This paper is an enigma for most people appearing for CSE, including me, as I had not bothered myself with it until I cleared prelims. There is no dearth of material, coaching, mocks which can help you to prepare for this. However, thanks to all the words of wisdom on GS-4 out there on the internet, I also believed that you cannot study for it beyond a reasonable point.

I followed that which is the most common advice doled out for GS-4:

• I googled definitions (that are simple and easy to remember) for keywords of GS-4 syllabus.
• I also went through some of articles on Mrunal that cover the syllabus and added them to my notes.
• I did a selective reading of this ARC summary. I don’t remember where exactly I found it and hence can’t link it directly, but there’s a watermark on the header to whom this pdf can be attributed.
• I also tried thinking of examples and quotes which I can use liberally when answering GS-4 questions.
• I read GS-4 answers of past toppers to get a sense of structure and content. This was especially useful for answering case studies.
• I was also grateful for choosing PSIR at this point as my optional for it had covered – contributions of moral thinkers and philosophers – topic in excruciating detail.

While doing the above, I also began answer writing practice for GS-4 in fits and start. It took some time to get used to it and I got decent scores across 3 GS-4 mocks I took. So I thought I had it under control and moved on to focus on other pressing concerns.

Notes:
GS-4 ethical terms (pdf link)
There are some short notes based on keywords given in syllabus. I am not converting a pdf out of them, they can be accessed online (see Notes tab).