How to read Newspaper effectively for competitive exams ?

Just after reading the Headline How to read Newspaper effectively for competitive exams ? the next and obvious question will come in our mind which newspaper to follow?

So in this post I will tell you which newspapers to follow, but it greatly depends on which type of competition you are going to face whether it is  UPSC, State Level Public Service Commission, RBI Grade B, SBI PO, IBPS PO  or any other competitive exam.

If you are going to compete in Banking exam then you have to follow :

The Hindu for General news &
Business Line/Economic Times for financial/banking awareness

For UPSC /PSC examinations

The Hindu is enough

But the common problem that we all face when we first start reading newspaper is that we didn't know which part to read which part to leave and initially we start reading with lots of enthusiasm,
but randomly, with no proper direction and no time limit and in the end after continuing 3 to 4 days of practice we start losing the zeal in reading the newspaper and will try to find some other alternatives such as Current Affairs Magazine , online current affair study material etc.

But you should remember there is NO alternative to reading newspaper if General Awareness/Current Affairs is one of the sections in your exam.

It greatly depends which banking exam you are going to face because in RBI Grade B Preliminary examination around 80 questions generally asked in General awareness section which is mix up of Current affairs, Banking awareness and financial awareness and in this section you can easily answer 5 to 10 questions if you are regularly reading newspaper but in IBPS PO, where only 50 questions asked in General awareness section you can easily answer 3 to 5 questions.

The Hindu is but obvious choice if you are going to face any competitive exam.The main reasons are listed below :

1.  Generally it widely covers all India news in detail rather than State news.
     Local or State wise news is of no use in competitive exams because in exams
     measure your all India general awareness knowledge.

2. The Editorial part of the Hindu is very important to read reason behind this is
    Editorial part includes the direct thoughts or statement of very renowned persons
    having respectable position in our economy for example direct statements of
    Supreme Court judge,Union Minister,Chief Economic Adviser etc. that's why
    whether it is Banking exam or UPSC or any other PSC exam its editorial part is
    directly asked in the form of Reading Comprehension.

3. The language of the newspaper is simple and easily understandable if you have
    just started reading the newspaper.

4. Rich vocabularies used so that your knowledge of using good vocabularies will
    increase.One more important point don't try to learn vocabularies blindly ,try to
    use vocabularies in your speaking and in writing.

So I hope now its clear to you why I am telling you to read The Hindu.

Don't try to start with reading MORE THAN ONE  newspaper its ideal to start with only one with full concentration and proper strategy.

Structure of  Newspaper (The Hindu)

Front page : Read all the bold headlines. Don't spend more than 5 minutes.Most of the important articles redirects to inner pages.

City/Regional News : Avoid at all cost.

National News : Avoid Regional party news,comments from any minister, MP etc.
Things to study : Election results with details,Important flagship schemes launched by Prime Minister,Union Minister etc.,Important appointments in Government Bodies/company etc.,India and other country agreements,military,naval and airforce excercises,news of Dams,Power plants,Launch of any Missile,satellites etc.

Editorial : Just makes notes in your own language in the form of summary (Important for descriptive section of exam and reading comprehension)

International : Mostly deals with deaths, political unrest,protest largely useless very few news worth reading like any earthquake or cyclone affecting country or place,important summits like G4,G7,G20, BRICS, ASEAN etc.,

Appointments and impeachment of President/Prime Minister of any country etc.

Science and Technology : Avoid it fully 

Business/Economy : Very Very important section. read all articles from government sources like Ministry of Finance, Human Resource Development relating to SEBI,RBI,IRDA, Inflation etc.,

GDP Projections from Government sources like CSO,Ministry of Finance,RBI or World Bank, IMF

Important reports released by World Bank like ease of doing business rankings etc.

Things to avoid : Interviews, profit and loss, Quarterly reports,Salaries of CEOs,Fluctuation in shares, Rupee,Dollar,Gold etc.

Sports : Do not need to track day to day news from this section.Read only when any important international tournament concludes e.g, Olympics,cricket World Cup, Lawn tennis etc.

If any important imternational or national player announces his retirement for e.g., M.S.Dhoni announces retirement from test cricket etc.

Ranking announced in international sports.

Lifestyle (Last page) : Avoid it completely

News Paper Reading Advantages 

1. Awareness of Current Affairs/events.
2. Improvement in Static GK (provides background of any event)
3. Improvement of verbal ability
4. Improvement in Cloze test (English) because you will easily learn the use of prepositions at
    specific points by default.
5. Grammar/ Sentence Improvement
6. For Group Discussion/ Personal Interview very important

Hope after reading this post you get some basic structure and overview of how to start reading news paper in my next post I will try to cover the topic of general awareness section which will be useful for your SBI PO 2017 Mains examination.