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IMP: Civilsdaily IAS Prelims 2017 Test Series Module Launched – Click here

• Only six questions from modern India <trend is of 6-7 questions only>
• 5/6 very easy <as per trend>
• All the questions from most important topics mentioned in our analysis of past years paper series
• Can be solved by reading titbits and solved papers

1. The ‘Swadeshi’ and ‘Boycott’ adopted as methods of struggle for the first time during the

(a) agitation against the Partition of Bengal

(b) Home Rule Movement

(c) Non-Cooperation Movement

(d) visit of the Simon Commission to India

• Very simple
• Covered in titbits/ many times in solved papers
• Swadeshi movement against partition of Bengal

2. Satya Shodhak Samaj organized

(a) a movement for upliftment of tribals in Bihar

(b) a temple-entry movement in Gujarat

(c ) an anti-caste movement in Maharashtra

(e) A peasant movement in Punjab

• Very simple
• Lower caste movement by Mahatma Jyotiba Phule in Mahrashtra

3. The Montague-Chelmsford Proposals were related to

(a) social reforms

(b) educational reforms

(c) reforms in police administration

(d) constitutional reforms

• Very simple / titbits/ solved papers
• Constitutional reforms of govt of India act of 1909
• Communal electorate

4. Consider the following:

1. Calcutta Unitarian Committee
2. Tabernacle of New Dispensation
3. Indian Reforms Association

Keshab Chandra Sen is associated with the establishment of which of the above?

(a) 1 and 3 only

(b) 2 and 3 only

(c) 3 only

(d) 1, 2 and 3

• Difficult
• But you must know everything about Ram Mohan roy
• Calcutta Utilitarian association by him not Keshav Chandra sen
• You could eliminate 2 options
• You still had to know about 2, which is true

5. What was the main reason for the split in the Indian National Congress at Surat in 1907?

(a) Introduction of communalism into Indian politics by Lord Minto.

(b) Extremists’ lack of faith in the capacity of the moderates to negotiate with the British Government

(c) Foundation of Muslim League

(d) Aurobindo Ghosh’s inability to be elected as the President of the Indian national Congress

• Simple / titbits/ solved papers
• Bengal agitation issues led to partition
• Extremists didn’t have faith in moderates
• A, c and d anyway are bogus options

6. The plan of Sir Stafford Cripps envisaged that after the Second World War

(a)    India should be granted complete independence

(b)    India should be partitioned into two before granting independence

(c)    India should be made a republic with the condition that she will join the Commonwealth

(d)    India should be given Dominion status

• Done in Solved papers so many times
• Dominion status by Cripps
• There wasn’t even mention of complete independence

Previous part – Analysis IAS Prelims 2016 Q21-30

#31. International Solar Alliance and its structure

This should be easy. Also – read upon the Dr.V’s tikdams that you could have easily excluded the second statement (which boasts of including all UN countries)

IAS pre 2016 by Tikdams

https://www.civilsdaily.com/modi-launches-international-solar-alliance/

https://www.civilsdaily.com/b2b-lets-know-more-about-international-solar-alliance/

#32. What do you know about the European Stability Mechanism?

This should be easy – remember greek bailout! We got it covered under the greece crisis.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/greece-proposes-a-3rd-bailout/

#33. Practicing Drip Irrigation. Advantages?

Pretty standard static question

#34. Statements regarding Digilocker. How much did you know?

An aadhar based initiative launched as a part of Digital India

https://www.civilsdaily.com/digilocker-another-giant-leap/

#35. Recently which of the following river were interlinked?

Krishna – Godavari it is. Here’s the newscard eulogising the move.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/river-linking-to-address-drought-water-scarcity/

#36. Which of these gases are considered while calculating the Air Quality Index?

A straight-forward question –

1. Mentioned by Dr. V many times in his Prelims titbits
2. Here’s a newscard dedicated to it, anyway –

https://www.civilsdaily.com/what-is-aqi/

#37. How much do you know about AstroStat?

