In recent times, proportion of taking political science as optional has gone higher and higher. There are plethora of important aspect that Political Science as one of the most acceptable optional paper. Majority of the aspirants have this query like, which optional subject should they choose for a UPSC examination. There is no easy or tough optional subject. It all about your interests in the subject and sometimes your background like your graduation.

Benefits of taking political science as an optional subject:

• There is perception among aspirants that PSIR is one of the toughest optional papers. This segment gets all the much worst for technical background students. There are lots of benefits associated with taking PSIR as optional subject.

Prelims & Mains Syllabus Overlapping:

• There are lots of benefits of taking PSIR as optional for Prelims and Mains. If aspirants choose PSIR as optional subject, you will realise that it will act as a bridging gap between Prelims preparation strategy and Mains prepartion strategy. 

Integration of Current Affairs:

• PSIR as optional has syllabus that integrate static and dynamic portion in lucid manner. The biggest advantage with political science subject is that you gain broad knowledge of the current things going on. That you can utilize in the general studies section.

Bridging the Gap Between Optional and Mains Syllabus:

• The biggest advantage of choosing political science as an optional subject is its relevance and interlinking phenomena of mains and optional syllabus. Aspirants choosing PSIR as optional paper can have huge benefits in paper 2^nd of GS paper under polity and Governance related segment.
• You can use the knowledge of the political science subject in GS subjects. It will reduce your burden. Every year, huge number of aspirants choose PSIR optional subject, only due to overlapping phenomena with GS paper 2^nd, as most of the topics are covered in the optional subject itself.
• PSIR optional will help students, in Ethics paper. As, Paper 1 of PSIR contain thoughts and theories portion, which is directly linked with Ethics paper part 1. In ethics paper, aspirants can improve their approach segment of attempting answers and choosing the possible content for particular subject by covering PSIR optional syllabus. After choosing the political science subject as an optional for UPSC CSE examination you would be in the very good position as far as optional preparation is concerned. E.g. many topics in thoughts like of Mill, Bentham and Liberal notions of state, justice and democracy, etc. are pretty much interrelated.
• PSIR as optional paper will also help aspirants in Essay paper, as paper will definitely have two questions from the political science-related subject matter. After choosing the political science subject as an optional for UPSC CSE examination you would be in the very good position to attempt essay topics, which can ultimately be game-changer.

Aspirants should definitely consider taking PSIR as optional, if you have an idea about the syllabus and if you are comfortable with the syllabus. PSIR optional can integrate your preparation by linking different segments, right from the optional to GS paper. However, what is required is the approach towards the subject in terms of studying, answer writing and utilising knowledge of PSIR in various stages of the examination.