A big myth - Writing skills a mandatory requirement for clearing UPSC exams
There has been a belief that one has to have very good writing skills so as to clear UPSC exams. Many coaching institutes are leveraging on this rumor since it is easy money for them. They conduct test series and try to lend help by giving 'feedback' on the answers that one writes. However, I believe strongly that rather than writing skills, knowledge is imperative for success in the UPSC exams i.e. One should know first what to write rather than knowing how to write. No flowery language is desired by the UPSC, except otherwise your optional is English literature. One just needs to express whatever one knows in a manner that if one reads your answer, he is able to assimilate what you wish to say.
So, the question comes, “What should be a good style to write the answers?”, “Should I underline the important points?”, “Should I write in paragraphs or in bullets or number the points?”, “Is handwriting important?”. I think all these questions and many more are logical questions in any person looking for clearing this exam. But, the point that I wish to make here is that “It doesn't matter as long as you've written what you wished and explained it well”. There is no need of a specialized training on how to write answers. Everybody has its own style and you should follow that.
The only guideline that I wish to give you is that before answering any question, think for a couple of minutes and jot down on the last page (you can use it as a rough page) the key points that you wish to cover in the answer i.e. Try and give a structure to your answer. I can illustrate this by an example. Suppose the question is ''Elaborate the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in light of India-Pakistan relations?”. When you read this question, you've some idea of what is expected. Now, you try to think of whatever you know about the J&K problem. Just jot the points on the rough page (you may recollect something about the history of the problem, Raja Hari Singh's gesture to India for protecting J&K, some dates you might recollect e.g. The 1948 war, 1965 war, 1999 Kargil war, peace agreements like Tashkent Agreement, Shimla Agreement, Gen Mussharaff's visit to India, UN view on J&K, what India wants, what Pakistan wants, what US wants, what the international community wants, what the people of J&K wants, current problems in J&K, the social angle, possible solutions, conclusion). Now that you've written whatever you know about the J&K issue, try and put these points in order keeping in mind chronology as well as continuity e.g. Before discussing the history of the problem, there is no point in discussing what India wants and what Pakistan wants. Also, one needs to enumerate what India wants and what Pakistan wants before writing about what the US/UN/the international community wants. If I had to write the answer, I would have written as:-
a) A short history of the J&K problem – post-independence scenario, Raja Hari Singh, India and Pak involvement, special status given to J&K under the Indian constitution, a brief war, UN intervention in 1948, UN resolution, 1965 war, Tashkent agreeement, Shimla agreement, 1999 war, efforts at reconciliation.
b) current situation of J&K – the problems there, local lives affected, seperatists' movement, Indian army, infiltration, terrorism
c)What India wants – considering LOC as the international border, no chance of mediation, worried about close relations between India and China,
d) What Pak wants – considers it as a freedom struggle, wants the entire J&K, supporting infiltrators, wants a referendum in J&K.
e) What the people of J&K wants – lot of local parties like the Hurriyat, National Conference, PDP, worried about Indian army's wrong doings with general public.
f) What the UN wants – wants the situation to be solved bilaterally, still the UN resolution of 1948 needs to be implemented, doesn't have teeth to implement
g) What the US wants – not very worried, giving aid to Pak to solve its own problem of Afghanistan, good relations with India as well on the economic front.
h) Problems – local life affected adversely, tourism disrupted, huge drain of money on the part of India and Pak who are struggling to wipe out poverty
i) Possible solutions – LOC as an international border, status quo, India gives up, Pak gives up, 'Aman ki asha' – friendly relations between India and Pak, bilateral diplomacy
j) Conclusion – All in all, a very complex issue but it is high time that leaders who have the political will step in to solve this crisis otherwise the people are affected.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Preparing for Geography as an optional for UPSC exam
Geography is a popular optional for UPSC exams particularly because of its objective nature – if you know it, you get the marks unlike other subjects like sociology/political science which seem to be extremely subjective. Geography also has some subjectivity particularly the 'human geography' part but still I feel is a good choice for science & technology graduates. If you liked geography during your school days, I think you should have a look at the syllabus and previous question papers (available on www.civilserviceindia.com) and then decide. Since the syllabus is vast, you need to allocate a considerable amount of time for this subject.
I want to put a disclaimer here that although I took Geography as one of my mains optional, I couldn't do full justice to this subject due to lack of time. I could only read the NCERTs and was not able to read any other standard books like Majid Hussain, Rupa's 'Geography Made Simple' and other suggested references. So, I am a sort of novice to this vast subject and so would advice to take everything I write down with a pinch of salt. Inspite of this, I am writing this article because I managed to pass through the exam studying very little since I focused on the basics. I've not been successful to receive my marksheet for this year's exam although they've been up on the website but it seems that it doesn't consider my e-mail id (vikrampg@gmail.com) a valid e-mail id. So, as and when I get my marksheet, I'll post it on the blog. My roll number is 383943 and my birth date is Dec 15,1986. If you know somebody who has the marksheet or can find out my marks, please let me know.
