General Awareness and Current Affairs
What the section covers
General Awareness and Current Affairs is a composite section: Indian polity and the Constitution, modern Indian history and the freedom movement, physical and Indian geography, economy and budget basics, general science, awards and honours, sports, important days, government schemes and current events of the preceding 6–12 months. Most items are one- or two-line factual questions, so accuracy rather than analysis decides the score.
High-yield anchors
- Polity: Articles 12–35 (Fundamental Rights), 324 (Election Commission), 356 (President's Rule), 368 (amendment), Schedules, and constitutional versus statutory bodies.
- History: sessions of the Indian National Congress, key Acts of 1909, 1919 and 1935, and movements with their years.
- Geography: rivers, passes, soil types, monsoon mechanism, national parks.
- Economy: repo rate, CPI versus WPI, fiscal deficit, GST structure.
- Schemes and indices: nodal ministry and launch year.
Worked example
Which constitutional article provides for the Election Commission of India? Article 324. Reasoning: Part XV (Articles 324–329) deals with elections; Article 324 vests superintendence, direction and control of elections in the Election Commission. Article 325 bars discrimination in electoral rolls and Article 326 provides adult suffrage, so these are distractors.
Mark-losing traps
- Confusing constitutional bodies (EC, CAG, UPSC) with statutory bodies (NHRC, SEBI).
- Mixing the launch year of a scheme with the year it was renamed.
- Current-affairs questions that are actually static facts with a recent hook.
- Negative marking: a blind guess on four options costs one-third of a correct answer.