Sociology Optional Foundation Course for UPSC CSE 2027

Just like a Biologist studies organs inside human body and their behavior , a Sociologist studies organs of society, their functions, the individuals, & groups. Simple !

If lungs, liver, kidney, brain etc make human organs, the religion, family, education & government system are the organs of society. Fine ?

Okay! To put it short, we study origin, evolution, and function of family, religion, education system etc. Origin and evolution is well understood, but in order to understand what is function, let us give you an example. Let’s take the case of Religion.

 The functions of religion in society:

• It provides values of cooperation, mutual love and respect to members of society (obvious, isn’t it?)
• It justifies why few people are born with golden spoon and many are born poor (surprised, aren’t you?). A very popular victorian era hymn says’ God made people rich and poor according to their deeds in past life’. Such kind of lessons give divine approval to inequality. Hmm…..Did you ever think like this?
• It justifies inequality between men & women (surprised again?)
• & Many more

Well some of these functions are obvious and some are very surprising. Our focus would be more on those that surprised you. These are the unique perspectives that we study in-depth in the class. Hope you got it.

Let us correct you a bit here. Sociology is the only subject where your own personal life experiences make the background. Believe it or not, you already have a brief idea about family, religion, government, education system in your mind. The only difference is that we study them in depth with a ‘critical thinking’. Please don’t ask us about critical thinking at this stage.

This question doesn’t sound any different from ‘’how to get biggest muscles” or “how to get rank 1”. Unfortunately, there is no magic wand to get the highest marks. However, there are 3 important ingredients that definitely makes it a lot easier.

Top three ingredients would be-

• In-depth clarity of the concepts (application included)
• Decent amount of answer writing practice (presentation included)
• Thorough analysis of PYQs (‘patience’ included)

Most important of all of them is ‘faith’ in each one of these ingredients.

Current affairs and multiple thinkers. Each one of them sells in the market & neither one of them in isolation or in combination with the other can fetch you selection. Neither the overemphasis on current issues nor sprinkling thinkers names and their books in the intro is going to help.

There is no definite answer to this question because there is no correlation between number of thinkers and marks. It’s not about ‘Quantity of thinkers’, rather it’s the ‘quality of argument’ given by the thinker that matters to the examiner. The examiners are very senior and they are not going to get impressed by number of thinkers or unique thinkers, rather they are mainly interested to see whether you fulfilled the demand in given word  and time limit or not. This line of thinking will force you to shift to the “Quality of the argument” instead of sticking to the ‘quantity of thinkers’.

We call an argument a good quality one if & only if it addresses the exact demand & establishes the basic background to the given demand of the question. On the other hand, an argument is a bad quality one if it only reproduces heavy jargons & random quotation what you have learnt from varied sources without bothering enough of their relevance to the ‘demand’ of the question.

Current affairs is only a “cherry” on the cake and the static portion remains the “base” of the cake. Keep the rule of 80:20 in your mind.

An ideal answer should have 80% content from static area, while 20% should be reserved either for current application or the critique of the concept (whatever question demands). This rule doesn’t apply to the question where demand is ‘specifically’ on critical analysis or latest developments only.

• Overplaying current & underplaying static: They do the exact opposite of 80:20, meaning they write 80% current & only 20% static. Most of the students read newspapers and magazines to get the edge, & spend even less than half of that time on building their basics strong. If you ask us why, it’s because they take static for granted. They believe it’s known, it’s given, it’s explored already & it’s there in the notes etc. True, it’s there in the notes, but is it really in their minds? Do they really understand it? Can they really explain it to their friends ? Can they see the application in everyday life? In most of the cases, NO.
• Lack of answer writing practice.
• Reference to Multiple books and toppers notes without any systematic plan.
• Absence of one’s own micro notes & complete reliance on toppers notes.

These are the four biggest mistakes.

LevelupIAS is a one-stop solution for Sociology programme. Nishat Sir’s pedagogy and personalised guidance makes the subject not just student-friendly but marks-friendly too.

Our deliverables :

1. In depth classes to build strong foundation from the scratch.
2. Regular & Live answer writing sessions integrated in the class.
3. MCQ challenge – whole class participates in a Quiz on their smartphones after completion of each unit.
4. Test series included in the course (6 Tests).
5. PYQs are solved in the classes immediately after each unit.
6. Contemporary issues related to syllabus.
7. Class handouts handcrafted by Nishat sir (updated in every batch).

Yes. PYQ booklets are given in the class & we practice PYQs at the end of each unit that we complete. 

Our PYQ booklet is designed to keep every aspect of sociology’s preparation well structured. We organise questions not just year wise or chapter wise but also sub-heading wise from each chapter. This enables you to understand what sub-topics are important from each chapter.

After completion of an area or a unit, Nishat sir would solve 1-2 questions on board under timed conditions. A live countdown timer is run on the smartboard & answers are written Live in the class. Faculty will brief you on instructions that will help you develop the writing skills gradually. After few such sessions, students are given questions, timed and supervised by the Faculty.

Both have different target audience, structure and objectives.

Crash course is only for those who have covered their foundation (either by self study or coaching) already & cleared prelims or anticipating to clear prelims. Since these students have less time in their hand, the crash course helps them to cover the sizeable syllabus, with PYQs, in a matter of 1.5 months (around 25 classes).

On the other hand, Sociology Foundation is for complete beginners who are starting from the scratch. This runs for 5 months minimum, is highly interactive, and fulfills all the demands of this examination for complete beginners.

Your background does not matter as long as you are passionate about cracking this exam. For your information, most of the toppers from sociology, statistically, have been from NON-sociology background.

The time period from June to November is the most preferrable one to cover optional subject. In case you miss this timeline due to any reason, you may still continue your preparation till March. However, January onwards, students start feeling the mounting pressure of Prelims examination which is usually held around May/June. This is why it is always advisable to finish Optional preparation by the ends of December or January. This helps you to give maximum time to prelims January onwards.

Our handouts are in-sync with the classroom. It means that unlike other institutions where class notes and handouts do not match with each other, our sociology foundation handouts and class notes are in sync with each other. Students are given handouts immediately after completion of a sub-topic/topic, which help them revise the classes in no time.