1. Start with NCERTs: Start with NCERTs (recent – freely available for download from ncert's website or you can do a google search for the same) from Class 6. Underline/highlight and/or keep noting the important points. Pay specific attention to the three NCERTs of Class 11 and 12. These three textbooks are extremely informative and cover almost 50% of the course. I would suggest you to go through these three textbooks twice or thrice and learn the facts therein by heart. When you read other reference books/notes, you should try and assimilate the extra information. For example, the NCERT book will contain the locations of iron and steel industry in the country. Learn these locations and the basic information given in the NCERT (e.g. Durgapur steel plant set up with British support, Bhilai steel plant set up with Russian support). Now, when you read a specific reference or some notes from a coaching institute, try and build on the existing knowledge that you had from the ncert (e.g. What are the turnovers of this industry, which is the biggest steel plant, what grade of steel does India manufacture, what are the problems, how does India compare to the international scene etc.). Thus, other things that you read will help you build up on what you already know from the NCERTs. Essentially, what I am suggesting is that build up your basics and get a broad overview from the NCERTs and then try to deepen your knowledge from reading other things. I am stressing the point over and over again primarily because I think the syllabus is huge and one has to manage it somehow. Thus, cover the breadth first and then the depth.
2. Use internet if you can: Don't leave any portion of the syllabus. Atleast, know the basics. Take the syllabus in your hand and do a google search for any entry that you wish to know about e.g. I did this for the different theories (rank-rule hierarchy, central place theory) and atleast got an idea of what the theory is. Internet will help you also for phsyical geography e.g. The mechanism of monsoons, the different winds, El Nino and La Nina effect. Numerous animations are available. Wikipedia is a wonderful resource. Search about different places in the news or places that you've heard of but you are not sure as to where exactly they are (e.g. Casablanca, Timbaktu, Tashkent, Kyoto, Montreal, Miami).
3. Also, learn to make a rough map of India (world is optional) so that you can quickly make it while answering questions for paper 2. e.g. On the question of location of the iron and steel industry, you can quickly make a rough map and mark the different locations. This will fetch you a lot of marks. A picture is worth a thousand words, really...
4. Map entries: Locating given places on the map or identifying marked places on the map has been the standard question (worth 60 marks) in both Paper 1 and Paper 2. Thus, maps comprise 120 marks out of 600 marks i.e. 20% which is huge by any standards. So, how should we maximize our chances of marking the correct entries on the map. The first obvious thing is references – atlases in this case. The Oxford Atlas is very good particularly in regard to Indian entries while the Orient Longman Atlas is a good choice for the international entries. I studied mostly from the Orient Longman but later also got the Oxford Atlas xeroxed. I'll also suggest you to get some unlabeled maps of India and the world (preferably without any state or country boundaries) so that you can practice on it or put important places on it for later revision or as a reference
1. Make/get a list of important rivers/seas/deserts/mountains of India as well as the world – The idea here is to do it one by one. Get a list of important rivers of the world (from wikipedia or any other resource) and label it on one of your unlabeled map. If the list is very big e.g rivers, you can do it continent by continent otherwise e.g. If you are marking seas, then you can do it once and for all. You'll find that doing this will give you a confidence that “atleast, now I know all the seas of the world.” Moving piece by piece will further boost your confidence. You can follow the same strategy for India.
2. Mark all the countries and their capitals & important cities on the map : This will also help you a lot, you'll know a lot of places. Some of these places are directly asked in the exam.
3. One entry is usually of 6 marks – 3 marks for the entry and 3 marks for its description or 2 marks for the entry and 2 marks for its description (if one entry is worth 4 marks). The point here is that how should we prepare for the description part. I think the answer is not simple. One has to know a lot e.g. About the place where a river rises and where it drains finally or why is a city famous or what are the countries in which a given mountain range is located or some nearby areas; I'll suggest you to prepare yourself atleast for writing one sentence on the location of the entry (e.g. This river flows in the continent X and is situated to the north of mountain/river/sea Y and it flows through these countries). Other things that are expected from us are daunting e.g. Where does the river rise, does the river flow eastwards/westwards/southwards/northwards, where does the river drain itself. I myself couldn't do this but I would like to mention that this is the level of details that the examiner expects. If you write all this correctly e.g.one can write this for the river Ganga, then you get full marks. However, step marking is there and let's try to maximize our marks rather than brood over the difficulty of the task.
4. Anticipate: Most of the times, the entries that are asked in the question paper are not random; these places are important if an international summit has happened there (e.g. Kyoto, Copenhagen, Rio De Jenerio, Montreal, Bali, Doha etc.), an earthquake/tsunami/volcano has struck there (e.g. La Aquilla, Haiti, Chile) or some oil/gas/mineral has been found there (e.g. Sakhalin, KG basin, Mangala). So, any place which is in the news, try and ask in which country the place it is, what is it famous for.
Geography is a popular optional for UPSC exams particularly because of its objective nature – if you know it, you get the marks unlike other subjects like sociology/political science which seem to be extremely subjective. Geography also has some subjectivity particularly the 'human geography' part but still I feel is a good choice for science & technology graduates. If you liked geography during your school days, I think you should have a look at the syllabus and previous question papers (available on www.civilserviceindia.com) and then decide. Since the syllabus is vast, you need to allocate a considerable amount of time for this subject.
I want to put a disclaimer here that although I took Geography as one of my mains optional, I couldn't do full justice to this subject due to lack of time. I could only read the NCERTs and was not able to read any other standard books like Majid Hussain, Rupa's 'Geography Made Simple' and other suggested references. So, I am a sort of novice to this vast subject and so would advice to take everything I write down with a pinch of salt. Inspite of this, I am writing this article because I managed to pass through the exam studying very little since I focused on the basics. I've not been successful to receive my marksheet for this year's exam although they've been up on the website but it seems that it doesn't consider my e-mail id (vikrampg@gmail.com) a valid e-mail id. So, as and when I get my marksheet, I'll post it on the blog. My roll number is 383943 and my birth date is Dec 15,1986. If you know somebody who has the marksheet or can find out my marks, please let me know.
