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Reports/Surveys for Mains GS

Hi All, Various reports are prescribed to be read for Mains answer writing. Reports mention facts, keywords, challenges and solutions related to an issue. Quoting these helps in gaining edge over those who don't quote such reports. Various reports are: Reports for GS1: Census…

Decode Civils · 2 min read
Reports/Surveys for Mains GS

Hi All,

Various reports are prescribed to be read for Mains answer writing. Reports mention facts, keywords, challenges and solutions related to an issue. Quoting these helps in gaining edge over those who don't quote such reports. Various reports are:

Reports for GS1: Census, SECC, SDG, UNDP, World Bank (WB), IPCC etc.

Reports for GS2: ARC summary, issue specific SC Cases, issue specific committee names (both parliamentary and ad-hoc) etc.

Reports for GS3: Economic survey, Budget, IPCC, Agriculture/Forest survey, Defence committees, Question specific reports (WB, IMF, Disaster) etc.

Reports for GS4: ARC Summary.

ESSAY: ARC, Census, Economic survey, SDG etc.

How to read such reports:

You really don't need to study the mentioned reports cover to cover. Key is to "use them" rather than "study" volumes of same. Important points to note:

  • These reports are very generic in nature.
  • If you have done a good reading of GS then you already know whats written in these reports! They do not mention anything that is rocket science.
  • Newspaper reading is more than enough to cover good percentage of such reports.
  • Summaries available online or via coachings are better than reading full reports.

Example: I used ARC to heavy extent in my answers but never studied any ARC report. I read only the index and made 3 page summary of headings and keywords.

Once you know that ARC has talked about certain topic and find question on same topic in exam then write whatever you want and quote “as given in ARC”. Your purpose is to get marks and you will get!

Similarly, for economic survey, one does not need to study it cover to cover. Regular newspaper reading covers most of facts and keywords. All you got to do is, quote "as per economic survey" along with whatever you write!

Otherwise, you can read gists freely available online to get facts and keywords at one place.

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