NCERT Books for UPSC Preparation

When it comes to UPSC IAS examination preparation one of the things that every aspirant searches is which are the books that one should read from. Most of the beginners are trapped by dogma – that civil services examination can only be cleared by reading thick books with hundreds of pages and huge content. Believe me this is the first mistake any serious aspirant can make while preparing for civil service examination.

The importance of NCERT books for UPSC  preparation can be understood better by a carefully analyzing two things – Firstly UPSC notification and Secondly previous year UPSC examination question papers.

UPSC notification – The implied hint to towards understanding importance of NCERT books

Firstly let’s  take a look at what the UPSC says about the civil service examination

Two things from UPSC notification are shown here to make you understand the importance of  NCERT  books in UPSC preparation

1. The nature and standard of questions in the General Studies papers (Paper II to Paper V) will be such that a well-educated person will be able to answer them without any specialized study.
2. The questions are likely to test the candidate’s basic understanding of all relevant issues, and ability to analyse, and take a view on conflicting socio- economic goals, objectives and demands. [UPSC notification 2016]

According to UPSC the questions are to test the candidate’s basic understanding of all relevant issues and can be answered by a well-educated person. It is here the role of a good old friend from our school days comes in- The NCERT textbooks.These books are the answer to all the basic concepts that every aspirant is searching for while preparing for civil services examination.

To explain better the importance of NCERT’s in getting basic understanding of the subjects I shall cite an example. Several aspirants even after years of study might not be knowing the difference between civil and criminal cases, or the meaning of term prosecution, or what an FIR is which are some basic concepts that every aspirant must know. To see it for yourself kindly go through Social Science textbook – Social and political life III – Chapter 6 – where you will find the answers to these questions in a lucid manner.

More than spending time with large books which are available plenty in the market one should ideally go back to their school days to prepare for UPSC exam better. Apart form gaining knowledge these textbooks will act as starters so that you can slowly move on to tougher books. If you start your preparation by reading NCERT books it will provide you a firm footing to build on so that the books that seems hard to comprehend initially may not be so hard at all after finishing NCERT books.