Many times, we observe that UPSC candidates are giving their full efforts on current affairs preparations. They are reading daily newspapers, following top current affairs magazines for UPSC and taking current affairs quizzes regularly. But their performance is failing to improve despite their efforts.
This article explains how taking notes while you read daily current affairs for UPSC can improve your score. Stay with us.
Which news stories and articles are important for UPSC?
A current affairs magazine for UPSC is a publication specifically edited for competitive exam candidates. So, you can expect only relevant articles and notifications. The chance of wasting time on unnecessary information is zero. But that’s not the case with newspapers.
A publicly circulated newspaper reports all events and incidents, including local politics to global entertainment. Not all of those reports may have relevance to UPSC exams.
Some of the newsworthy topics, events and incidents relevant to UPSC are:
- India’s international relations
- Governance
- Science & technology
- Art & culture
- Agriculture
- Election
- Indian polity
- Disaster and emergency management
- Indian heritage
- History
- Geography
- National security
- Internal security
- Social justice
- Environment & pollution
- Economy
- Judiciary
- India’s participation in international trade
- Ethics & human rights
- Indian public policy
- India in sports
How to measure the level of your readiness about current affairs for UPSC?
It is important for every candidate to test their level of preparation in current affairs topics. Current affairs for UPSC require more than just memorising facts and figures. For effective understanding, you need to practise answering UPSC-like current affairs quizzes and daily UPSC Prelims mini tests. Performance in these daily tests can help you measure the quality of your preparation correctly.
How to take notes on daily current affairs for UPSC?
- Maintain dedicated registers or copybooks for current affairs notes. This will help to maintain records of your notes in a structured manner. You will be able to check and revise any previous notes easily without wasting time and energy.
- Focus on topics relevant to UPSC current affairs syllabus. Avoid reading news stories and articles that are not relevant for UPSC exams. For example, sports stories are important only when they have national implications like policy decisions to improve India’s Olympic performance, Indian sports persons winning medals in world sports and similar incidents.
- Never copy. Write your notes in your own words. Are you taking notes by copying the news story or the report? Strictly write your notes in your words. It will help build your writing skills and develop connections within your mind between current affairs stories and articles you have already read.
- Summarise every news story and article. Writing notes means summarising articles you just read. Your note must include what, when, how, who and where mentioned in an article.
- Practice writing notes in crisp language. UPSC expects answers in descriptive questions to be precise, meaningful and free of unnecessary facts. So, practice writing crisp notes. If possible, get your notes reviewed by someone else, like a teacher, a family member or a friend. Ask for their opinion on how precise your notes are.
- Build connections between new and old news updates. While we write notes, our brain tries to fit in new information by building connections with existing data and information stored within our brain. It helps better cognition and memory retention.
- Highlight and keep track of notes on UPSC hot topics. These are topics with serious implications for national policy, economy and functioning of the governments at the central and states. Examples could be education, tax reforms, poverty alleviation, etc. Highlight such topics in your notes and keep track of new updates on these topics.
- Write notes on editorials and opinionated articles as well. Editorials and opinionated articles provide multiple perspectives on an incident. Note these perspectives and think over if you can add any other perspective to a news story. Make this a habit.
- Complete writing notes on daily newspapers every day. Do not procrastinate. News stories and articles are highly dynamic. Procrastination will always increase your burden.
- Revise your current affair notes in fixed intervals. For example, revise your notes after every week and month. It helps to stay updated and improve your memory of any event or incident.
Conclusion
Current affairs is a dynamic topic. Only way to build a firm grip on this topic is to read daily newspapers, magazines and authentic news channels. Check https://www.iasgyan.in/ daily news analysis and daily editorials on daily current affairs for UPSC.