1. Start with NCERTs: Start with NCERTs (recent – freely available for download from ncert's website or you can do a google search for the same) from Class 6. Underline/highlight and/or keep noting the important points. Pay specific attention to the three NCERTs of Class 11 and 12. These three textbooks are extremely informative and cover almost 50% of the course. I would suggest you to go through these three textbooks twice or thrice and learn the facts therein by heart. When you read other reference books/notes, you should try and assimilate the extra information. For example, the NCERT book will contain the locations of iron and steel industry in the country. Learn these locations and the basic information given in the NCERT (e.g. Durgapur steel plant set up with British support, Bhilai steel plant set up with Russian support). Now, when you read a specific reference or some notes from a coaching institute, try and build on the existing knowledge that you had from the ncert (e.g. What are the turnovers of this industry, which is the biggest steel plant, what grade of steel does India manufacture, what are the problems, how does India compare to the international scene etc.). Thus, other things that you read will help you build up on what you already know from the NCERTs. Essentially, what I am suggesting is that build up your basics and get a broad overview from the NCERTs and then try to deepen your knowledge from reading other things. I am stressing the point over and over again primarily because I think the syllabus is huge and one has to manage it somehow. Thus, cover the breadth first and then the depth.
2. Use internet if you can: Don't leave any portion of the syllabus. Atleast, know the basics. Take the syllabus in your hand and do a google search for any entry that you wish to know about e.g. I did this for the different theories (rank-rule hierarchy, central place theory) and atleast got an idea of what the theory is. Internet will help you also for phsyical geography e.g. The mechanism of monsoons, the different winds, El Nino and La Nina effect. Numerous animations are available. Wikipedia is a wonderful resource. Search about different places in the news or places that you've heard of but you are not sure as to where exactly they are (e.g. Casablanca, Timbaktu, Tashkent, Kyoto, Montreal, Miami).
3. Also, learn to make a rough map of India (world is optional) so that you can quickly make it while answering questions for paper 2. e.g. On the question of location of the iron and steel industry, you can quickly make a rough map and mark the different locations. This will fetch you a lot of marks. A picture is worth a thousand words, really...
4. Map entries: Locating given places on the map or identifying marked places on the map has been the standard question (worth 60 marks) in both Paper 1 and Paper 2. Thus, maps comprise 120 marks out of 600 marks i.e. 20% which is huge by any standards. So, how should we maximize our chances of marking the correct entries on the map. The first obvious thing is references – atlases in this case. The Oxford Atlas is very good particularly in regard to Indian entries while the Orient Longman Atlas is a good choice for the international entries. I studied mostly from the Orient Longman but later also got the Oxford Atlas xeroxed. I'll also suggest you to get some unlabeled maps of India and the world (preferably without any state or country boundaries) so that you can practice on it or put important places on it for later revision or as a reference
1. Make/get a list of important rivers/seas/deserts/mountains of India as well as the world – The idea here is to do it one by one. Get a list of important rivers of the world (from wikipedia or any other resource) and label it on one of your unlabeled map. If the list is very big e.g rivers, you can do it continent by continent otherwise e.g. If you are marking seas, then you can do it once and for all. You'll find that doing this will give you a confidence that “atleast, now I know all the seas of the world.” Moving piece by piece will further boost your confidence. You can follow the same strategy for India.
2. Mark all the countries and their capitals & important cities on the map : This will also help you a lot, you'll know a lot of places. Some of these places are directly asked in the exam.
3. One entry is usually of 6 marks – 3 marks for the entry and 3 marks for its description or 2 marks for the entry and 2 marks for its description (if one entry is worth 4 marks). The point here is that how should we prepare for the description part. I think the answer is not simple. One has to know a lot e.g. About the place where a river rises and where it drains finally or why is a city famous or what are the countries in which a given mountain range is located or some nearby areas; I'll suggest you to prepare yourself atleast for writing one sentence on the location of the entry (e.g. This river flows in the continent X and is situated to the north of mountain/river/sea Y and it flows through these countries). Other things that are expected from us are daunting e.g. Where does the river rise, does the river flow eastwards/westwards/southwards/northwards, where does the river drain itself. I myself couldn't do this but I would like to mention that this is the level of details that the examiner expects. If you write all this correctly e.g.one can write this for the river Ganga, then you get full marks. However, step marking is there and let's try to maximize our marks rather than brood over the difficulty of the task.
4. Anticipate: Most of the times, the entries that are asked in the question paper are not random; these places are important if an international summit has happened there (e.g. Kyoto, Copenhagen, Rio De Jenerio, Montreal, Bali, Doha etc.), an earthquake/tsunami/volcano has struck there (e.g. La Aquilla, Haiti, Chile) or some oil/gas/mineral has been found there (e.g. Sakhalin, KG basin, Mangala). So, any place which is in the news, try and ask in which country the place it is, what is it famous for.
Preparing for Psychology as an optional for UPSC mains
I think psychology, in addition to being an obvious choice for psychology graduates, is also a very good option for medicos as well as people from science and engineering; particularly because of the scientific nature of the subject. The knowledge of neurosciences will be an edge for aspirants with medical and/or biology background (minimum criteria here is studying biology till class 12). Another good thing about psychology is that the syllabus also is not as vast as geography or public administration. In addition, good reference material is available thereby enabling you to complete the subject reasonably in around one and a half months (in emergency) to three months (almost comfortably).
I had taken psychology as an optional for my mains exam so I've focused on strategies that can help for mains and not prelims. I am not sure about the guidelines for the prelims exam as I myself have not taken it. Thus, this article is meant as a guide only for psychology as a subject for mains exam.
