| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
| No of GK Questions | 28 | 25 | 18 |
| Total No of Questions | 124 | 123 | 114 |
| Percentage of GK Questions | 22.6% | 20.3% | 15.8% |
The number of GK questions has been falling over the past few years. Not only this, the percentage of GK questions has been falling steadily as well.
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
| GK Marks | 14 | 12.5 | 9 |
| Total Marks | 124 | 100 | 100 |
| Percentage of GK Marks | 11.3% | 12.5% | 9.0% |
Taking a look at the marks, you can see that the relative weightage of the GK section has fallen over the past three years as well.
Most Important Topics in the GK Section
I have made an attempt to try and categorize the different GK topics and the frequency in which they’ve appeared over the past three years.
The topics (in decreasing order of frequency) are:
- International Trade, bodies like UN and its policies: Look up the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, their various arms and the locations of their headquarters; trade policies and agreements like TPP, NAFTA; Sustainable Development Goals; Brexit, etc.
- Government of India and its initiatives; bodies like RBI, SEBI: Read up on various government schemes and initiatives like Jan Dhan Yojana; news involving PSUs; the activities, history and top executives of bodies like RBI, NITI Aayog and SEBI.
- Miscellaneous
- Finance: Names of stock exchanges and indices of various countries (Nifty, Sensex, NASDAQ, etc.); topics like Bitcoin, etc.
- Indian Companies – their history, products, taglines, logos, founders, executives and advertising campaigns.
- International Companies – their history, products, taglines, logos, founders, executives and advertising campaigns.
- Geography – Look up countries and their neighbours, capital cities, currencies as well as acronyms like MIST, BRICS, G8.
- Science
- Sports – Read up on the Olympics, FIFA World Cups as well as Indian sportspersons in the news such as Hima Das.
- Movies – Read up on Oscar and National Award winning movies, their directors, producers and cast.
- Literature – Read up on classic books and their authors; recent winners of the Nobel Prize and Man Booker Prize.
Sources of News & Information
Apps like Inshorts & Knappily can help to stay abreast of current affairs around the world by reading snippets.
For in-depth reading, read The Mint, The Hindu or the Economist.
The views in this post are those of the author, expressed in a personal capacity, and should be treated as such.
Comments
Anurag Chowdary
thank you very much for the extensive insights provided for the GK prep. well I assume you take PRIDE in calling yourself a Malayali Beef eater. There is nothing wrong in that...even im a non vegetarian but how can you justify the Malayalis' merciless killing of animals without a proper code of conduct or I might rather shameful and inhumane WAY they kill the poor beings in their final stages. Nothing personal with you...because you are a Malayali(beef eater)...u are answerable. just in case you pretend to not know what i'm taking about ---- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHTQ34I3g2s&t=50s
17 Aug 2018, 08.59 PM