Many newcomers have this doubt:
at what time do we start to read newspaper for next year exam
First,
Why should we read newspapers at all?
- UPSC doesn't have any strict 'time-boundaries' about questions, especially for the descriptive ones: Direct Tax code, GST, formation of new states, corruption, Education, Food security, planning Commission, India-America etc: these are hot topics for every year.
- General Awareness and broad understanding of international/social/political/economic issues will not develop immediately after reading one book or class-note or magazine.
- Daily newspapers and editorial columns' reading broadens your vision, provide you the food for thought and nutritional-fodder material for descriptive answer, helps you link up one issue with another. It helps you see the real-life examples of theories and academic stuff you read in the reference books.
- And and those things are essential for writing decent essays and giving decent answers in interview. [Marks of both, counted in final merit list]
- So Keep in mind, Newspaper is not just a short-term investments for MCQs in prelims- it is long term investment for scoring high in Essay and interview.
When should we start reading newspaper?
- To gain the the awareness about contemporary issues, you should
start reading newspapers from this day onwards, no matter whether you're
planning to appear in 2012 or in 2014.
- Besides you're always competing with veterans who've been upto interview stage multiple times, Their current-awareness level will be higher than yours, so you can't ignore newspapers or put any time-frame on it just because your target is 2013 or later.
- By newspaper, I mean the serious newspapers : Indian Express, The Hindu. and not the page3 Masala stuff that appears in Times of India.
till when???
- Until your name appears in the final list of successful candidates
- or until you cross the attempt-limit
- or until you cross the upper age limit.
- or until you give up your civil service dream
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Sir, do you think devoting too much time on reading newspapers is not a good practice.
ReplyDeleteI find the editorials of HINDU very intresting, so i use to read them and research them on the net for about 2-3 hours daily.
Do you think I must give more stress on NCERT's and standard textbook more, than relying on internet studies.
@Sanjeev
ReplyDeleteread this
http://mrunal-exam.blogspot.com/2012/01/q-editorials-how-much-time-to-allot.html