Psychology is on the realm of the boundary between science and social science i.e. It is an 'arts' subject yet it shares many things with science – it is logical, it employs the scientific method of experimentation and rational approach to derive theories of immensely abstract things e.g. Motivation, emotions, values. The abstruce and abstract subject material brings in the features of social science into psychology.
So, if you feel you wish to go ahead with psycho, read the following section on 'how to go about it'.
a. Start with the NCERTs: Class 11 and 12 psychology textbooks (take the recent version) are awesome. They cover almost 60% of the mains syllabus. Start with the NCERTs slowly, underline important things and note down key definitions along with important case-studies/experiments on any topic e.g. Note down the 1$ -20$ experiment as a proof for cognitive dissonance.
b. Mukul Pathak Sir's notes: Mukul Pathak Sir is a teacher in 'Vajiram and Ravi' coaching institute. His notes are phenomenal. They are very well structured and contain a lot of vital information. Another good point is that he has followed verbatim the syllabus as has been given by the UPSC for psychology. His handwritten notes are easily available at almost any stationery shop in Mukherji Nagar/Rajendra Nagar in New Delhi.There are six registers that cover the entire syllabus for paper 1 and 2.
c. A standard reference : There are some concepts which need to be read elaboratively for deep understanding. Additionally, since the NCERTs as well as Mukul Sir's notes are mostly pedagogical, there is a need for a text book which explains psychology in a layman language as well as explains it with pictures, examples and interesting experiments. Two books could be suggested here - “Introduction to Psychology' by Baron or 'Introduction to Pscyhology' by Morgan and King (this book has a yellow cover). If you haven't read Morgan before, then I suggest you to read Baron since it has a summary section at the end of every chapter. The summary is superb and will help you during your revision. You might as well start reading the summary first followed by NCERT and Mukul Sir's notes.
These six registers, along with the NCERTs and one reference (either Baron or Morgan) makes your arsenal complete. Now, you've to read meticulously and complete the things. Note down the definitions in a seperate copy as it will help immensely to reproduce the same definition in the exam. Only one definition is enough (no need to learn multiple definitions as has been given in Mukul Sir's notes; take one definition either from Baron/NCERT/Mukul Sir's notes). Also, keep writing the various experiments/case studies which form the basis of a psychological phenomenon. e.g. Decrease in motivation for solving puzzles when a child is offered chocolates rather than when he used to solve it for personal satisfaction is an example for 'overjustification effect'.
I'll like to give you an additional advice which I benefited a lot from. This advice was written by Shubra Saxena (UPSC 2009 topper) on her blog. She adviced students to summarise every chapter in 2-3 pages so that these pages could be handy while you revise 1-2 days before the exam. These notes could also be helpful during the one or two hours that you've before the exam. Try and summarise each chapter in 2-3 pages, it definitely helped me and I'm sure this piece of advice is very practical.
Writing skills don't matter a lot in psychology. Try and recollect the important points; the task then is to present the recollected points in an organized way. Before writing any answer, think about the structure of the answer that you'll write. For example, if the question is “Should mentally challenged children be taught in special schools or the same schools as normal kids study?” and if it is a 60 mark question; then you need to think before you write. You can give the structure as follows:-
a. Explain who are mentally challenged?
b. Explain their constraints/problems/limitations?
c.Give points on as to why they should be taught in the same school (so that normal kids understand them and appreciate their problems, they don't suffer from inferiority complex, they'll add to the diversity of the class, more humane way of teaching).
d.Give points on as to why they should be taught in a different school (they have special needs which need to be dealt seperately, they'll feel inferiority complex when they go to normal schools, two mentally challenged kids will have higher probability of becoming friends rather than a mentally challenged kid and a normal kid)
e. Some solutions which if taken could help solve the problem (e.g. Ensuring a counseler in the school whose duty is also to look into the special needs of the child will help in diagnosing if anything is going wrong with the kid)
f. Final Conclusion (what do you think -after giving both the pros and cons, what do you feel? Should they be taught in the same school or in different schools?)
Thus, it can be seen that writing is not particularly difficult if you have knowledge (here, the definition of mentally challenged, types of mentally challenged, their psychological as well as medical limitations/barriers) as well as some analysis (which i think is very easy and nobody should be afraid of).
So, just get going with the NCERTs and Mukul Sir's notes along with occasional help from one reference (Barons or Morgan)
I think psychology, in addition to being an obvious choice for psychology graduates, is also a very good option for medicos as well as people from science and engineering; particularly because of the scientific nature of the subject. The knowledge of neurosciences will be an edge for aspirants with medical and/or biology background (minimum criteria here is studying biology till class 12). Another good thing about psychology is that the syllabus also is not as vast as geography or public administration. In addition, good reference material is available thereby enabling you to complete the subject reasonably in around one and a half months (in emergency) to three months (almost comfortably).
I had taken psychology as an optional for my mains exam so I've focused on strategies that can help for mains and not prelims. I am not sure about the guidelines for the prelims exam as I myself have not taken it. Thus, this article is meant as a guide only for psychology as a subject for mains exam.
Psychology is on the realm of the boundary between science and social science i.e. It is an 'arts' subject yet it shares many things with science – it is logical, it employs the scientific method of experimentation and rational approach to derive theories of immensely abstract things e.g. Motivation, emotions, values. The abstruce and abstract subject material brings in the features of social science into psychology.
