General Awareness and Current Affairs
What the examiner is checking
This section rewards knowledge of institutions, schemes, appointments, awards, sports and international events, with a predictable tilt toward Jammu and Kashmir. Questions are usually one-line and factual: who holds a post, which state launched a scheme, where a summit was held, which day is observed on a given date.
The static core worth locking first
- Polity-linked awareness: President, Lieutenant Governors, Chief Election Commissioner, RBI Governor, Chief Justice of India.
- Economic awareness: Union Budget, RBI repo rate and monetary policy, CPI and WPI inflation, GST Council.
- Science and space: ISRO missions such as Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1, Nobel Prizes, vaccines, defence exercises.
- International: G20, BRICS, SCO, SAARC, UN agencies and India's role in them.
Building a current-affairs habit
Do not read randomly. Keep a one-page monthly log with five columns: date, event, person or institution, place, and why it matters. Revise the last twelve months only; this exam rarely asks about older events.
Worked example
Question: 'The central office of the Reserve Bank of India is located in which city?' Reasoning: the RBI was established in 1935, and its central office has been in Mumbai since 1937; regional offices exist in Kolkata, Chennai and New Delhi, and New Delhi is the attractive trap option. Answer: Mumbai.
Traps that cost marks
- Confusing the summer capital (Srinagar) with the winter capital (Jammu) of the Union Territory.
- Mixing the current holder of a post with the immediate predecessor.
- Confusing similarly named schemes, for example PM-KISAN versus the Kisan Credit Card.
- Reading 'which is NOT correct' as 'which is correct'.