We covered this word by word here but many of you could have got it wrong. How many remember the weight? OR the other countries who have achieved thsi feat?

Both statements put forward by UPSC were wrong!

https://www.civilsdaily.com/astrosat-launch-india-reaches-stars/

#38. “Araghatta” – what does this word mean?

Static question but looks quite difficult to guess!

#39. Wrt. cultural history of india, who memorised chronicles?

Static question but looks quite difficult to guess!

#40. For the first time in Indian history, which state has declared a state butterfly?

Nope. We did not get this one for you. The news dates back to June 2015. Here’s The Hindu clip.

Previous part – Analysis IAS Prelims 2016 Q11-20

#21. Purpose of Gold Bond Scheme/ Gold Monetisation Scheme?

This should be doable for someone who has studied the scheme. Look up the infograph on CD Explains

https://www.civilsdaily.com/story/gold-monetisation-scheme-all-you-need-to-know-about-it/

#22. Belt and road initiative is sometimes mentioned in news in context of which country

There shouldn’t be a single soul who would have got this one wrong. It has china written all over it.

#23. Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojna. What about it?

Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana: Funding the unfunded

#24. Shale gas reserves found in which region?

It’s a static question – relates to resources and distribution but do you remember one related question being asked a few years back – gaur gum exports to US (for shale gas).

Wait for the answer keys by Dr. V

#25. Global Financial Stability Report is prepared by?

Hope you got this one. IMF does it. We had pushed a timely blog on this because UPSC is invariably putting one such question every year.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/international-organizations-reports/

#26. Regarding Atal Pension Yojna – which of the following statements are correct?

We covered the scheme categorically here but to be fair, some of you might have found this one difficult (to affirm the statements, line by line). We will wait for Dr. V to comment more.

From Jan Dhan to Jan Suraksha: A Journey towards Financial Inclusion and Security

#27. RCEP appears in context of which group of countries?

ASEAN, what else?

What is the significance of RCEP for India?

#28. Where can you find BEE Star ratings?

This is a common sense question – You would find these ratings in everything that uses electricity (Small or big labels). But still – should you be curious as to why UPSC veered towards it – here’s a hint from a newly established EESL

https://www.civilsdaily.com/learn-about-energy-efficiency-services-limited-eesl/

#29. India and the significance of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor

We did not cover this – but this news has its root dating back to 2014

Ref: NDTV

#30. A match the following question on Indian Heritage

Static stuff.

Hey guys,

This is the link to the scanned paper – Click to download from Google Drive

Now, for Dr.V to give you solutions and detailed explanations for the same – we would need some help in scribbling these scanned papers into a word doc!

If we can have 20 of you guys to type out 5 questions each and send in a word doc to the email address – drvcivilsdaily@gmail.com – It would help us take this task soon!

1. The scanned paper is of IAS Pre 2016 – Paper 1 – Set A
2. Please comment out here of the questions you plan to take – Pick 5 questions each
3. The next guy/ girl can pick up the next and put in the comments to avoid any confusion
4. Please name the document correctly and mail it to drvcivilsdaily@gmail.com

Can we bank on 20 of you guys to help us do this!

Let us know 🙂

PS: Till we have detailed solutions – we are trying to analyse the current affairs specific questions here –

1. Part 1
2. Part 2

Previous part – Analysis IAS Prelims 2016 Q1-10

#11. India’s first National Investment and Manufacturing Zone set up in?

Ah! This is too much – we had nothing for you here. And we wonder if anyone did remember the states in order?

We did briefly touched upon NIMZ while we were discussing TADF here – But no mention of states in any order.

Technology Acquisition and Development Fund (TADF)

• Latest in news is the mention of 3rd such investment – Business Standard
• The first one was launched in AP per this Eco Times article

#12. What’s the purpose of District mineral Foundations in India?