So, if you feel you wish to go ahead with psycho, read the following section on 'how to go about it'.
a. Start with the NCERTs: Class 11 and 12 psychology textbooks (take the recent version) are awesome. They cover almost 60% of the mains syllabus. Start with the NCERTs slowly, underline important things and note down key definitions along with important case-studies/experiments on any topic e.g. Note down the 1$ -20$ experiment as a proof for cognitive dissonance.
b. Mukul Pathak Sir's notes: Mukul Pathak Sir is a teacher in 'Vajiram and Ravi' coaching institute. His notes are phenomenal. They are very well structured and contain a lot of vital information. Another good point is that he has followed verbatim the syllabus as has been given by the UPSC for psychology. His handwritten notes are easily available at almost any stationery shop in Mukherji Nagar/Rajendra Nagar in New Delhi.There are six registers that cover the entire syllabus for paper 1 and 2.
c. A standard reference : There are some concepts which need to be read elaboratively for deep understanding. Additionally, since the NCERTs as well as Mukul Sir's notes are mostly pedagogical, there is a need for a text book which explains psychology in a layman language as well as explains it with pictures, examples and interesting experiments. Two books could be suggested here - “Introduction to Psychology' by Baron or 'Introduction to Pscyhology' by Morgan and King (this book has a yellow cover). If you haven't read Morgan before, then I suggest you to read Baron since it has a summary section at the end of every chapter. The summary is superb and will help you during your revision. You might as well start reading the summary first followed by NCERT and Mukul Sir's notes.
These six registers, along with the NCERTs and one reference (either Baron or Morgan) makes your arsenal complete. Now, you've to read meticulously and complete the things. Note down the definitions in a seperate copy as it will help immensely to reproduce the same definition in the exam. Only one definition is enough (no need to learn multiple definitions as has been given in Mukul Sir's notes; take one definition either from Baron/NCERT/Mukul Sir's notes). Also, keep writing the various experiments/case studies which form the basis of a psychological phenomenon. e.g. Decrease in motivation for solving puzzles when a child is offered chocolates rather than when he used to solve it for personal satisfaction is an example for 'overjustification effect'.
I'll like to give you an additional advice which I benefited a lot from. This advice was written by Shubra Saxena (UPSC 2009 topper) on her blog. She adviced students to summarise every chapter in 2-3 pages so that these pages could be handy while you revise 1-2 days before the exam. These notes could also be helpful during the one or two hours that you've before the exam. Try and summarise each chapter in 2-3 pages, it definitely helped me and I'm sure this piece of advice is very practical.
Writing skills don't matter a lot in psychology. Try and recollect the important points; the task then is to present the recollected points in an organized way. Before writing any answer, think about the structure of the answer that you'll write. For example, if the question is “Should mentally challenged children be taught in special schools or the same schools as normal kids study?” and if it is a 60 mark question; then you need to think before you write. You can give the structure as follows:-
a. Explain who are mentally challenged?
b. Explain their constraints/problems/limitations?
c.Give points on as to why they should be taught in the same school (so that normal kids understand them and appreciate their problems, they don't suffer from inferiority complex, they'll add to the diversity of the class, more humane way of teaching).
d.Give points on as to why they should be taught in a different school (they have special needs which need to be dealt seperately, they'll feel inferiority complex when they go to normal schools, two mentally challenged kids will have higher probability of becoming friends rather than a mentally challenged kid and a normal kid)
e. Some solutions which if taken could help solve the problem (e.g. Ensuring a counseler in the school whose duty is also to look into the special needs of the child will help in diagnosing if anything is going wrong with the kid)
f. Final Conclusion (what do you think -after giving both the pros and cons, what do you feel? Should they be taught in the same school or in different schools?)
Thus, it can be seen that writing is not particularly difficult if you have knowledge (here, the definition of mentally challenged, types of mentally challenged, their psychological as well as medical limitations/barriers) as well as some analysis (which i think is very easy and nobody should be afraid of).
So, just get going with the NCERTs and Mukul Sir's notes along with occasional help from one reference (Barons or Morgan)
Monday, June 14, 2010
A detailed study plan for GENERAL STUDIES, UPSC Civil Services Exam
Remember the numbers : Be it economics or history or current events or for that matter, anything; try and collect important numbers related to that. For example, one should know the GDP, GNP, foreign reserves, fiscal deficit, public spending in key areas (education, health, defence, subsidies, national highways, bharat nirman, nrega), percentage of population in different age groups etc. In this context, a thorough study of the “Economic Survey” will help you a lot, particularly the first chapter (which gives a glimpse of the Indian economy) and the last chapter (which contains a beautiful summary of the different social programs run by the Indian Government).
Start with NCERTs: NCERTs cover beautifully the basics of history, geography, economics, civics/political administration. I'll advice you to start from class 6 onwards but I only read from class 9 due to paucity of time. These books, available for free download from the ncert and even otherwise (on other blogs) are much better than the previous versions in terms of the quality as well as the visual appeal of the textbooks. NCERTs make up the base and you'll have to build up on that. This building up can be done by internet, notes of coaching institutes (vajiram's notes are good), other references.
