Last minute revision strategy for Prelims 2017

Prelims examination is meant to serve as a screening test only; the marks obtained in the Preliminary Examination by the candidates who are declared qualified for admission to the Main Examination will not be counted for determining their final order of merit.

Prelims 2017 is approaching within a month and fine tuning of the preparation to clear the exam is must.

Though the UPSC has mentioned the prelims syllabus but the topics mentioned are in one word due to which clarity is very less and the range of topics covered in the examination is infinite. However, the correct preparation strategy can help the aspirant.

If we analyse the past few year papers the division of questions subject-wise is as follows:

S. No. Subject

 

 2014 2015 2016
1 History and culture 20 17 15
2 Geography 14 16 7
3 Polity 14 13 7
4 Economy 10 13 18
5 Environment 18 11 18
6 Science and technology 16 8 8
7 Current affairs 8 22 27

 

By analysing the division of subjects, the current affairs portion has increased tremendously. However, the UPSC pattern cannot be predicted thus balance should be maintained while preparing the conceptual as well as the current affairs.

If we further analyse the division of subjects, there are few topics which generally get more weightage in paper.

Hereby listing few topics which cannot be ignored while preparing for Prelims:

ANCIENT HISTORY

  1. Indus Valley Civilisation
  2. Vedic Literature and Culture
  3. Jainism and Buddhism

( for this refer NCERT and NIOS).

MEDIEVAL HISTORY

  1. Focus should be on the Administrative and social work done by different rulers
  2. Bhakti and Sufi Movement

( for this refer Tamil Nadu NCERT of class XIth)

MODERN HISTORY

  1. Social Movements (objective and personality associated with it)
  2. All the important events (in form of story so that you can connect the events accordingly)

INDIAN CULTURE

  1. Architecture terminologies
  2. Classical Dance salient features
  3. Miniature Paintings (forms and features)

(Refer NCERT Class XIth Fine Arts Book)

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

  1. Erosional and depostional Landforms (in geomorphology) (Refer NIOS)
  2. Climatic and vegetation division of the world (Refer class 7th NCERT for few divisions)
  3. Ocean currents (significance and presence Ocean-wise) (refer class XIth NCERT)

INDIAN GEOGRAPHY

  1. Physical features
  2. Drainage system
  3. Monsoon
  4. Soil and vegetation division
  5. Agriculture (crops basic characteristics)
  6. Latest Agriculture schemes
  7. Minerals locations

(Refer NCERT and NIOS for the above stated topics)

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

  1. Data related to Census 2011 and terms associated
  2. Types of human settlements

(Refer http://iasscore.in/upsc-prelims/human-settlement-population-terms-census-2011)

POLITY

  1. Provisions related to Fundamental Rights and DPSPs
  2. Provisions related to the Executive and Legislature
  3. Other provisions which are frequent in news as
  4. NJAC and collegiums
  5. Official language provisions
  6. AFSPA and emergency provisions
  7. Election Commission
  8. About 14th Finance Commission
  9. About 7th Pay commission
  10. About Law Commission (basic provisions)
  11. Judiciary terms as – Arbitration, PIL, Gram Nyalayas, Para-Legal Volunteers, Lok Adalat)
  12. Niti Aayog, etc

WELFARE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

  1. Initiatives by the Ministries in last one year (Refer http://pib.nic.in/newsite/docpage.aspx?docid=553). This will help in revising all the important schemes and governance steps initiated by the government.

ENVIRONMENT

  1. Biodiversity – species, red book data, types of interactions, etc. (Refer NIOS)
  2. National Parks and their locations
  3. Pollution (types and new rules)
  4. Climate change (all the terms associated with it and steps initiated by India)

(Refer http://envfor.nic.in/sites/default/files/Environment%20AR%20English%202016-2017.pdf)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

  1. In biology focus on Diseases and Nutrition
  2. Recent updates in Defence, Information Technology, Space and Biotechnology (mostly the questions are from these areas)

ECONOMY

  1. Basic economic definitions (clarity should be there in terms so that as aspirant can choose the correct option properly. (refer http://iasscore.in/free-downloads/study-material-for-revision-notes-economic-terminologies)
  2. National Income (refer class XIIth NCERT)
  3. Terms in the Union Budget and Economic Survey
  4. Latest schemes
  5. Banking Terms in detail (bad banks concept, shadow banking, payment banks, small banks, etc)

Hope this will help in preparing for Prelims 2017.

MAYURI KHANNA

Write Your Review