How to study GS?

Hello everybody! By the grace of God and enormous hard work, support of my family and friends and indirect encouragement of my detractors I have been able to succeed with AIR 92 in Civil Services Examination 2013. Since 2010 when I started till 12th June 2014, it's been a long roller coaster ride dense with precious trove of teaching experiences, such that I will cherish throughout my life.

The purpose of this note is to share some of them for the benefit of those whose journey still continues and those of my friends who want to embark on the same. For those whose journey continues, I want to say that it's a journey of self discovery and please keep the spirit going strong. The destination is definitely worth the toil.

I want to make it clear that every individual carves out one's own unique path to success ultimately. Whatever suggestions or information is shared here is only recommendatory in nature and should not be taken in a manner of one size fits all.  

I will start with my book-list for General Studies and Psychology for CSE 2013 and gradually move back in time in my journey of success as per the queries I get from friends and my own judgement of what's worth sharing.

Here's what I followed for GS:

Paper 1

Modern India: Spectrum, Bipan Chandra (NCERT and thick book), Grover and Mehta

World History: Arjun Dev XII and old NCERT covering French, American Revolutions. These are nicely summarized on mrunal.org. I found it useful.

While studying this portion, lot of correlation among events of world history and Indian freedom struggle needs to be established. This is where questions come up.

Geography: NCERT XI, XII, G C Leong, Khullar, Majid Hussain, Wiki and IMO website, Sri Ram notes on world geography

Sociology: Indian Society (NCERT), Ram Ahuja Social Problems in Indian Society, Indian Society ( S C Dubey), The Hindu, Frontline

Part related to women organizations etc was covered  from internet and Sri Ram material. I visited sites of women organizations and read their history.

Paper 2

Polity: Laxmikanth, Sri Ram polity notes, The Hindu

Comparative constitution: Mostly from internet. read about US, UK, France, Germany, China

IR: The Hindu, BBC (Q&A section is really good), Sri Ram IR notes, IDSA articles on idsa.in

For concepts related to transparency, accountability, good governance i referred to ARC and Indian Administration by Arora and Goyal and Sri Ram notes. A dedicated issue of Yojana on Good Governance was also referred. Here i feel concepts of transparency, types of accountability etc must be clear and it should be understood through operation of schemes and functioning of government agencies. A nice analysis of schemes was given in Sri Ram notes related to this. 

Paper 3

Economy related portions like PPPs, Infrastructure etc. from Sri Ram Indian Economy, Economic Survey and 12th FYP. Financial newspapers like The Economic Times or The Business Standard and The Hindu articles, Sri Ram notes related to ppr3.

Food Processing: Ministry of Food processing website and the annual report

Animal Husbandry and related portions: dahd.nic.in; 12th FYP, relevant posts on mrunal.org

Disaster mgmt: ARC report, NIDM website, book on disaster mgmt by CBSE

Security related: Wiki, Idsa.in, annual of Ministry of Home, Sri Ram notes on internal security, Vajiram printed material on internal security

Science Tech: The Hindu articles, TOI articles related to sci-tech, Wizard science tech

Environment: mostly from newspapers as a part of current affairs

Paper 4

Robert Baron Introduction to psychology for Attitude and Emotional Intelligence, wiki and google for various terms like professionalism, integrity etc

Ethics Integrity and Aptitude by Chandana (I found this book amazingly useful as it came just before mains and had nice approach to cover things)

ARC report on Ethics in governance, Sri ram notes on ethics, famous personalities and administrators of India and the world. Newspaper articles for case studies. 

I relied on explaining the rationale behind the steps i suggested in case studies. In assessment of moral and ethical standards, i have read in psychology, it's the reasoning that is applied while making decisions matter a lot and shows individual's moral fiber. Obviously, the decisions must also be ethical at the end. One's writing style comes handy here i believe. Practice holds key. Also examples are helpful while answering.

Another point i want to put across is that revision is the key in this examination. One's study schedule must accommodate at least 30%-40%  time to revision. Keep on asking questions on outcomes after every study session, summarize the read material. Civil Services preparation is all about building up a well structured and connected knowledge grid in one's mind. What's in mind comes out on the answer script. It doesn't matter how rich and extensive collection of notes one has.

In the next note I will share the approach and book-list for psychology. 

Thanks and All the best !