Current affairs form the base of your understanding of the world. They are also a fundamental part of GS and the interview. So, an indepth reading of newspapers, magazines, blogs, tv news, coaching institutes' material etc. is expected. But, the question again comes how do we manage to keep ourselves abreast of all the current affairs in a fairly indepth manner. To me, managing current affairs was an arduous task. I think the strategy which could help is to try and put things into context. What i mean by putting things into context is to analyze the current affair into the already existing perspective. For example, if you read that israel is starting heavy bombarding on the gaza strip, then simply memorizing the number of persons killed or the immediate reason of the bombarding will not help much. Instead, trying to put this event into already existing perspective of Israel-Palestine relationships and some critical appreciation of the current event will help. Hence, our first task should be to read Israel-Palestine relationship. What has been the history? What has been the role of international community on this? What is India's perspective on this issue? Using this strategy might take a huge amount of time initially but as you move on, the number of issues on which you would have to read indepth would decrease for the simple reason that you already know about a lot of events now. Be judicious in devoting time for current affairs as they drain a lot of time. Simply skim through magazines by reading the key point(if it is bold or separately mentioned as a paragraph, for example, in frontline). Simply reading the titles of all the magazines will also help. I am an ardent fan of Yojna and Kurukshetra. Frontline is good but drains away a lot of time but make it a point to go through the headings once or twice a month. This magazine also is freely available for download on Hindu's website.
Important References: The following is a list of things that you should try and get access to, if possible. If not, then there is not much to worry because already there is a lot to study and not reading one or two things will not matter because they might anways be overlapping/could take too much of your time. Some of these are available online as well as in print while some of them are on TV.
1. Vajiram Notes on Indian Polity and Indian Economy: These notes are very well structured and are very informative. You can call them up for asking the correspondance charges if you are not in Delhi.
2. Gurcharan Das blogs (also published in the Times of India) : Gurcharan Das is the author of the famous book, “India Unbound”. He writes mostly on economic issues and the need for effective governance in the country. His writings on comparison between India and China are full of insights. His articles also contain correlations of present circumstances with the Mahabharata, which also form the subject material of his another book, “The Difficulty of being good”.
3. Swaminomics (also published in the Times of India): This section is also on economics. The most wonderful part of his articles are that they are full of information and numbers. He explains current economic affairs as if he is wrting the article for ncert textbooks. In one sentence, “easy to understand, remember and retrieve”.
4. www.indiatogether.org
This website is an archive of articles from eminent journalists and writers on social issues, ranging from environment to poverty. Authors like P.Sainath, Harsh Mander, Kalpana Sharma contribute to this blog.
5. www.en.wikipedia.org
This well known website is a brilliant resource for understanding almost anything – abstract to real, from economics to biology, from literature to quantum physics – it has it all. Written in superbly layman language, this is a wonderful place to get your concepts clarified. Any phenomena that you do not understand, just do a search here; you'll get your desired entry almost 90% of the times. It will serve you not only for your General Studies but also for your optionals. In addition, read the article India and follow the links in that article. Also, it has arranged articles on India in a gorgeous way e.g. Military artillery of India, different satellite programs.
6. www.news.bbc.co.uk
This website is a beautiful resource for preparting the international affairs section of the GS paper as well as issues of global affect and/or which are tackled at global level e.g. Climate change, terrorism, United Nations, issues related to United States (yes, issues related to US have become global issues !!). The 'special reports' section in this website is also very informative and should be read to assimilate global events in detail. e.g. I read the section on Copenhagen Climate Summit for the interview and it was very informative
7. Economic Survey : As has been mentioned before also, this document is phenomenal. Although the Hindu criticizes this document a lot for it being pro-governmental and extremely optimistic, I would suggest you to compulsorily read the first and the last chapters. Other chapters are optional for you. The Economic Survey is available for free download on the website of Ministry of Finance although its hard copy (although a bit too costly) is also available for sale at book stalls, particularly those having books for UPSC exam preparation.
8. Articles by P.Sainath : P.Sainath writes on issues related to agriculture. His book “Everybody loves a drought” has been acclaimed a lot. He spends almost 300 days in a year in rural areas and his insights on the plight of Indian agriculture has no parallels.
9. Articles by Harsh Mander: Harsh Mander became a journalist after his experiences as an IAS officer in Gujarat during the 2002 riots. He writes a lot on communal violence and has been pressing for a bill on communal violence to be passed in India. But, his immense knowledge and rich experience makes him adept at almost any issue that he picks up, which are almost always social. He writes regularly in 'The Hindu'
10. Articles by Kalpana Sharma: Kalpana Sharma writes regularly in 'The Hindu'. She writes particularly a lot on women issues.
11. Articles by Dr. K S Jacob: Dr. K S Jacob is a professor in the Department of Pscyhiatry at Christian Medical College, Vellore. His insights on public health as well as medical health and contemporary medical practices & healthcare are phenomenal. You'll love it when he mixes political concepts of communism/capitalism/governance with medicine/health and comes out with an interesting insight.
12. www.time.com This website is phenomenal. This is a website of the Time Magazine. Although there are no sections which I can directly point it to you for the fact that this magazine is written for people who read for leisure. However, the lists of 100 most powerful men of the year, 100 most powerful women of the year, 100 most powerful thinkers, 100 persons of the century are worth looking at. Similarly, Forbes list of richest persons could also be seen as knowing about eminent personalities help a lot in the exam. In addition, some of the articles in the website www.time.com, particularly on health or other social issues might help you a lot. There are articles by Barack Obama also on this website.
13. The India Year Book: This book is available for free download as well its hard copy is available for sale. This bulky book has a lot of material but you can read sections what you like. I just browsed all the sections but would have loved to read it completely, if I had time.
14. TOI Blogs : This section is an archive of different articles written by eminent journalists in the TOI. Sometimes, browsing these articles could be very helpful.
15. Hindu Opinion : These contain the articles on the mid page of the Hindu. You'll particularly benefit by the editorial section of Hindu.
16. Files on Hindu website : Another good thing about the newspaper Hindu is that it publishes a lot of original material on its website www.thehinduonnet.com e.g. Jairam Ramesh's letter which contained his decision of issuing a moratorium on Bt brinjal, Ramalingam Raju's letter in which he announced his crime, a copy of Karan Thapar's interview with eminent personalities. These files help you get an independent opinion on various issues rather than listening to/reading the analysis of these original materials by the media.
