few pages for
let’s say “Poverty and Developmental Issues” from the syllabus and there I used
to note down important points from Editorials from newspapers one by one. I
used to keep empty space below for more points to be added later from future
editorials. In a year’s time I had 3-4 pages of good points on “Poverty and
Developmental Issues” which were helpful for me for the GS Paper 1 as well as
for the Essay paper.
Concluding today’s
article, I would like to inform that NECRT books which are relevant to GS Paper
1 are available for download in this link: http://www.civilsdaily.com/ncert-books-free-download/
Aspirants can download them and read intensively.
(With help from various topper’s blogs)
Preparing for the UPSC Civil Services Examination - Mains - G.S. Paper 3 by Satyakam Dutta - Part 4
Preparing for the UPSC Civil Services Examination - Mains - G.S. Paper 4 by Satyakam Dutta - Part 5
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