How to prepare Economics for CSE Prelims 2019

Hello Aspirants! This blog is dedicated to those who find Economics a confusing nut to crack in UPSC Prelims. We hope by this time you know what to read and refer for this subject. Since this is your last leg of your prelims preparation, we shall guide you what to focus on during your revision.

Core Economics

Be thorough with the basics- UPSC more than often have asked very basic terminologies from core economics. So it is well advised to go through all the basic definition in Micro and Macroeconomics terminologies example fiscal stimulus, Haircut, Round Tripping etc.

o Tip- Try to correlate these terminologies with your newspaper readings as they are more likely to pop up in your exams. Example terms like hedging, Bank haircuts, fiscal cliff are frequently reported and used in newspapers.

• Go through current fiscal budget and economic surveys to get well acquainted to core concepts, definition and terminologies.
• Get good understanding of key concepts like GDP vs GNP vs NNP. Use of GDP deflator, types of inflation, types of demand (elastic vs inelastic). Questions from this part could be either or application oriented.
• Keep yourself updated with contribution to economic from each sector( primary, secondary, tertiary), trade outlook, Current account deficit, Balance of trade vs Balance of payments, about bodies controlling trade like Department of Industry and Internal Trade, WTO etc.

Applied Economics

Maximum questions appear from this category in economics and tend to be the most confusing one. Thus the best way to crack such questions is to relate it to current affairs and newspaper reading and check each option by applying core economic concepts.

The simple strategy to get these questions right is to get holds of core concepts and apply them in real time. Newspapers more than often link and apply these concepts. Example- Venezuela crisis and Sanctions on Iran led to rise in Oil price having direct impact on Inflation rate. Forecasting increased inflation RBI MPC did not change Repo rate to curb inflation.
Thus in final leg of revision one can connect current events with core economics principles to master applied economics.

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Current Affairs

This part is seemingly easy as nature of question is direct and factual. But the issue is there is no one point source to get all current information.
The last three year pattern have shown a trend in areas from where the questions are more than likely to pop-up

We assume the trend on this topic to continue. Thankfully there is a single point source from Shankar IAS Academy to go through all the reports in news and one download it from IAS parliament website link : http://www.iasparliament.com/

*Like reports this is also an highly reliable area and availability of exhaustive notes from Shankar IAS academy makes its even more easier to complete.

International Bodies- UPSC makes sure to ask at least 1-2 questions in economics from this topic especially with respect to WTO, IMF and World Bank. Make sure to read about them in detail

Agriculture- A lot questions from agriculture, particularly from economic survey have asked in prelims exam.

Try to revise as many times as possible and take regular test to expose yourself with wide variety of questions from economics. Taking more test will help you to identify you’re not so strong areas so that you can sharpen your mind for D-Day!

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