17. Down to Earth : This website is a very good resource on environmental issues. This magazine is published by the Center for Science and Environment, whose director Sunita Narain is a very dedicated lady championing environmental issues. You'll also benefit a lot from reading her articles.
18. Articles by Vir Sanghvi : Vir Sanghvi is associated with the Hindustan Times. His articles on international affairs as well as India's foreign policies are very informative as well contain deep insights, primarily because he is an extremely knowledgeable and well read person.
19. Resources on Television: TV is a wonderful resource for learning since its audio-visual nature helps us to retain a far greater fraction than we read from the books. Also, since it is not possible to read all throughout the day, taking breaks sometimes can help. Watching something meaningful on the TV can be a lot more meaningful and additionally, you save a lot of time being wasted since you've utilized your time for a good purpose.
1. Lok Sabha TV: Although this is a new channel, some of its programs, I feel are very beneficial. There is a program called 'Conversations' which showcases interviews with eminent personalities discussing contemporary issues. e.g. Sam Pitroda, Nandan Nilekani, Gurcharan Das, C P Chandrashekar. Just try to catch up this channel if anything interesting is coming there once in a while when you are bored.
2. Arnab Banerjee: You might have seen this journalist on Times Now. He is wonderfully inquisitive. He gets hold on to top-notch ministers during his prime time show (i.e the main news at 9 pm) and asks them critical questions.
3. Other journalists to watch are Pranab Roy (NDTV), Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN IBN), Karan Thapar, Barkha Dutt (on her program 'We the People' on NDTV), Deepak Chaurasia (Star News)
4. National Geographic, Discovery Channel and History Channel have now been showing a number of documentaries on India e.g. The story of Tsunami that struck India, the Gujarat riots, the IC-814 hijacking etc. Also, their other documentaries are phenomenal.
Remember the numbers : Be it economics or history or current events or for that matter, anything; try and collect important numbers related to that. For example, one should know the GDP, GNP, foreign reserves, fiscal deficit, public spending in key areas (education, health, defence, subsidies, national highways, bharat nirman, nrega), percentage of population in different age groups etc. In this context, a thorough study of the “Economic Survey” will help you a lot, particularly the first chapter (which gives a glimpse of the Indian economy) and the last chapter (which contains a beautiful summary of the different social programs run by the Indian Government).
Start with NCERTs: NCERTs cover beautifully the basics of history, geography, economics, civics/political administration. I'll advice you to start from class 6 onwards but I only read from class 9 due to paucity of time. These books, available for free download from the ncert and even otherwise (on other blogs) are much better than the previous versions in terms of the quality as well as the visual appeal of the textbooks. NCERTs make up the base and you'll have to build up on that. This building up can be done by internet, notes of coaching institutes (vajiram's notes are good), other references.
Current affairs form the base of your understanding of the world. They are also a fundamental part of GS and the interview. So, an indepth reading of newspapers, magazines, blogs, tv news, coaching institutes' material etc. is expected. But, the question again comes how do we manage to keep ourselves abreast of all the current affairs in a fairly indepth manner. To me, managing current affairs was an arduous task. I think the strategy which could help is to try and put things into context. What i mean by putting things into context is to analyze the current affair into the already existing perspective. For example, if you read that israel is starting heavy bombarding on the gaza strip, then simply memorizing the number of persons killed or the immediate reason of the bombarding will not help much. Instead, trying to put this event into already existing perspective of Israel-Palestine relationships and some critical appreciation of the current event will help. Hence, our first task should be to read Israel-Palestine relationship. What has been the history? What has been the role of international community on this? What is India's perspective on this issue? Using this strategy might take a huge amount of time initially but as you move on, the number of issues on which you would have to read indepth would decrease for the simple reason that you already know about a lot of events now. Be judicious in devoting time for current affairs as they drain a lot of time. Simply skim through magazines by reading the key point(if it is bold or separately mentioned as a paragraph, for example, in frontline). Simply reading the titles of all the magazines will also help. I am an ardent fan of Yojna and Kurukshetra. Frontline is good but drains away a lot of time but make it a point to go through the headings once or twice a month. This magazine also is freely available for download on Hindu's website.
Important References: The following is a list of things that you should try and get access to, if possible. If not, then there is not much to worry because already there is a lot to study and not reading one or two things will not matter because they might anways be overlapping/could take too much of your time. Some of these are available online as well as in print while some of them are on TV.
1. Vajiram Notes on Indian Polity and Indian Economy: These notes are very well structured and are very informative. You can call them up for asking the correspondance charges if you are not in Delhi.
2. Gurcharan Das blogs (also published in the Times of India) : Gurcharan Das is the author of the famous book, “India Unbound”. He writes mostly on economic issues and the need for effective governance in the country. His writings on comparison between India and China are full of insights. His articles also contain correlations of present circumstances with the Mahabharata, which also form the subject material of his another book, “The Difficulty of being good”.
3. Swaminomics (also published in the Times of India): This section is also on economics. The most wonderful part of his articles are that they are full of information and numbers. He explains current economic affairs as if he is wrting the article for ncert textbooks. In one sentence, “easy to understand, remember and retrieve”.
4. www.indiatogether.org
This website is an archive of articles from eminent journalists and writers on social issues, ranging from environment to poverty. Authors like P.Sainath, Harsh Mander, Kalpana Sharma contribute to this blog.
