The conventional notion of IAS Exam aspirants always seen carrying loads of books in their backpacks, stockpiling books and journals in racks in the study room and surrounding themselves with all sorts of notes and preparation material in the last hours before the exam has been changing fast.
Yes, you heard it right. Low-cost internet facilities, coupled with affordable smart phones, laptops and tablets, resulted in a change in the reading habits of IAS aspirants. The change is more visible in aspirants’ growing inclination towards digital/e-reading in place of hard copies.
At present, the web space is full of reading material, test platforms and discussion forums that cater to various needs of aspirants. Despite the abundance, most aspirants are clueless about the ways to crack the civil service exam using the digital means.
For the benefit of Civil Services 2018 Exam aspirants, Jagran Josh is providing some useful tips to boost preparation through electronic reading.
Subscribe to e-Papers: To clear the IAS Exam, first hand reading of newspapers is a must. All the major newspapers such as the Hindu, Times of India, Indian Express, Dainik Jagran are available in electronic format. And, surprisingly, many of the above mentioned publications are available at a free of cost or less than the price of a hard copy. Compared to their off-line counterparts, e-Papers have many new features. In an e-Paper, you can save important articles for further reading and share articles with your friends.
Read e-books: Nowadays, almost all the important books related to the IAS preparation are available in the form of soft copies. E-books published by NCERT, IGNOU and NIOS are available free of cost. These books cover most essential basic aspects of the syllabus. To have a strain-free reading experience, it is advisable to use e-readers.
Refer to web sites: This is the most important component of the 'Digital Reading'. Most of the websites can be accessed at a free of cost. Many websites provide quality content to aspirants in text as well as video format. The government-run websites such as PIB, All India Radio, DD News and NITI Aayog help us keep a track of the activities of the government in the social and economic sectors through their press releases, annual reports, economic survey, budget, etc. On the other hand, the exam preparation portals provide study material, practice tests and mock tests to aspirants. Jagranjosh, Mrunal, iasbaba, unacademy, forumias and insightsonindia are some of the useful preparation portals for IAS aspirants.
Besides, wikipedia, arthapedia, britannia encyclopaedia, online language and subject specific dictionaries will be handy for aspirants during the preparation.
Use Mobile Apps: Unlike websites, reading through mobile applications (apps) keeps you focused. Features like enhanced interactivity, personalization and off-line reading give the apps an edge over websites. Mobile apps of jagranjosh, unacademy, visionias, mrunal, gktoday, etc will be beneficial for IAS aspirants.
Go through online magazines: Besides newspapers and books, magazines play an important role in the success of an aspirant. Important magazines like Yojana, Kurukshetra, Down to Earth, Frontline, Outlook, etc are available online. While the magazines published by the Government such as Yojana and Kurukshetra cost nothing, other magazines mentioned above comes at a premium.
Refer to journals: Jouranals help in adding value to your material. Some of the journals that help IAS exam aspirants are - Economic and Political Weekly, Indian Journal of Public Administration of IIPA and journals published by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).
Some of the other advantages of digital/e-reading over conventional forms of reading are given below.
- Note making will be much easier than before. One can copy and paste the important facts, figures and quotes with ease. It is easy to re-write and edit the material on a desktop/laptop. You can enhance your study material by using pictures, videos, etc. By using file storage services such as Google Drive, aspirants can store the notes in the web space and can access and share them at ease using the internet.
- Not only in making notes, e-reading help aspirants in better organizing the reading material.
- For an aspirant, e-reading habits help in reducing expenditures on newspapers, magazines, books, etc.
In life, change is the only constant. This rule applies to everyone, including IAS exam aspirants. Digital reading among civil services aspirants is gaining traction due to the multiplicity of benefits offered by it. Initially, the transition to e-reading may seem difficult; but, with persistence one can easily switch-over and reap the benefits.
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