Mains GS 3 - Basic books used & strategy

Mains GS 3

Mains 2023 score - 101

Mains 2024 score - 98

Basic books used & strategy

1) class 11 & 12 NCERT for definitions as basic as 'what is investment' given in the footnote of Class 12 macroeconomics. These will give you a fundamental understanding of the subject and topics like Balance of Trade, Capital Expenditure etc

Most of the times we tend to focus layer 3 or layer 4 topics like how can we balance BOT and what are the challenges but forget to read the basic definition. Such questions in Mains come as a surprise as we often get blank in basic definitions. So, NCERTs will help you there.

2) Mrunal sir's video lectures (which we cover in prelims will also come handy)

3) Vision IaS value added material available in the market (I built my GS 3 mains foundation notes from here).

Topics like cropping intensity, cropping patterns, internal security, disaster management etc are covered properly in one place

4) newspaper is a must in this paper for mains syllabus coverage. Adding recent examples and data from Economic Survey and Budget is non negotiable

5) Explained of IE by Anil Sasi sir and Udit Misra sir are impeccable.

6) Use names like Nobel Laureate Abhijeet Banerjee, Amartya Sen, Thomas Piketty, Ashok Gulati etc to make your arguments more credible

7) usage of Graphs to show GDP comparison, using terms like Gini Coefficient in poverty & inequality related questions will make the answer look very credible, maps in Disaster management & Internal security questions

8) for environment I used the prelims material itself (provided in the previous post for prelims) supplemented by latest data and events through newspapers.

Last but not the least -- PYQs are a must. It will give you a rough idea on what could be asked in the upcoming mains. This thorough analysis helped me score 101 in 2023 and 98 in 2024. Analyse the PYQ multiple times based on themes and the kind of questions being asked. Then thoughtfully make a list of topics from the Mains current affairs compilation and static as well that what could be asked in the exam. This exercise will ease your burden a lot.

Reminder -- focus on keywords of that subject/ topic and do mention them with utmost diligence. The examiner looks up for them and give marks accordingly. Try to make the points crisp and short by them along with appropriate examples, data, facts etc.

Suppose the question is 'What is Central Bank Digital Currency?' It is 'legal tender' issued by a central bank in 'digital form'. For example, e-RMB.

Here, legal tender and digital form are the keywords.