Since you are an UPSC aspirant, you must have known about the practice of taking optional ones for appearing in the mains examination. Numerous optional subjects are allotted for the mains examination preparation including public administration, geography, sociology, economics, history, literature etc. candidates tend to take up the subjects as their optional ones which are already known to them or they somehow have some prior knowledge of it. If we consider seeing the previous records of candidates, very few students were able to clear the UPSC exam goal with their literature optional. On the other hand, few toppers claim that literature helped them to score more in mains examination. So, today we are going to discuss the pros and cons of taking literature optional in UPSC mains exam to help you to decide whether you want to keep them or not.
But before we start, let’s look into the list of literature optional subjects of UPSC examination.
- Assamese
- Bengali
- Bodo
- Dogri
- Gujarati
- Hindi
- Kannada
- Kashmiri
- Konkani
- Maithili
- Malayalam
- Manipuri
- Marathi
- Nepali
- Odia
- Punjabi
- Sanskrit
- Santhali
- Sindhi
- Tamil
- Telugu
- Urdu
- English
Now, let’s get into the main discussion.
Pros of taking literature optional:
- As per the previous years’ records and trending, this can be concluded that very few students go for the literature optional. So, if you consider going for it, you might end up facing lesser competition which is undoubtedly beneficial for you.
- Literature is beyond just reading and studying. The candidates who are fond of reading books and poetry or have been maintaining a habit of reading storybooks from childhood, they can easily flourish in the subject of literature. And who does not know that the power of writing comes with a lot of eagerness of reading? So, reading and having a profound passion for literature can do wonder with taking up literature optional in UPSC examination
- The syllabus generally does not get updated so keeping the track of frequently changing data is not necessary here unlike other subjects.
Cons of taking literature optional:
- Since it is a matter of literature, you have to be skilful in writing and your answers should be unique and the thoughts should also be out-of-the-box yet relevant.
- Since literature is dependent on the perspective of thoughts and usually they differ and vary man to man, the writing also becomes very subjective as per their excellence. So, it is less scoring than other subjects.
- The amount of study material is huge and it requires lots of hard work to be covered up.
But the last and not the least, here is a suggestion for you if you are willing to take literature optional.
If you are interested in that particular subject and you have a great understanding of that particular subject, irrespective of its pros and cons, you will be able to finish your curriculum and you will score well too.