Yes, it’s the half past February and there are exactly three months left for the Civil Services Preliminary Exam to be held on 17th of May 2009. I am sure you have already started feeling a little tense and those who are not kindly tighten your seat belts, the countdown to Pre has started. I am sure those who have taken this exam understand what I am saying but for the first timers let me elaborate a little more about the exam and its importance.

Preliminary is the first stage in the three stage selection process for Civil Services Entrance Examination conducted by UPSC every year in the month of May. This is the exam which is popularly known as IAS exam also. Preliminary is basically the elimination round, whereby the non serious or less prepared or less lucky candidates are weeded out so that only a little more than ten thousand candidates out of few lakhs (!!) qualify to write the Civil Services Main examination, which is actually the start of selection process. Preliminary exam consists of Objective type questions in two papers, one for General Studies and the other for one of the optional subjects which you can chose from a long list of subjects notified by the UPSC. Now let us see what we need to do to crack these papers.

General Studies paper is of two hour duration and contains 150 questions carrying 1 mark for each correct answer and -1/3, for every wrong answer, so there is a provision of negative marking. This provision has been introduced to eliminate the element of luck to maximum possible extent. There is no deduction for not attempted questions, thankfully! But don’t be too bothered about negative marking much. If you have done your hard work, you need not think much about it. The best way to deal with this kind of paper is do it in rounds. In first round, attempt all the questions that you are very sure about, and keep circling all the ones that you are unsure about. Make sure this first reading and attempt is over in maximum 30 minutes assuming you would know about 60 questions very well. And don’t even try to attempt the Math, Physics and Chemistry questions even if you had been the topper from one of the IITs. These questions are deliberately kept lengthy and if you get stuck in one of these, take my word you won’t be able to attempt the full question paper. So make sure that you attempt these questions in the second round. But before moving on to the second round, darken the boxes in the answer sheet. This should take another 5 minutes.

In the second round you again start from the beginning and keep trying all the questions in sequential order that you had encircled in the first round. Here again you have to maintain your speed. This is the round which will require some thinking on your part so you can take another 60 minutes in this round. Remember here it is assumed that you have already attempted 60 questions in the first round and only 90 questions are remaining so make sure that you don’t stay for more than one minute on one question. And yes don’t attempt Math questions in this round also. Keep encircling all the questions that you did not attempt because they exceeded one minute time limit. Darken the boxes in the answer sheet before moving on to the final round. This will take another five minutes. Now, verify all the answers that you have marked all the answers correctly in the answer sheet. This is very important as you won’t get any time as the time limit is nearing its end.

In the third reading you are left with 15 minutes. Now concentrate only on the Math questions and do as many questions as possible. Here it must be remembered that above division is not hard and fast. You may finish more or less than what I have assumed. But in any case you have stick to this distribution and keeping marking the correct answers in the answer sheet periodically.

Make sure there are no wild guesses in your answer sheet or negative marking may ruin all your hard work. This means that, though you have to try and attempt all the questions but in the answer sheet only those answers should be marked about which you are at least reasonably to definitely sure.

General Studies questions are nowadays more analytical and current affairs oriented so make sure your current affairs are up to date. You must develop a keen analytical approach of finding the information of relevance for other portions of GS like Polity, Economy, Science and Technology, and Geography, out of the current affairs itself. For example a question about some natural calamity in some part of the world may actually come under the purview of Current affairs as well as Geography. Similarly a question on the provisions of a recently passed act or constitutional amendment may come under the purview of both Indian Polity and Current Affairs. Therefore current affairs must always be studied with a holistic approach.

The best source of current affairs is newspapers and radio/television/internet news broadcasts. Keeping in touch with the news is the best way to ensure good knowledge of current affairs. But for good understanding of current events and their wider significance and meaning, you must consult some good competitive exam magazine and other periodicals like the Frontline magazine. Besides a group discussion with other IAS aspirants and even with your family members may provide you with some valuable insights about the issue. This understanding is important not only from Main examination point of view but also from Pre point of view as most of the Preliminary papers’ questions are ‘understanding based’ rather than simple rote learning based. Thus, while reading about any important news item you must try to explore as many angles about the core issues highlighted in the news.
Another very good source of current affairs is the Current affairs digests taken out by various publications, about a month before the Pre exam.  You must finish your preparation at least 20 days in advance before the pre. Last 20 days you must spend in revising whatever you have prepared till now. You can give less emphasis on current affairs now, as the paper is generally set around a month before the Pre Exam and it is highly unlikely that any question from these last twenty days before the exams will appear in the paper. But do keep collecting the newspapers for this period. As you won’t find them again once you are done with you Pre and want to start preparing for the Mains.

I hope with these inputs you would have got a fair idea of the importance of Current affairs, and the method to prepare for them. We will continue our discussion in the next article on the other facets of GS paper and also provide some inputs in dealing with various optional subjects. Till then Happy Studying !