How to Prepare for GPSC Prelims 2021

The Gujarat Public Service Commission conducts the Gujarat Administrative Services Class I, II and III examinations for the recruitment of the candidates in the state administration. Recently, the commission has released the notification for 2020-21 recruitment. Hence, it is important for candidates to know the exam pattern and also how to prepare for the upcoming prelims examination.

The official notification of the commission is released on the official website of the Gujarat PSC. Candidates get the GPSC syllabus, exam pattern, eligibility criteria, age exemptions and other related information in the notification.

Before a candidate gets to know how to prepare for the Gujarat Administrative Services Class I examination (Prelims); he.she must know the exam pattern which is mentioned below.

Exam Pattern of GPSC

The Gujarat PSC has designed the state administrative examination on the line of the UPSC Civil Services Examination. The GPSC examination has two stages that consist of:

1. Prelims
2. Mains and Interview

The few salient points w.r.t the exam pattern are:

1. The prelims stage of the GPSC has two papers:

• General Studies 1
• General Studies 2

1. Main stage has six papers:
   1. Gujarati paper
   2. English paper
   3. Essay Paper
   4. General Studies-I
   5. General Studies-II, and
   6. General Studies-III
2. The interview stage which is the personality test is of 100 marks.
3. 1000 marks are the total marks that are considered for the final merit ranking.

What are the subjects asked in GPSC Prelims?

1. History
2. Indian Culture and Heritage (Special focus to state culture and heritage)
3. Indian Polity, Constitution, Governance etc.
4. Indian Economy
5. Geography
6. Science and Technology
7. Mental Ability
8. Current Affairs

How to Prepare Prelims Topics of GPSC

The following tips can be adhered to for the prelims preparation:

1. Know the syllabus and rote learn it. It helps to remember the topics verbatim and candidates can avoid reading unnecessary topics.
2. Adapt a habit of making notes as it helps boost the concentration and memory of the candidates.
3. Read a newspaper and focus on the state news w.r.t the history, geography, economics and polity of Gujarat.
4. Attempt previous year questions from the old question papers to track your preparation.
5. Revise from your own notes and make it a habit to revise periodically.
6. Attempt to answer-writing well before time to know your strengths and weaknesses and amend your preparation accordingly.

Important Books for GPSC Prelims

The candidates can refer to the following books:

1. For history, Ajay Patel’s Gujaratno Itihas which is in Gujarati language can be referred to. Along with it, candidates can refer to the state textbooks of Social Science and History from class 6 to 12.
2. For art and culture, candidates can refer to Nitin Singhania’s Indian Heritage book.
3. For Geography, Majid Hussain’s or GC Leong’s books can be referred to along with state geography textbooks from class 6 to 12.
4. For Indian Polity, candidates can go for M.Laxmikanth’s Indian Polity book which is considered as the bible for this subject. For state polity, candidates should refer to state polity textbooks.
5. For economics, candidates can go for Indian Economy book of either Ramesh Singh or Nitin Singhania. Both will solve the purpose of learning the basic concepts of economics.
6. For Mental Ability, candidates must practise aptitude, logical reasoning, number series, data interpretation and similar questions from any standard book.
7. For current affairs, one regional newspaper along with one current affairs magazine should be studied from. These will suffice for the current affairs preparation.
8. Science and Technology subjects do not need any masterly preparation and can be prepared with daily current affairs resources and class 6-12 textbooks.

The prelims papers are of objective type and hence it is imperative for the candidates to learn intelligent guessing as a technique to filter out the right option. Candidates must know that GPSC syllabus should be fully covered and then two-three times revision will help candidates sail through the examination.