5. www.en.wikipedia.org
This well known website is a brilliant resource for understanding almost anything – abstract to real, from economics to biology, from literature to quantum physics – it has it all. Written in superbly layman language, this is a wonderful place to get your concepts clarified. Any phenomena that you do not understand, just do a search here; you'll get your desired entry almost 90% of the times. It will serve you not only for your General Studies but also for your optionals. In addition, read the article India and follow the links in that article. Also, it has arranged articles on India in a gorgeous way e.g. Military artillery of India, different satellite programs.
6. www.news.bbc.co.uk
This website is a beautiful resource for preparting the international affairs section of the GS paper as well as issues of global affect and/or which are tackled at global level e.g. Climate change, terrorism, United Nations, issues related to United States (yes, issues related to US have become global issues !!). The 'special reports' section in this website is also very informative and should be read to assimilate global events in detail. e.g. I read the section on Copenhagen Climate Summit for the interview and it was very informative
7. Economic Survey : As has been mentioned before also, this document is phenomenal. Although the Hindu criticizes this document a lot for it being pro-governmental and extremely optimistic, I would suggest you to compulsorily read the first and the last chapters. Other chapters are optional for you. The Economic Survey is available for free download on the website of Ministry of Finance although its hard copy (although a bit too costly) is also available for sale at book stalls, particularly those having books for UPSC exam preparation.
8. Articles by P.Sainath : P.Sainath writes on issues related to agriculture. His book “Everybody loves a drought” has been acclaimed a lot. He spends almost 300 days in a year in rural areas and his insights on the plight of Indian agriculture has no parallels.
9. Articles by Harsh Mander: Harsh Mander became a journalist after his experiences as an IAS officer in Gujarat during the 2002 riots. He writes a lot on communal violence and has been pressing for a bill on communal violence to be passed in India. But, his immense knowledge and rich experience makes him adept at almost any issue that he picks up, which are almost always social. He writes regularly in 'The Hindu'
10. Articles by Kalpana Sharma: Kalpana Sharma writes regularly in 'The Hindu'. She writes particularly a lot on women issues.
11. Articles by Dr. K S Jacob: Dr. K S Jacob is a professor in the Department of Pscyhiatry at Christian Medical College, Vellore. His insights on public health as well as medical health and contemporary medical practices & healthcare are phenomenal. You'll love it when he mixes political concepts of communism/capitalism/governance with medicine/health and comes out with an interesting insight.
12. www.time.com This website is phenomenal. This is a website of the Time Magazine. Although there are no sections which I can directly point it to you for the fact that this magazine is written for people who read for leisure. However, the lists of 100 most powerful men of the year, 100 most powerful women of the year, 100 most powerful thinkers, 100 persons of the century are worth looking at. Similarly, Forbes list of richest persons could also be seen as knowing about eminent personalities help a lot in the exam. In addition, some of the articles in the website www.time.com, particularly on health or other social issues might help you a lot. There are articles by Barack Obama also on this website.
13. The India Year Book: This book is available for free download as well its hard copy is available for sale. This bulky book has a lot of material but you can read sections what you like. I just browsed all the sections but would have loved to read it completely, if I had time.
14. TOI Blogs : This section is an archive of different articles written by eminent journalists in the TOI. Sometimes, browsing these articles could be very helpful.
15. Hindu Opinion : These contain the articles on the mid page of the Hindu. You'll particularly benefit by the editorial section of Hindu.
16. Files on Hindu website : Another good thing about the newspaper Hindu is that it publishes a lot of original material on its website www.thehinduonnet.com e.g. Jairam Ramesh's letter which contained his decision of issuing a moratorium on Bt brinjal, Ramalingam Raju's letter in which he announced his crime, a copy of Karan Thapar's interview with eminent personalities. These files help you get an independent opinion on various issues rather than listening to/reading the analysis of these original materials by the media.
17. Down to Earth : This website is a very good resource on environmental issues. This magazine is published by the Center for Science and Environment, whose director Sunita Narain is a very dedicated lady championing environmental issues. You'll also benefit a lot from reading her articles.
18. Articles by Vir Sanghvi : Vir Sanghvi is associated with the Hindustan Times. His articles on international affairs as well as India's foreign policies are very informative as well contain deep insights, primarily because he is an extremely knowledgeable and well read person.
19. Resources on Television: TV is a wonderful resource for learning since its audio-visual nature helps us to retain a far greater fraction than we read from the books. Also, since it is not possible to read all throughout the day, taking breaks sometimes can help. Watching something meaningful on the TV can be a lot more meaningful and additionally, you save a lot of time being wasted since you've utilized your time for a good purpose.
1. Lok Sabha TV: Although this is a new channel, some of its programs, I feel are very beneficial. There is a program called 'Conversations' which showcases interviews with eminent personalities discussing contemporary issues. e.g. Sam Pitroda, Nandan Nilekani, Gurcharan Das, C P Chandrashekar. Just try to catch up this channel if anything interesting is coming there once in a while when you are bored.
2. Arnab Banerjee: You might have seen this journalist on Times Now. He is wonderfully inquisitive. He gets hold on to top-notch ministers during his prime time show (i.e the main news at 9 pm) and asks them critical questions.
3. Other journalists to watch are Pranab Roy (NDTV), Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN IBN), Karan Thapar, Barkha Dutt (on her program 'We the People' on NDTV), Deepak Chaurasia (Star News)
4. National Geographic, Discovery Channel and History Channel have now been showing a number of documentaries on India e.g. The story of Tsunami that struck India, the Gujarat riots, the IC-814 hijacking etc. Also, their other documentaries are phenomenal.
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