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.GS Paper IV StrategyGo through UPSC Mains 2017 Papers and IASbaba’s role- Here.UPSC Mains 2016 Solved Papers- Analysis. Paper 1-. Paper 2-. Paper 3-Essay Strategy-Model Essay by IASbaba–Mains Previous Years Question Papers–Think, Learn & Perform (TLP)-Special Series for better understanding of Ethics–CASE STUDIES RELATED–GS paper IV is perhaps the most intriguing and misunderstood part of the UPSC syllabus. You almost have the feeling that it is in your reach, somewhere in your mind, may be your subconscious thoughts.
You see those generic terms like integrity, honesty and governance and immediately have a feeling that you can nail the paper. After all it is all about ideas.
You are never short of ideas, are you??Remember the university days. No matter what you knew and how much you knew, filling pages was no big deal for you. But only if that could hold true with UPSC as well! Unfortunately, our university machismo doesn’t augur well with UPSC. The examiners are quality starved and they won’t accept anything below Hyderabadi Biryani, forget about the street food of Rajindernagar.
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But the question is do we have the ingredients to cook that delicious, finger licking Biryani? Don’t worry by the time you are done with this write up, you shall have those ingredients. It is our promise.So how do you think we should approach the syllabus? The UPSC syllabus designates a name for the paper. It calls it GS Paper IV. Does it mean that we should prepare it as the other three GS papers.
Should we start making notes of all the terms and terminologies, views and ideas of thinkers and philosophers, psychological theories related to attitude and aptitude, principles of governance; and the list goes on. Or do we have to think and act differently or we rephrase our word–smartly?We think our smart generation must act smartly. Acting smartly doesn’t mean following utopian shortcuts as they lead you nowhere. It only means we must act in the most efficient and effective manner keeping in mind the demands of the syllabus and of course the time constraint.Now let us begin by saying a simple yet important thing: Ethics, integrity and honesty should form a common theme during your entire preparation and not only for GS paper IV. It should be like a canopy similar to that of a topical rainforest covering the entire region and not like the sporadic bushes and shrubs of the deserts, popping here and there sporadically. Consistency in our thinking is the most important ingredient of success in this paper. What we are trying to convey is that one can’t FAKE ethical behavior.Even if one does manage that, inconsistency would be visible all over his/her answer sheet and that leads to only one thing–failure.
So for the sake of this examination we have to be considerate as human beings to everything around us, be it society, environment, friends, foes, relatives and all that surrounds us. Is it too much to ask for? We don’t think so. We are all good people.
You may disagree with our assessment but let us tell you that more often than not we all shall be good than evil.May be that this cruel examination process and the intense competition have injected some undesirable traits in few of us but at the end of the day we are all good. So how does that matter to our preparation for GS paper IV?It matters because our assessment of a situation is driven by our personality and character. It is thus futile to learn the concepts of paper IV from various sources and websites and try implementing them in the examination hall.
Even if one does so, the superficiality of his/her intentions would be readily visible in the answers. This paper requires an honest foundation that one can’t find in books or websites. They are ingrained in all of us. We just need to revisit the school days of our innocent childhood.We knew certain things for sure those days.
We knew lying was bad, stealing was even worse and hurting someone was an open invitation to punishment by our parents or teachers. So simple was life and its principles. However, today we love to complicate things. We have internalized the notions of relative honesty and comparative moral behavior. We assess our wrong doings by judging and quantifying the action of others.
We also justify our actions on many flimsy grounds which induce social acceptance and rather promote collective loss of character and integrity. But believe us, the more you complicate things, the more it becomes difficult to hide your true personality and character.UPSC knows this dilemma well and that is why we are asked to answer so many question in such a short duration of time that after the initial few questions our original thoughts start getting reflected in the answer sheet. All the philosophers and their teachings are blown away by the series of questions posed by UPSC. Neither Aristotle nor Plato comes to your rescue.
You yourself become philosopher and university instincts take you over. You just pour your thoughts on the paper forgetting all the cautions related to balanced views, word limits, use of quotes, presentation techniques. You see the papers filled by you and feel happy about it as if you are the only one doing that.You become more of yourself with your original thought process lying naked on the answer sheet. And this is the point when your fate is locked by the examiner. If you are an honest person, the same will reflect in your answers and you shall be awarded good marks. But if you have that typical DNA injected by some coaching institute and you try to fake your thoughts by presenting some pre cooked answers, you stand a thin chance in this paper.So what do we do?
Don’t we need to follow any book? Don’t we need to prepare for this paper? But more important than the list of books and websites is the need to understand the soul of this paper. As we said before all the traits demanded by the syllabus should flow like a common theme in your answers and it is possible only when we enter into dialogues with each other and more importantly with ourselves.
Introspection of your own behavior and self contemplation would teach you more than anything else. It doesn’t mean that you become a Sanyasi or ascetic.It simply means knowing yourself and asking those obvious questions having not so obvious answers. What do you want in your life? What does happiness mean to you? How important are friends to you? How do you see your family in your life? What qualities do you want to see in your partner?
What changes do you want to see around you? How do you feel about the current state of society? How can you contribute to change it? How do you feel when you see a young couple doing PDA in a public place? Should girls be allowed to wear short clothes? Would you allow your wife to go to work and let her wear clothes of her choice?
