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Management Preparation Strategy for UPSC Mains Optional Examination
The UPSC Mains Optional Examination is a mandatory exam for all the candidates who are appearing for UPSC. You can choose your optional subject according to your comfortability from the list of the subjects given by UPSC.
Management as an optional subject is not very famous. But still, there are many candidates who took management & topped the exam. The management as an optional subject is getting famous every year but still, it will take a time.
So, in our article, we are going to tell about management as an optional subject & tips for the preparation of this subject.
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What is Management?
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a not-for-profit organization, or government body. Management includes the activities of setting the strategy of an organization and coordinating the efforts of its employees (or of volunteers) to accomplish its objectives through the application of available resources, such as financial, natural, technological, and human resources. The term “management” may also refer to those people who manage an organization.
There is a very good definition of management given by Steve Jobs “Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.”
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Benefits of Management
- The most important thing is the question in the exam. The questions of this subject are more straightforward & easy to answer. So if you are clear about the basic concept you can easily answer the question.
- The level of the questions on this subject is not too high. The questions will come from easy to medium level. Again you just have to clear the basic concepts.
- As management is not only a subject, management is related to our day to day lives. We have to manage something’s every day. So if you prepare for this subject, you will be preparing for your future also. As future managers, you can use the knowledge which you’ve got from this subject to your daily life.
- If you will go through the previous year question papers of management, you will find the repetition of the questions. So the questions on this subject are predictable & you can prepare accordingly for it.
- Management is a logical subject so there is no role of the interpretation of the examiner. Every person has different logic, you can use your logic without any hesitation.
- The good thing is you will have less competition if you choose this subject as your optional. As there are less no. of candidates who took management as an optional. You will find a lot of crowd for geography & public administration but in the case of management, there is less crowd.
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Preparation Strategy
A right strategy will help you to fetch good marks & clear the exam. So the strategy which will help you in your preparation is discussed below.
Paper 1
- Paper 1 is all about theory. You have to write if you want to clear the exam. The topics which you should focus on are managerial functions, managerial process, OB, design, human resource management, accounting for managers, financial management & marketing management.
- As paper 1 is theoretical so it generally consists straight forward & simple questions. The questions on the finance will also be theoretical. While writing your answer try to write your answer in simpler words rather than using heavy words. Also, try to write in points wherever possible, this will be easy for you.
- Another important thing is to go through the previous year question papers, this will give an idea about the questions & the pattern of the exam.
- The topics which you should focus on are human resource management & OB. Do not skip these two topics.
Paper 2
- Paper 2 is not much theoretical. It includes quantitative techniques in decision making, operations management, MIS, government business interface, strategic management & international management.
- Paper 2 is more application based. It will include case studies & numerical which makes the paper lengthy. But this paper is more scoring than the previous one. As you have to solve the numerical rather than writing the long answer. So, use the basic formulae & models to solve the questions.
- The topic which you should not skip for this exam are operations, business statistics & strategic management.
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Reference Books/ Study Material
- IGNOU booklets
- HRM – Ashwathappa, Prasad
- Organisational Behavior – Robbins, Luthans
- Marketing – Kotler, Saxena
- Strategic Management – Michael Porter
- Operations – Adams, Taha, David Collier
- MIS – Loudon and Loudon
- Finance – Ross, Westerfield and Jaffe, Khan & Jain
- Quantitative techniques – Levin & Rubin
- Management – Koontz and Koontz, Drucker
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Overall Preparation Strategy
- First thing is you should go thoroughly the syllabus of the exam. Go through each of the section in the syllabus.
- After knowing your syllabus choose books which are appropriate for you.
- Always start with some NCERTs or basic books. This will give you the basic idea & concepts of the subject & the topics.
- After going through the basic books start moving to the difficult ones so that you will get to know how difficult your questions can be.
- After choosing books, start reading every section of the book. While reading the books don’t forget to make notes.
- You can make notes in bullet points, this will easy for you to revise the topic as well as you can easily saw the main heading or basic idea of the topic. So keep your notes short & relevant.
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Cons of Management
As everything comes with pros & cons. So now we are going to tell you some disadvantages on management so that you can take care of these things during your preparation.
- The syllabus of management is vast. It is difficult to cover the entire syllabus in a specific time.
- The questions of management do not overlap with the general studies papers. So don’t expect that but you can use your concepts of management while writing an answer in GS or an essay.
- Paper 2 of management is lengthy. So work on your writing & logical skills.
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If you have any doubt or need guidance you can comment below, our team will try to answer it.