UPSC,CSAT Change was Inevitable Cut-Off Count Down Begin

Initially UPSC surprised with the decision that it will do away with optional paper and will introduce a new paper of aptitude testing in the preliminary examination from current year.The series of surprises didn’t stop there and IAS (Pre.) papers are a testimonial to this. First the number of questions in the GS reduced from 150 to 100. Second the CSAT paper was inclined towards reading comprehension. Actually, 50% of the CSAT paper consisted of reading comprehensions questions only. There were 80 questions in the CSAT paper and for 8  of decision-making problems, there were no negative marks. It can be concluded that UPSC is in the middle of major reforms in the Civil Services Examination process and aptitude testing will play a big role in the selection of candidates for civil services.

The message from commission is loud and clear that CSAT has become very important to them. There were hardly any factual questions and the paper tested an aspirant on conceptual understanding of various topics of general studies. It would not be right to say that the paper tested a candidate on General Studies Aptitude. In GS, each correct answer fetched two marks and for an incorrect answer, there was a penalty of 0.67 for an incorrect answer.

In terms of distribution of question, maximum questions were from Science and Technology (21 ), Economics (20) and geography (18) respectively. One very bold mention in the syllabus was Ecology. Close to 10 questions were from ecology and ecosystems. The question paper was complex and it required a very clear sense of reading to decipher the exact meaning of the questions. This fact is underlined by the presence of three statement (25) and two statement questions (14). Going by the level of the paper, one can infer that a net score of 80 Marks should be required to clear the paper.

The distribution of questions in the General Studies Paper is as follows:

CSAT (Paper-2) — The first CSAT paper was replete with challenges for one and all. The paper had a heavy inclined towards comprehension. Almost 30 questions of reading comprehension were in Hindi and English and around 10 questions were from reading comprehensions, which were in English language only. Most of the reading comprehension questions were inferential in nature and required a thorough reading of the passage. There were 8 questions of decision-making and exactly on the same pattern.