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Why Political Science For UPSC?

Political science is a useful optional subject for the UPSC exam for several reasons: 1) It directly covers topics that are frequently tested in the preliminary exam such as Indian polity, governance, and international relations. 2) Knowledge of political science can also help answer questions in other sections of the prelims like geography and current events. 3) Nearly 60% of the topics covered in the UPSC mains general studies syllabus are also covered in the political science syllabus. Political science preparation therefore integrates well with preparation for both the prelims and mains exams.

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Shashank Kumar Singh
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138 views

Why Political Science For UPSC?

Political science is a useful optional subject for the UPSC exam for several reasons: 1) It directly covers topics that are frequently tested in the preliminary exam such as Indian polity, governance, and international relations. 2) Knowledge of political science can also help answer questions in other sections of the prelims like geography and current events. 3) Nearly 60% of the topics covered in the UPSC mains general studies syllabus are also covered in the political science syllabus. Political science preparation therefore integrates well with preparation for both the prelims and mains exams.

Uploaded by

Shashank Kumar Singh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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WHY POLITICAL SCIENCE?

ADVANTAGES OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AS AN


OPTIONAL IN UPSC
It is very much GS-Friendly. In Preliminary Exam every year, 810 questions are asked from Indian freedom movement and 15 to 20
questions are asked from Indian polity and Governance section.
Nowadays the level of difficulty of these questions is increasing per
year, therefore a student with in-depth knowledge of Indian
Constitution and Politics is much better equipped to successfully
handle such questions and gain crucial marks. Besides 3 to 8
questions can be expected from International Affairs/International
Institutions section. And to remind you, the questions from this section
would be basically answerable and wont be complicated. A Political
Science student is mandated by his syllabus to master these sections
anyway.
Also it is quite helpful in tackling other sections sometimes for e.g. in
CSAT 2014; the geography question regarding the location of Turkey
was
a
sitter
for
students
with
Pol. Sci. optional as area in question was integral to the Ukraine
Crisis. Similarly questions on Arab Spring, BRICS Summits, AGNI IV
and Region often in news (Chechnya, Darfur & Swat Valley) were
directly from IR portion of Pol. Sci. (Paper 2).Consequently the student
found these areas in prelims to his advantage.
YEAR
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014

No. Of Questions From Polity


5
8
18
18
15(Including IR And Defence)

In other words, anyone who intends to clear prelims can never neglect
Indian Polity section. Anyone who takes Political Science as optional
would study Indian Polity and Governance along with International
Relations anyway consequently saving time for other topics for the
preliminary exam. In this way the preparation for Prelims and Mains
would get integrated for a Political Science student.

I made no distinction in study for Prelims and Mains till April 2010,
and later only started paying more attention to factual
details- Karthik Iyer, All India Rank 7 in 2010 CSE with Political Science as
one of the optional while referring to his preparation of Paper 1 Section B of
Political Science.

In the newly revised General Studies Mains syllabus nearly 60


Percentage of Political Science Syllabus topics is covered. If
one sees the questions from General Studies Paper 2
- Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice, Indian
Diaspora and International relations and relate with Political
Science Question Papers I and II, he could hardly make any
difference between the two. For example in the year 2013, all
questions from International Relations section in GS-II were
directly from the topics covered in Paper 2 of Political Science
and International Relations.
In Essay paper [200 marks] almost every year there is one topic
related to Indian Government and Politics and International relations.
The subject being very dynamic because major area of focus under
Political Science syllabus is on applied dimensions. [For instanceactual working of principal organs of the Union Government and
those of the state government (paper 1 topic no 4 (a) & (b)], you are
constantly mandated to keep in touch with the newspaper. A Political
Science student would feel that the entire newspaper every day is
some way or the other related to his syllabus. Extracting useful
information every day from newspapers and magazines is a
cumbersome and time consuming task, therefore guidance
from an expert faculty becomes indispensible in terms of which
topics to focus on and which ones to avoid.
The UPSC move of revision of syllabus of General Studies has
generated golden opportunity to score high marks in the subject. In
fact as of now, even those students who dont have the background of
political science have fared better in many respects. Since almost all
the factual parts of the syllabus have been deleted in the new syllabus,
the conceptual understanding in Political Science theory section would
make a better presentation of the answers possible.

Also, answer writing practice especially for the conceptual portions of


the subject gives experience for answering questions in the general
studies papers.
Lastly, in interview the subject comes to be extremely handy

as a good knowledge of Governance, Polity and IR can result in


very good marks and finally scale the gap between getting a
recommendation and missing it by a few marks and investing
one more year of your life in preparation.

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