How Is Zoology As An Optional – For IAS Mains Examination.

Although not as highly popular as some optional subjects such as pub ad, political science or anthropology, zoology is reasonably popular among life sciences students as an option for the mains exam. Every year, there are some among the top hundred successful candidates with zoology as the optional.Continue Reading How Is Zoology As An Optional – For IAS Mains Examination.

Zoology is one of the optional subjects offered by the UPSC for the civil services mains exam. It is a reasonably popular optional subject among life sciences students who wish to pursue the IAS exam. Being a science subject, it is a specialised one, and therefore, only life sciences graduates or doctors (MBBS graduates) are recommended to take up zoology as their optional. Zoology is the scientific study of animals, including animal anatomy, physiology, genetics, biochemistry, evolution, ecology, conservation and behaviour. It is an interesting subject and one that has great potential for the UPSC exam.

Zoology, being a science subject, has great potential for high scores in the optional papers. However, it requires hard work and sincere answer writing practice out of students. Although there are many benefits of having an optional like zoology, there are also a few pitfalls. In this section, we discuss the pros and cons of zoology as an optional subject for the civil services mains exam.

Zoology Optional Pros

1. Scoring – Zoology is deemed a scoring subject because of its precise and scientific nature. It is not subjective and can fetch good marks provided the answers are presented correctly and neatly. You can also increase your score through neat and well-labelled diagrams, of which there would be plenty here!
2. Well-defined syllabus – Zoology has a well-defined syllabus which is also pretty much static in nature.
3. Overlap – There are some portions of the zoology syllabus which can help in the General Studies papers. They are:
   1. Ecology (Paper 1) – biosphere, ecosystem, population, biodiversity, wildlife of India, remote sensing for sustainable development, environmental biodegradation.
   2. Economic Zoology (Paper 1) – agriculture, major infectious and communicable diseases, cattle and livestock diseases, pests
   3. Evolution (Paper 2)
4. Safe – Many consider Zoology as a safe optional because of the nature of questions asked in it. Unlike some of the humanities subjects like public administration or political science, the questions asked here are generally more direct and straight-forward. Also, there is a direct linear relationship between your performance and your score, unlike the humanities subjects.
5. Less competition – You will face less competition in zoology as compared to some of the other popular optional subjects.
6. IFoS – Zoology is also an optional for the Indian Forest Services exam and the syllabi have much in common with the CSE syllabus. So, candidates can take up both the exams if they so wish with this optional subject.

Zoology Optional Cons

1. Only candidates with any of the following subjects as their educational backgrounds can opt for zoology because of its technical nature, although there is no official bar – zoology, medical science, botany, forestry, life sciences, agriculture and allied subjects.
2. The overlap with the GS papers, although not absent, is minimal.
3. The syllabus is vast and you will have to go in-depth into the topics.

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