Tips for Choosing an Optional

A meticulously sought after planning and proper & timely guidance can enable an alert individual to clear the tough UPSC examinations. According to the UPSC aspirants, half of the battle is won right after selecting the right optionals for the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) selection examination. Provided that optionals in each IAS preliminary and IAS mains examination determine a candidate's scoring pattern, questions asked in the final interview are based on the choice of optional subjects chosen. This makes the decision extremely difficult as well as critical.

There is a plethora of subjects to choose from, since students belong to varied streams of education, the subjects on offer include Science subjects that expands over Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Zoology; Humanities subjects that expands over History, Political Science, Public Administration, Geography and Sociology and languages such as Hindi, English, Urdu and Pali. UPSC also offers subjects such as Anthropology, Psychology and Philosophy. Additionally, the more number of subjects make it more difficult for students to make choices in optionals.

Optional subjects are chosen on the basis of a number of parameters, on one hand there are optionals that are considered to be scoring where as there are others that are favored for their relevance to either General Studies papers or Current Affairs and essay questions whereas there are many who choose subjects for their defined set of topics asked and comparatively short type answers. Students feel that this bit of planning makes their choice of subject a success as there are combinations that have common IAS syllabus which reduces their workloads and improves their chances of scoring in civil services examination.

Likewise botany and zoology are two complementary optionals that have common syllabus as these prove to be advantageous for their future. The IAS syllabus talks about emerging issues such as genetically modified (GM) foods, cloning, biotechnology and environmental sensitization. However, students should also show their aptitude skills for the subject they choose as they require a fair degree of specialized knowledge. While preparing for the optional, it is advised to study first for the IAS mains paper and then prepare for IAS preliminary as this provides students an edge and then allow them to specialize in certain scoring areas.