How to Prepare Current Affairs for UPSC?

Are you a UPSC aspirant and looking for how to prepare Current Affairs for UPSC?

If yes, then this article will surely help you and increase your chances of selection in UPSC.

Introduction

Current affairs for UPSC are the most important among many other topics for UPSC preparation. This part is the one that most students take for granted and think like preparing just before the exam.

This mentality stops them from achieving the required results even though they have prepared well with the theoretical things.

On the other hand, many students waste a lot of time preparing current affairs for UPSC without knowing what to read and what to leave as per the UPSC syllabus.

So, let us start the discussion of the topic. But wait, before that, let us have a brief look at the syllabus of the General Science paper of UPSC prelims to help you better understand the current affairs for UPSC.

Syllabus of UPSC General Science

The UPSC General Science paper consists of 200 marks and is of 2 hours duration.

Further, the Important topics that come in the General Science prelims paper are below.

1. First of all, you need to be well aware of the ongoing current events of national and international importance.
2. The General Science paper also consists of Indian history and all the important national movements of India.
3. After history and current events, geography is equally important. This section not only deals with Indian geography but also World’s geography. Furthermore, the Physical, social, economic geography of India and the World comes under this part.
4. The next one is India polity and governance. Under this comes the Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policies, Rights, etc.
5. Sustainable Development, Poverty, Demographics, Inclusion, and Social Sector Initiatives come under Economic and Social development.
6. Apart from the ones mentioned above, few general issues don’t require a General Science subject’s specialization. General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Changes are under this point.

You can visit the UPSC website for a complete syllabus or a well-categorized syllabus; you can visit our UPSC Syllabus page. 

Now, let us discuss “How to prepare current affairs for UPSC” in a good manner.

UPSC Current Affairs Preparation Tips

1. First, you should practice or develop a habit of practising 50 current affairs daily and slowly increase the number of questions when the exam is near.

2. Read the newspaper daily and try to avoid the things that are of no use for the UPSC exams, like reading about movies, reading ads, etc.

It would help if you focused on issues and not the news. 

What does this mean?

UPSC doesn’t ask about the headlines and the news. Instead, you will be asked about the issues behind such news. So, try to dig a little deeper and find the actual issue behind it. You should know how to read a newspaper for UPSC Preparation.

In this competitive era, reading a newspaper is not considered enough for selection. Along with reading a newspaper, you should have the below useful things for your current affairs preparation.

• India’s yearly book containing the entire year’s important news and issues.
• Read either The Hindu or The Indian Express newspaper as they both are designed and contain various useful pieces of information for the UPSC current affairs.
• Economic Surveys of India are also important and should be read while preparing current affairs for UPSC.
• Apart from these, you can refer to Magazines, Pratiyogita Darpan, or Arihant current affairs books.

Moreover, you can join The Thought Tree as we provide library facilities for students to get a great study environment and a place to study in a silent place.

3. Make a habit of preparing notes that help you to revise the important things before the exam. This is the solution to many problems like some say they forget the previous day’s news.

It is advised to make date-wise notes and try to bifurcate within different topics that will give a better understanding during revision. 

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Don’t try to over-explain and extend things. Be short and try to summarise the things briefly, as this will save time next time you go through the notes.

You can also use your highlighter pen for the most important news, facts, and important figures per the UPSC syllabus.

This is one of the most important tips for your question, “How to prepare current affairs for UPSC.”

4. Joining coaching is also important as coaching centres give you the right strategy to remember the current affairs, revise daily current affairs, and ask questions from the students to test their memory. 

I recommend joining The Thought Tree for UPSC preparation as we are the leading ones in the civil services exams. Also, they give proper notes of daily current affairs and give tips to build up the memory to store many things for a longer time.

5. Always choose quality over quantity. While preparing notes, you should be very clear and brief and write in simple language to help during future reference.

There are both kinds of people, one who researches a lot about any topic and writes long stories in the notes, and the other one is precise and writes things to the point.

You can imagine the amount of time being wasted by the first person right now and will also waste in the future during revision.

6. Try to write a good heading that directly makes you remember the things that come under it. This will also help in navigating to the keyword you might look for in the future. Never write long paragraphs without including different keywords for different pieces of news.

Assume that you made proper notes and included keywords for every news item. Then if you are asked some news, you can easily think of that and recall the things under that particular keyword. This is one of the best ways to prepare current affairs for UPSC.

7. If completing the complete course is the body of preparation, then revision can be considered as the soul of the UPSC exam preparation.

Regular revision is equally important as making notes. If you have made proper notes and just left them after making them, you only did half the job. 

We know half-knowledge doesn’t take us anywhere.

So, regularly revising the notes helps your mind to remember the things for a long duration and things you revise daily, you never forget.

8 Study the pattern of questions and the type of questions asked in the previous year’s papers. The pattern of questions will help you know where UPSC is asking more questions, and you can make those areas strong. The type of questions will help you know the purpose of asking such questions to discuss with your teachers at coaching. The teachers will help you with the best possible answer to such questions.

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9 After you have done the course and revision, the next thing you should go for is the mocks. Mocks from the best UPSC coaching help in better preparation and give an idea of how a question can be formed from current affairs. If you are prepared in advance, then you get an extra edge in the UPSC exams.

Also, giving mock tests before directly appearing for the UPSC exam will help you boost your confidence and lower your nervousness.

10 Always remember to keep your sources limited. You are keeping limited sources but useful ones that will help save time and the energy that we can utilize for the studies. Also, don’t mug everything and try to be as simple as possible as you are writing for yourself, not anyone else. 

According to toppers, engaging yourself with a lot of material will, in turn, reduce your mental strength. Instead of limited study as per the UPSC syllabus demands, an aspirant can easily clear the exam with a lot more focus on all the things he read.

Furthermore, try to write in at least legitimate handwriting, even if not in a good one. It should not be like you can’t read things later and you have to start from scratch again.

Overall Advise

Current affairs are one of the most important topics of the UPSC syllabus. Also, daily new current affairs add up. Hence it is important to study and make summarized notes of all the current affairs for UPSC daily. 

If by any chance or due to a shortage of time, you can shift the revision process to weekends. 

Remember to not indulge yourself in wasting unnecessary time studying current affairs. Wasting time leads to compromising the time duration of other subjects.

Yes, the current affairs are of great importance in the selection, but this doesn’t mean that other subjects can be left for the last moment before the UPSC exam.

Conclusion

When added with the correct approach, the current affairs preparation tips discussed in this article make it the best combination.

Along with these tips, coaching is equally important to provide the right guidance and well-updated study material. The Thought Tree has set great benchmarks as we always update our study material from time to time and whenever there are some changes in the UPSC paper pattern.  

The Thought Tree focuses equally on current affairs as on the rest of the syllabus, and according to the teachers at T3, current affairs require daily revision. Current Affairs can’t be left for revision just before the UPSC exam, and the same is done every day in the live interactive classes. I hope you got the answer to your question “How to prepare current affairs for UPSC.”

All the best for your preparation.