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The answers to these questions flow from two different parts of your body–mind and soul. Your mind would follow rationality and logic while your heart shall follow the gut feeling or intuition.For example rationality and logic says that a girl should be independent to wear the clothes of her liking but when it comes to your girlfriend or wife, your heart makes you overprotective and uncomfortable with your partner exercising such choice. This exam is all about balancing these extremes.
Internalize your intuitions but at the same time get hold of logic and rationality. It is an art and you can master this art through honesty.
Discuss your feelings with your peers, family and guide. Defend your thoughts and at the same time be receptive to criticism as well. Listen to others and if you find their arguments logical enough, simply own them.It will broaden your horizons. Talk to people of different religion, gender and regions. Exchange ideas with them. Write down you feelings, revisit them after few days and see whether your thought process has changed or not.
All this shall not take much of your time. In fact all those unnecessary speculations about cut offs and best test series in the market can be replaced by reasoned communication. Remember, we are all aspiring to become civil servants and thus our outlook, dialogues and thought process should reflect some responsibility.Finally, we provide you with the sources and strategies for the individual components of the syllabus. This is the basic foundation work that you have to do.
We shall build upon the superstructure in due course of time.We will be recommending very few, yet highly useful sources for this paper– not for you to mug up and reproduce in the examination hall, but to sharpen your thinking and writing style. In this paper, you should be original in writing and logical in your views.Before we begin the strategy, few things to note:.
You need NOT study ethics for hours and hours daily like you do for GS. You should NOT start studying ethics ‘ 1 year’ before the exam! Thats too much for a paper that does not require more than 2-3 months of selective and cursory (sketchy) reading.
Otherwise your answers will start looking more academic, and will be punished severely. You should NOT study complex ethical jargon (not definitions) and heavy philosophical stuff. Study only what is needed to handle an administrative life and ethical dilemmas. You should NOT start mugging up quotes, thinkers, catchy lines etc just to impress the examiner.
He is looking for ‘YOUR’ understanding and point of view. It is however no harm in quoting others once or twice in your answers. You should focus more on a logical writing style rather than a deeply twisted philosophical one. The Examiner is looking for your arguments, not philosophies.
And most importantly, do NOT ‘force’ morality in your answers. It is hard to do and looks artificial too. If you are moral, it would automatically reflect in your answers. Try implementing what you learn from books into real life. It really feels better, and makes you a better human being!So, we will start with the steps, one by one, for preparing ethics paper.Step 1: Scan Syllabus and MindmapsGo through all UPSC syllabus properly and then the detailed syllabus mindmaps on our website to understand the demands of the syllabus.The mindmap is only indicative, not exhaustive. However, it covers a very large part of the syllabus.Step 2: Scan UPSC Previous year papersAlso see the that UPSC released.You will see that the questions asked are very general in nature and no specific/academic study is required for them. Only an overview of the sources mentioned below will do.Specially, observe the kind of case studies; and personal opinion based questions (for e.g.
How can you prove yourself as eligible for administration of such a high responsibility etc.)Step 3: Watch Justice Harvard VideosNow, before starting up to read anything, we recommend you to go through Michael Sandel. This will provide you a real insight into what exactly is the domain of ethics and morality. And it will radically broaden your thinking horizon.You need not watch all the videos to begin with.
Ethics Book for UPSC-Lexicon For Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude PDF Download for free Download Ethics Book for UPSC- Lexicon For Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude PDFEnglish BooksHindi BooksArt and CultureHistory Bookscoming sooncoming soonModern indHindi-Modern indcoming sooncoming soonIndian Polity Bookscoming soonIndian Economy Books-Geography BooksOther BooksThe Lexicon for Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude has been the closest in interpreting the syllabic content for GS Paper IV. Having established itself as the leader in its domain; the present edition is an upgraded version.
It provides with the ‘objective’ keys to solve the Case Study Questions. Apart from this, it has all the literal and application meaning for all the words that are subtly related but explicitly different. In a book what you get is a complete read for excelling in your GS Paper IV for the Mains.
It could also be useful for general reading for anyone interested in knowing about all that is good for human existence.Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude for Civil Services Examination was first published in 2013. P N Roy Chowdhury and G Subba Rao are the authors of this book and have updated and revised in the third edition of the book. The revised edition was based on constructive feedback and suggestions.The new edition includes:. A new chapter named `Challenges to Ethics and Moral Accountability’. The above Chapter’s case studies are re-designed as per UPSC question paper pattern 25.
Chapters covering the entire range of issues related to ethics, integrity and aptitude. Text interspersed with Case Studies wherever relevant. Summary provided at the end of each chapter.
Self-Assessment test questions are provided Glossary of terms.About the author:P. Roy Chowdhury is a retired IAS officer and the Director General of Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration in Ahmedabad. He taught mathematics at the undergraduate level in the Rahara College, managed by the Rama Krishna Mission and later joined the IAS, serving the Government of Gujarat in various capacities.
He has studied for his MSc Finance degree at Strathclyde University, Glasgow and at the University Of Rochester, USA, for an MBA programme. G Subba Rao is a retired IAS officer and currently is Chairman, Gujarat State Police Complaints Authority. He holds an MA in Economics from Andhra University, MA In Rural Development from University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, Post navigation.