PSIR - Strategy, resources & discussion

also can someone also provide a review of the content on  SR mam's google drive provided as part of her test series? Are IR updates provided on the google drive enough before prelims enough to track the latest developments?

@Rewl1 @upender 

Hey guys. I don’t want to talk about my strategy before scores come either. I have no clue which papers in particular went well, so it could be misleading. Some things I did consciously that I feel were helpful in making the prep faster and easier, irrespective of my final performance in PSIR, were:

1. Read Andrew Heywood, OP Gauba, Bayliss & Smith, some IGNOU material, VR Mehta (will add more if I remember) before I started the SR correspondence notes, because I couldn’t truly get the concepts from just the SR notes. This made sure I had clarity in concepts. I made notes from these sources. It helped solidify them in my understanding, but it also took a lot of time. The result was that I started reading the SR notes properly after prelims. I then made notes again that combined SR and my own notes from the extra sources. Since SR is so huge, it was about 80% of the consolidated notes. My own notes yielded some extra points. This made sure everything was in one place, making it easy to revise. (However, it was scary and stressful to have all of SR notes left to do after prelims - would not advise if you can manage time better)

2. From my consolidated notes, I wrote down scholars’ quotes, critiques of one another, important works, and keywords separately. Around 5-10 pages for each half of each paper. This was what I revised the day before the exam, on the way, and in the lunch break. It helped me recall the underlineable things quicker in the paper, and everything else followed. 

3. For 2B, I took a shortcut. I had neglected to collect IR news over the year, and SR crash course was too slow and didn’t cover all the countries/organisations. So I went to the Lukman PSIR channel where they had posted articles everyday. I made a list of countries/organisations on which notes were needed. Searched for each in the channel, and just quickly made notes from the articles that came up. This obviously isn’t ideal - but if anyone finds themselves in such a situation they could try this way. 

This is all I can think of for now. I will add anything as it occurs to me. All the best everyone. :)

@dingding2021 I somehow missed your comment, sorry! 

I don’t know about the SR tablet course. I didn’t take it.

This was my experience with the crash course. It might help someone make a choice. This was my first time, maybe it was different in previous years and COVID slowed it down this year. They did say that was the reason. Anyone who knows more, please feel free to add something.

Mock test questions:Great. They’re good at identifying which topics might be asked in the exam. There was a lot of overlap. 

Mock test evaluations:Poor. They started out average and became completely ridiculous by the end. Some were just a series of ticks with no comments. Also, inflexible schedule unlike others and an unclear policy. They said tests submitted within three days of the scheduled date would get an evaluation within 10 days. The rest had to wait pretty much without any kind of timeframe. 

Lectures:I didn’t listen to any of the lectures due to lack of time, so can’t comment. For others in my situation - first attempt, notes yet to be made fully - it might be the same. From what I gathered, the idea was to focus on IR for 2B since that’s the most dynamic part. However in the beginning they uploaded more of the other papers. Which was fine, but delayed IR. The result was that you couldn’t rely on them for IR current affairs and analysis - which was the point of the course.

Lecture notes:A bit disorganised, and difficult to add to your material quickly when time is already precious. The content added value - especially by giving you scholars and quotes. However, could be overkill for some topics. In the end you’ll never be able to write 4 scholars for one small subtopic.

I guess a lot of this gets tolerated because of their dominance in the market. Hope it’s better next year!

https://t.me/lukmaaniaspsir

@whatonly the link of Solved PYQ from SR has expired.Pls share a new link!

@Tejasvi95 I somehow don’t have the file for solved PYQs anymore :/ I have uploaded a model answers file I had instead. 

If anyone has the solved PYQs file saved please send it to me so I can update it. Many thanks!

Not in the syllabus. But for casual reading, refer OP Gauba chapter of sovereignty.

Can anyone enlighten me on this question. How many scholars we need to write on a particular answer ? Does writing  some answers without any scholars makes my answer very bad . Like in national commission for women type questions do I need to write scholar opinion  in this question too or I can just write the facts .@AzadHindFauz @whatonly 

As many you can fit without altering the logical flow of arguments. 

It comes down to one's writing style really. There are people who would be able to mention 6-7 scholars per answer. There are people who would be able to write 2-3 scholars only. 

It doesn't matter which category you fall in. What really matters is whether you are mentioning scholars to substantiate a particular viewpoint. Use of scholars shouldn't be just for the sake of mentioning them. 

As long as I can extract logic from your arguments, I don't care about the number of scholars. That being said, you must mention at least 2 scholars as that is bare minimum to establish the difference between a GS answer and an optional answer- latter being more analytical. 

However, you point out rightly the problem of mentioning scholars in questions like NCW. You need to be smart here. Here's how I would think about introducing scholars in such questions- 

• NCW is about empowering Indian women in general. I will bring feminist perspective of politics in some way. 
• Views of any Indian feminist, if possible. 
• A remark on NCW by any famous Indian or institutions like SC, HC, NHRC etc. 

The idea should be to let the thoughts flow freely across the paper without digressing from the demand. You have complete freedom to talk about Plato who talks about philosopher women and JS Mill who talks about the sorry state of women. It depends on your skill to put them to use. 

In a bid to mention all these, you must be careful not to miss out on the flow. Flow is more important than the number of scholars. 

I'm a bit hesitant to give advice before I know my PSIR marks. For questions like NCW I had tried to make a list of quotes that I could use in pretty much any related question, and intended to use these in the exam. However I did not end up quoting scholars in every question in the exam, partly because sometimes it didn't seem to add much value and partly because I couldn't recall a relevant scholar.

So I think quoting a scholar is the best way to make an answer seem scholarly (:p) but you can achieve the same thing by analyzing the concepts related to the facts as well, as@AzadHindFauz said above with the NCW-feminism example. If you do that I think the answer will be complete even without a thinker quoted - but I won't be able to say so for certain until I know my marks.

Thank you@AzadHindFauz you have cleared my doubts

Thank you@whatonly I got the point 

Hi, I have not logged on to the discussion forum in a few years so please guide me accordingly (my last attempt was in 2018). 

I have a few Pol Sci optional books to give away and I am searching for the right thread to post it under. I remember there used to be sort of a marketplace, but I cannot find it. 

Any help would be much appreciated.