How to prepare Economics for UPSC/IAS Prelims

My very good friend Saurabh has agreed to share his experience of appearing and clearing UPSC/IAS prelims with Economics optional.So here it is in Saurabh's own words how to go about your preparation ...

"Economics is not a very popular optional for civil services like history, geography or say public administration, but surprisingly it can be a very safe optional in prelims for those who have economics or commerce background. As the syllabus of economics for prelims is relatively concise (as compared to geography or commerce) and can be covered in a short span of time and the cut off is also reasonable. Any thing above 70 should be safe with negative marking. But people from non-economics or non-commerce background should avoid this optional because there is hardly any good coaching available and the subject is as such a little bit technical, so they may find it difficult".

Distribution of Questions

1. Indian Economy – majority of questions are asked from this area; there are usually about 40-45 questions per year from this section.
2. Statistics- there are about 7- 10 questions every year.
3. Growth and Development - about 10 questions.
4. Micro and Macro Economics - about 35 – 40 questions every year.
5. International Economics - about 15-20 questions every year.
6. Money, Banking & Public Finance – about 10 –15 questions every year.


Reference / Sources
1. Indian Economy - Any one good book on Indian economy, it can either be Mishra-Puri or Dutt-Sundaram. Pratiyogita Darpan special issue on economics,economic survey and budget from news paper.
2. Statistics – class 11’th NCERT book is more than sufficient.
3. Growth andDevelopment- M L Jhingan and NCERT book of class 11’th.
4. International Economics - book by H.G.Mannur or Salvatoire.
5. Money, Banking & Public Finance - S.B.Gupta & Pratiyogita Darpan (Special issue) for banking and H.L.Bhatia for Public Finance.
6. Micro Economics - NCERT & Koutsoyyiannis or Ahuja.
7. Macro Economics – NCERT & JHINGAN.
8. Solved 10 years paper and any one practise book(eg.IIMS Question bank) of any publication.


Strategy
1. More emphasis should be on NCERT BOOKS .Do it properly and don’t underestimate them because many questions are asked directly from them only.
2. Practise and revise diagrams regularly.
3. Concentrate mainly on Micro, Macro & Indian Economy because majority of questions are asked from these areas.
4. Solve all the statistics questions from previous year papers.
5. Do read economic survey properly and pay special attention to the boxes of survey.
6. It is not necessary to cram all data and figures just memorize only important and relevant ones.
7. Solve previous year papers and practise book(eg.IIMS Question bank) regularly.

I(Saurabh) did not take coaching for optional anywhere but always managed to secure 88+ and cleared prelims twice and also appeared in interview in 2008.Therefore I suggest you to don’t go by rumours that economics is dangerous or difficult. If you have the background like Eco.(hons) or B.Com(hons.) then you must go for it, it is safest.You can post your queries regarding economics in comments section and i will be personally answering them.
So all the best for prelims …