1.History
2.Geography
3.Polity
4.National affairs
5.International affairs
6.Economy
7.Miscellaneous (includes Statistics, Science and Technology etc.)
Here I can suggest some resources from where preparation can be started. Remember this is not a closed set. One has to add resources depending upon one's preparation.
1.History: In mains, only modern Indian History comes. For that, Bipin chandra's book (Penguin Publishers) is a good start. It will give a broad idea. But it should be read as a novel. For remembering the things, follow spectrum history book by Rajiv Ahir. Also a novel way of remembering the things is to see some good movies like Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, The legend of Bhagat Singh, Subash Chandra Bose- the forgotten hero. But while watching movie should not be done purely for entertainment. One must remember one's aim of getting into IAS. So, do the see the movie with a copy and pen.
Since last year (mains paper of CSE 2009), the trend of history questions have changed. Now they put statements which have to be designated first and then answered. So, its very difficult. Try to find more and more quotations of leaders from different books. Bipin chandra contains many of them in inverted commas. Try to underline them so that you can revise the things at last. The personality questions(2 markers) have also become difficult. So try to have a grip on that also. Try to remember more and more personalities from spectrum, bipin chandra and Manorama year book. In 2 markers, examiner sometimes ask about personalities from ancient and medieval India. For that 3 resources:
- Culture book of spectrum
- Spectrum GS book, the thick one
- History special issues of Civil Services Chronicle,Competition wizard,Civil services times etc.
2.Geography: Since last year (mains paper of CSE 2009), the weightage of geography has increased. The resources are NCERT books of 10+1,10+2. Try to get the old books. The new one are not that good. But beware of data, try to get the latest data based on latest census. Old books are based on census 1991. So update the figures accordingly. Remember by September end of this year, the data of 2011 census will be available, if everything go as per schedule. In nutshell, write whatever is latest, in the mains.
Besides NCERT, other two resources are a good quality Map (Oxford student map I have followed, is good one) and the spectrum general studies book. The questions asked are not very difficult.
3.Polity: Here resources are very traditional. First, read D.D.Basu and then go for P.M.Bakshi. Both these book consolidated with spectrum constitution book
(from where topical studies are to be done) will be sufficient.
About the other 4 I will write tomorrow.
Thanks
May Waheguru G make U an IAS officer.
