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Starts from 12th July 2023
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In the current trend of UPSC CSE, Optional subject is playing a major role in making it to the final selection list and also missing it with close margins.
Agriculture optional has been a scoring optional throughout. Those who prepare strategically can safely score 260+. Being a technical subject, questions in the exam tend to repeat every year. With good conceptual clarity, right guidance and thorough writing practice, one can score above 300.
The key here is good writing practice; reading material is no constraint for Agriculture optional.
The following tables convey that compared to other optional subjects, agriculture has good role in getting into selection list.
Why to choose Agriculture optional?
For Agriculture graduates:
- Familiarity with subject. Having studied for at least 4 years gives confidence on the subject matter.
- Can cover more syllabus in less time compared to other optional.
- Less chances of panicking about unknown questions in the exam hall, as most of the questions will be known.
- Even when questions come out of ordinary, will have knowledge base to manage them in the exam hall.
- Can address the demand of questions with the practical knowledge gained in the field during graduation, especially for the questions on Agriculture extension. While writing answers from experience, content feels genuine.
- Less to describe in words more to express in diagrams.
- Since Agriculture optional syllabus for IFS and Civil services is almost the same and paper 2 of botany is as similar as Agriculture paper 2, it will be like preparing for both exams simultaneously.
- Rank 106 (2018, score 311), next could be you.
For non-Agriculture graduates:
- People with science background, graduates in biotech, chemistry, botany etc can opt for Agriculture optional. As it would be easy for completion of syllabus and there will be natural ease in writing answers.
- Even engineering graduates have cleared IFS by having Agriculture as optional like rank 63 (IFS, 2019), graduates form science subjects like rank 95 (IAS, 2017 with score of 310+).
- One can cover overlapping topics of GS III in the optional like, Major crops cropping patterns in various parts of the country, different types of irrigation and irrigation systems storage, transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints, e-technology in the aid of farmers. Issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; Public Distribution System objectives, functioning, limitations, revamping; issues of buffer stocks and food security.
- There have been at least 4 questions on agriculture in UPSC GS 3 from last 4 years, so Agriculture optional helps to tackle at least 20% of questions in GS3. Over years at least 2 to 3 questions are coming from agriculture in UPSC GS paper 3. With the current focus agriculture getting in policy accepts, questions are only expected to increase.
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- What is water-use efficiency? Describe the role of micro-irrigation in increasing the water-use efficiency.
- What is allelopathy? Discuss its role in major cropping systems of irrigated agriculture.
- Discuss the role of land reforms in agricultural development. Identify the factors that were responsible for the success of land reforms in India.
- Given the vulnerability of Indian agriculture to vagaries of nature, discuss the need for crop insurance and bring out the salient features of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY).
- Easy availability of reading materials.
Trend of the questions being asked over the years is to evaluate the aspirants’ understanding of basic concepts in the subject and ability to present good content in limited time and space. But off-late, a few questions are appearing to test depth of the knowledge.
For example, question of gene pyramiding and introgression was asked in 2016 for 12.5 marks same was asked for 15 marks in 2020. Since two terms has less difference, it demands depth of knowledge to answer.
* A detailed analysis of the trend of questions will be provided later.
Agriculture optional success rate (as per UPSC annual report)
| Year | No. of candidates appeared | No. of candidates cleared | Success rate (%) |
| 2018 | 102 | 3 | 2.9 |
| 2017 | 89 | 11 | 12.4 |
| 2016 | 220 | 41 | 18.6 |
| 2015 | 86 | 11 | 12.8 |
| 2014 | 65 | 7 | 10.8 |
| 2013 | 77 | 7 | 9.1 |
| 2012 | 122 | 20 | 16.4 |
| 2011 | 132 | 16 | 12.1 |
| 2010 | 205 | 3 | 1.5 |
How I-ARI will address the demands:
- 100+ PYQs will be discussed in detail in the class with special emphasis on writing skills, especially structuring and presentation of aspects.
- It will help you to tackle questions which tend to understand your depth of knowledge.
- The program will have a integrated test series. 4 full length tests which are prepared keeping in mind the trends of UPSC.
- Each aspirant will have unique problem. Individual mentoring will give personalized solutions to aspirants.
- We are organising a session from the topper about exam mindset, tackling unknown questions in exam etc.
- We are going to bring subject experts mainly for agri economics, either in online or offline mode to share their domain knowledge.
- It will be highly beneficial for aspirants appearing for this is mains and aspirants preparing for next year attempt.
CLICK HERE check the questions repeated from our test series in the actual UPSC optional paper.
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Starts from 12th July 2023
Fee: Rs. 9999/- incl. taxes
Early Bird Discount : 10% till 10th July 2023
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