How to Prepare General Knowledge (GK) for Competitive Exams?

Preparing the General Knowledge (GK) portion has been a challenging task for most students preparing for competitive exams. Today, when most of the competitive exams expect you to stay updated with the current affairs going around in the world, a lot of students struggle to find reliable sources to follow the same.

If you are also preparing for competitive exams, here is a detailed guide with reliable sources to help you study current affairs and GK for your preparation.

1. International Newspapers –

Newspapers are the first and the most important source of information for preparing daily current affairs and staying updated with relevant GK for competitive exams. However, a lot of students don’t know which newspapers they should rely upon for their daily dose of information. Most students are not aware and keep reading news from regional newspapers instead of referring to the international ones.

The most reliable newspapers to study current affairs for competitive exams are The Hindu, Times of India, Indian Express, and LiveMint which provide authentic international information relevant for exams that have current affairs portions as a compulsion.

2. Year Books –

It is a known fact that the information studied from newspapers is not enough for knowing current affairs. Hence, we all need to supplement our knowledge with relevant books that give us general knowledge and information about current affairs in a more digestible and compact form.

These are mostly yearbooks such as Manorama Yearbook, The Mega YearBook, etc. which comes with compact study notes of current affairs covering the entire year in news structured in the form of interesting charts, diagrams, tables, etc.

3. Current Affairs Magazines –

Students who like to study current affairs regularly and revise it multiple times to memorize it better often supplement their study with the help of various current affairs magazines which vary from weekly to monthly subscriptions. Some of the most trusted magazines for this purpose are PIB, Pratiyogita Darpan, Competition Success Review, etc.

4. News and GK Websites and Apps –

The best way to stay updated with current affairs and GK topics is to surround yourself with the information and engage with it during your day-to-day activities. This doesn’t mean that you have to roam around with bulky books or newspapers, it just means that whatever you do throughout the day, you keep updating yourself with information related to current affairs.

You can do this by incorporating some interesting websites and apps into your daily activities, just like you use social media on a daily basis. GK Exams is a website that can help you to achieve this. The website provides you your daily dose of current affairs in a summarised digestible form, along with interesting daily quizzes updated daily on various topics.

You can also find GK quizzes, GK Mock Tests, GK quizzes in Hindi, and many more on this website. Another significant app of this type is the InShorts app.

5. YouTube Channels for competitive exams –

If you further wish to indulge more in daily current affairs and supplement your daily dose of knowledge, you can subscribe to some reliable YouTube channels that post daily news analysis and important current affairs regularly. You can watch one or two videos daily before going to sleep, or during your lunchtime, or any time of the day when you find spare time.

Such YouTube channels are especially helpful for those who cannot find international newspapers where they live or those who do not find the time and space to carry a newspaper with them and read it on a daily basis.

Watching videos on the phone can be more comfortable and feasible for some people. But while doing this, make sure that you stick to only one reliable YouTube Channel that you find the most suitable for yourself, rather than watching a different one every day. It is a waste of time to watch multiple newspaper analysis covering the same topics on a single day.

6. Coaching resources –

Last but not the least, if you are seriously preparing for any competitive exams, and have enrolled for the preparation of the same with any online or offline coaching institute, you should always refer to the resources and course material that your coaching institute provides you, whether it is in form of e-notes, e-books, newsletters or in form of physical books.

A lot of coaching institutes ask their tutors to create study material from a mix of various newspapers, magazines, etc. Hence, this material is the most concise and reliable for you to follow, while it is often ignored by students.

If you haven’t enrolled with any coaching institute you can take advantage of some free resources available on the websites of popular Indian institutes such as visionIAS, IASbaba, Law Prep Tutorial, etc.

Most importantly, always remember that the most effective way for preparing current affairs and GK Mock Tests, Question Answers for your competitive exam is to take an actual interest in the subjects and in all the events and issues that are going around in the world. If you don’t have a genuine interest in any of this, you will keep forgetting the facts, no matter how many times you mug them up aimlessly.