How to prepare Polity for UPSC Prelims

The race for civil services exam 2021 has begun. The notification for the same has been released. The UPSC Civil Services Exam is the most coveted exam and every year lacs of students appear in this exam. The Civil Services Prelims Exam is scheduled to be held in the month of June. The prelims paper is objective and qualifying in nature. IAS prelims paper has witnessed several changes since 2012. There has been more emphasis on analytical abilities of aspirants rather than mugging up the facts. The recent trends have revealed that the questions asked in prelims cover several dimensions at a time. This has forced many to go deeper and analysis based learning. 

The polity section both in prelims as well as in mains exam holds an important place as the previous year trends of question show. About 15% portion is covered through polity and governance as revealed by previous year questions. The questions asked in polity in IAS prelims exam are of 3 types static, dynamic and static with dynamic. Most of the aspirants remain ambiguous over the strategy regarding the polity section. There is one clear advice to cover this portion is that whatever is being read should stick to UPSC syllabus only. The strategy to prepare this section is to focus all the three sections simultaneously.

Static Portion: One should cover NCERT books and M. Laxmikant to cover static portion of polity. NCERT books written in lucid and simple language will give a basic idea about polity while M. Laxmikant will cover the entire syllabus. As far as the articles and amendments are concerned it’s not mandatory to prepare all of them. The static part of Polity has to be prepared for both Prelims and Mains. For an instance one should employ a comparative approach to study powers of President and Governor, PM and CM, Supreme Court and the High Court, National Human Rights Commission and State Human Rights Commission, Election Commission and State Election Commission etc. Doing this will help you to remember factual, analytical and conceptual points in each topic and will help in attempting questions. 

Dynamic part:  Governance, Social justice, Schemes, Bills etc. forms the dynamic section of Polity. In recent years a maximum number of questions have been asked from this section particularly.

Newspapers, current affairs magazines and important journals like EPW serve as the basic source for this part. Editorials coming in The Hindu and Indian Express can help you in solving questions coming from Social justice sections. GS SCORE’s Prelims Sampoorna Current Affairs Compilations for Polity ensure to provide all related content with needed facts and explanation in lucid language at one place so that you can revise all relevant news in less time and maximize your score in PT Prelims exam.

Static with Dynamic Part: The questions asked from this section usually cover static along with the dynamic part.  For example, understanding amendments in current acts like the POCSO Act, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. It requires a combined reading of Static part along with the Dynamic part. Sources include standard books, The Hindu, Indian Express, Judgements of Courts especially the Supreme court, selective reading of 2nd ARC report, various relevant articles from PRS blog. GS SCORE’s Prelims Sampoorna Current Affairs Compilations for Polity can also be a one-stop solution for this.

Polity is vast in nature and having multiple dimensions that need to be covered within a very short span of time. Amid this scenario the revision at the last minute seems nearly impossible. To revise entire polity in the last few days is an uphill task and one needs to have a smart strategy in revision. The micro notes and micro listing of topics can be quite helpful in this regard. While scanning through the newspaper one should have not only a bird eye view over salient topics but should have a detailed introspection over these topics too. Interlinking the dynamic portion to the static one is also very important. The same pattern should be adopted in previous year paper also. To memorize schemes one should make a table for schemes and add sections like Nodal Ministry, Funding (Whether it is Central Sector or Centrally Sponsored), Beneficiaries and Objectives. A similar approach can be adopted for important Committees and their recommendations, Facts, important judgements too.

The last but not least is to practice more and more. Solve as many questions as possible before the prelims examination. It gives the candidate an edge because answering the questions would not be as difficult as he would be attending it for the first time in the examination. Many times aspirants commit silly mistakes in a hurry like ignoring critical words like "not", "only" etc. Practicing questions would certainly help in covering those mistakes.