This news came way back in May, 2015

https://www.civilsdaily.com/know-district-mineral-foundation/

The context was this –

https://www.civilsdaily.com/op-ed-snap-a-glass-half-empty-for-adivasis/

#13. SWAYAM – an initiative of GOI aims at what?

This should have been very easy

https://www.civilsdaily.com/what-is-swayam/

#14. Montague – Chelmsford proposals?

History – Static syllabus

#15. What’s common among Ajanta and Mahabalipuram?

History – Static syllabus

#16. What do you know about Bitcoins?

This should be easy to attempt. Central Banks are clueless. Not all of them have acknowledged it as a currency and so they can’t track it officially.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/what-are-bitcoins/

#17. New Development Bank – All about its establishment

Again an easy question – was covered under the BRICS story

https://www.civilsdaily.com/learn-about-new-development-bankndb/

#18. Gadgil committee report and KAsturirangan committee report. What’s the common link?

This is super easy – western ghats. We have been hearing about this all these years.

#19. Keshab Chandra Sen’s association with 3 organisations. Match the correct ones?

History – Static syllabus

#20. Which of the following is not a member of GCC?

GCC has been in news but it also forms an important part of International Organisations to lookout for. Hope you had read this one –

International Org. | Part 8 | Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

Hello,

This is a very quick analysis of the Paper 1 – IAS Prelims 2016 which just went by. A Civilsdaily user tipped us about the heavily current affairs inclined IAS Prelims this year and we couldn’t stop digging into the Civilsdaily archives.

We haven’t heard from most of you guys but we hope that if you kept up with daily newscards – you should have remembered context regarding most of these factual questions asked out from daily news.

NOTE: This is not a blog post on answer keys. We will wait for Dr. V or UW to come up with detailed solutions and analysis. This is only an analysis of current affairs questions.

#1. What’s Doctors without borders or Médecins Sans Frontières?

• Context: Issue of pharma IPRs in ongoing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations
• Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned India that it will no more remain ‘the pharmacy of the developing world’ if the proposals in the pact are adopted
• An international humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization (NGO) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Scroll down this story link:

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

#2. The initiative called TEEB. What’s that?

No idea. It was briefly mentioned in a pib release but such singular events are very hard to focus on and remember – http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=123641

#3. Red sanders in the news

We had extensively covered this theme under our #back2basic category.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/everything-you-want-to-know-about-the-red-sanders-12/

https://www.civilsdaily.com/everything-you-want-to-know-about-the-red-sanders-22/

To give you context into why red sanders were in news? This was the main card

https://www.civilsdaily.com/operation-sesha-dri-ropes-in-17-nations/

#4. Proper design and effective implementation of UN-REDD+ program can do what?

The difference between REDD and REDD+ should have helped you answer this question. It is a pretty static one but still, explained here by Dr. V

UNFCC to Paris Via Kyoto

#5. Greenhouse Gas Protocol. What’s that?

I think we missed this one. But this is what it is –

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) provides accounting and reporting standards, sector guidance, calculation tools, and trainings for business and government. It establishes a comprehensive, global, standardized framework for measuring and managing emissions from private and public sector operations, value chains, products, cities, and policies.

http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/greenhouse-gas-protocol

#6. Financial Stability and Development Council. What’s that?

We discussed about this very briefly when we were writing on Annual Budget articles (with infographics)

The context for discussion was the creation of a Financial Data management centre which was est. under FSDC

Remember this?

Discussing Budget 2016-17 | Financial Sector Reforms

#7. Agenda 21. Sometimes seen in news?

This form a part of static syllabus. A quick reference primer was written here by Dr. V

Primer To Environmental Issues

The summit also resulted in 3 non-binding documents

1. Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
2. Agenda 21 <21 is agenda for 21st century, UNCCD was the result of direct recommendation of Agenda 21>
3. Forest Principles

#8. Satya Shodhak Samaj

History – Static syllabus

#9. Virus can infect what?

S&T – Static syllabus

#10. Base erosion and profit shifting is heard in news. What’s the context?

