How To Read The Newspaper For Civil Service Examination?

Over the years the importance of reading newspapers for UPSC examination has increased tremendously. With the plethora of newspapers available in the market, students should focus on the ones which cover the overall and relevant news pertaining to national, international, science, technology and other important sectors in a detailed manner. Reading the newspapers for current affairs is an indispensable part of IAS examination.

To gain knowledge of what is happening around is a must for the aspirants of IAS examination. Students should spend a lot of time reading the newspaper and forming notes. They need to develop an effective strategy for reading them. It is important to start with the national and international news page. Local news should not be given much importance. Concentration should be on national and certain state specific news. Editorial reading is important for the UPSC examination. However, it does not mean to read all the articles. Few articles contain repetitive information and are written on the same topic. Avoid reading such editorial section.

What can be avoided?

Reading newspaper is one of the important aspects of UPSC examination and aspirants should spend considerable amount of time to decide what to read and what not to read in a newspaper. Students should pay least importance to sports and entertainment issues, unless it involves any Government policies. Political news or issues can be avoided and students should not mention the names of the political personalities in their answers. A slight overview of the political news is sufficient for clearing the examination. However, in regard to foreign policies concerned names can be mentioned. Even the local news given on the second and third page is not important for the preparation of IAS examination. Local news varies from one city to another and therefore holds no relevance with the examination.

Issues are Important

Make sure you don’t read the newspaper just for the sake of reading it. Read it with a mindset of answering questions asked in the UPSC examination. Focus on the relevant national and international issues. Read the newspaper at least for an hour, apart from making notes so that you don’t miss out on the important points. Being an IAS aspirant, it is important to analyze the underlying issues and themes. If you are in the habit of reading newspapers, it will be easy to tackle the current affairs section in the examination.

Makes Notes

Students should get into the practice of making notes while reading the newspapers. Read properly through the main news and make note of the specific events and news. Students can incorporate these points while attempting the essay type answers in the UPSC examination. Revising the notes at the last hour helps the aspirants to answer questions related to current affair questions. Make notes of the technicalities involved and the involvement of the organization in the news. For example cover all the points on the IAEA, enrichment facilities, and nuclear reactors. Keep making notes on these points as you may encounter it every time during the IAS exam preparation. Joining a coaching institute like Vajiram and Ravi helps you in making current affairs notes from the newspapers. The four papers of General Studies in the IAS main test series contain current affair questions and the relevance of newspaper reading is important even for the Main exam.

Keep it Simple

Every newspaper will provide you with the current affairs. But it is important to read those which help you in cracking the IAS examination. The coaching institutes also guide which newspapers you should read for the UPSC exam preparation. Generally, it is suggested to read either Hindu or Express newspapers for the UPSC examination as they focus less on the irrelevant topics than the other newspapers.

The current affairs form an important part of the UPSC examination as a lot of question are framed from this section. Students should rather study the newspaper than merely reading the newspapers.