Amongst IAS aspirants, 2013 Mains and the brouhaha surrounding it has finally receded and preparation for 2014 exams is picking up speed.
Earlier with lots of enthusiasm we had started Writing Challenges for Optional subjects too, but only Public Administration, Sociology, Political Science and Geography were successful and that was because of efforts by few aspirants who regularly sent us questions.
From January first week, we would like to restart them again. But there is something to be done by us and you before we venture out to do this.
From each subject we need Volunteers who have written at least one Mains and are willing to send us questions from their subjects on a regular basis and that too topic wise.
We already have volunteer for History, who (he has written Mains twice) has promised us to send Original questions keeping in mind the present demand of UPSC exam.
Likewise we need volunteers for other Optional subjects. We need commitment. If you once volunteer to send us questions, you must do it regularly.
It has its own benefits. When we post your questions, you will get many good answers for your questions. It is beneficial to all, especially for the aspirants who live in remote areas of the country.
When you send questions, do keep following points in your mind:
- UPSC tests depth in Optional Subjects. The era of writing superficial answers and securing a rank is gone. Your questions must be thought provoking and should demand multi-dimensional answer from the candidate.
- Thoroughly read previous year questions, especially last 3 year’s, and try to frame questions on the similar lines
- Send questions topic wise, so that we can complete preparation of Optional subjects through answer writing practice in a time bound manner
- Send questions in a Word Document
For Participants:
If you were waiting for this initiative to restart, then you must write your answers not just on your notebooks, but on the site too. We don’t demand this every day. At least when you write a very good answer to a question (measure it by your satisfaction levels) then please post them on the site. You can write 5-6 answers every week. Let others read your answer and comment on them. In the end it helps you more than anyone else.
If this initiative has to succeed, there should be an active participation from your side, not passive anticipation for others to write answers and then copy them on to your hard disc.
If nobody writes answers, we will stop posting questions. Healthy competition is possible only when someone sets standard by regularly participating in these initiatives.
As we have History Questions ready, we will start our renewed initiative with this Optional Subject.
You can send us questions to: insightsonindia at gmail dot com