BEPS was in news for two things – Black money and Themes and Index published by organisations around the world. We had it covered in two different stories.

https://www.civilsdaily.com/automatic-info-exchange-only-way-to-tackle-black-money/

https://www.civilsdaily.com/the-hidden-wealth-of-nations/

source

Background: An engineer who graduated from Mangalayatan University, Agam Jain managed 133^rd rank in UPSC-2015. He lived in a village near Aligarh and that’s where it all started. In his first year of college, he used to go 4 km every day to teach poor children in another village and lived in adverse of the conditions.

There was lack of electricity, water, cooler and other basic amenities. Even the main road was nearly 2 km away from his room. With that he experienced something which most youth in present day doesn’t face. He saw people living together without formalities, festivals (though with many superstitions) celebrated in enjoyment, beauty of flora and fauna at their best, changing seasons to evening walks on the trails near agriculture fields.

He even saw some fights and deaths, ‘dangals’ as the best form of sports, people indulging in illegal activities and gender inequality.

By the third year, he found that his study tactics and his desire to work for nation could only be met with entering the civil services. After that he used to go to the library to understand an article of Hindu – in complete one hour!

Played volleyball a lot, analysed things more vividly and studied anything which came in his way. An average student, with a strong will power, he managed to climb the ladder of success, with perseverance.

His journey: After graduation, he went to Delhi, made the timetable for complete one and half year and prepared exactly according to that.

Short term strategy: One should make online as well as written notes. When you like any answer/topic from just copy (but selectively) them into your account under particular heading. These notes come handy everywhere like while travelling, sitting with some boring relatives etc.

Newspaper cuttings: When you read newspaper/yojana/kurukshetra, cut the selective portion and put in file. Write when you listen to particular topic from air news, RSTV programs, read any book etc.

Schedule: Make a schedule for 6 days a week. Reserve 7th day for revision of the on/offline notes. Don’t just revise them but minimise them, say from 2 pages to one and then to half by the time exams come.

Prelims Strategy: Don’t leave anything undone when it comes to prelims.

Besides preparing basics from the textbooks, one day he made a list of such vague things like name of national parks, rivers, GI tags, republic day tableau, international conventions and reports, recent Padma winners, UNESCO sites, programs under ministries etc.

However, he suggests not to make the list in a day, for it will be hectic and can’t be remembered. Rather, one should have an eye on newspaper when something comes related to it.

Polity gives edge in prelims, so one should not lose any mark in that portion. Read Laxmikanth as many times. Geography can be done easily too. One can check science monitor program of RSTV for current scientific developments.

Mains Strategy: Writing practice is must. It gives an extra margin of few seconds per question which is very important.

Tips regarding writing: Write answer in morning and evaluate yourself in evening. Don’t evaluate immediately. In evening, check the answer with the mind-set of teacher and do strict marking. This way, you will realise what teacher wants.

Make list of some international conventions/charters etc., they help in beautifying the answer. Example, if one student writes, ‘India is trying best to stop child trafficking’, and another writes according to so and so convention, India is signatory to stop child trafficking on global level, it will make a significant remark on the examiner.

Follow balanced approach.

Tips to aspirants: Always keep a small paper with you. At times, while reading, we don’t know something and we think that we will search it later. But later, we used to forget that. That small paper could be used to note all those doubts which are to be resolved later.

Don’t fool yourself. At times, we watch documentaries or other war related movies and tell ourselves that we are doing something related to studies. They might be related but vaguely and consuming precious time.

Choose your material carefully and stick to that. If it is Laxmikanth, then don’t give damn to D D Basu. If it is Guha, then don’t care of Bipin Chandra and so on.

If time permits, read some non-fictions (not directly related to upsc) in leisure time. He read Pax Indica by Shashi Tharoor; Makers of modern India by Guha; Brief History of time by Hawking etc. These will give you an extra edge somewhere unknowingly.

Don’t spread the word of your preparation a lot. It might bring extra pressure on you.