Cracking CSAT

Let us work on the syllabus line by line to understand the contents and the types of questions that can be asked in the examination

·         Reading Comprehension & Comprehension: There is confusion among students between Comprehension & English language comprehension skills mentioned in the syllabus. Comprehension is all about understanding a problem or situation fully covering its all aspects & its evaluation in the right perspective and mainly deals with problem solving. Whereas, English language comprehension skills focuses only on the language part, since English has become an important language internationally today. Moreover, it existed earlier also in mains examination. The fact remains is that it is now covered twice.

·         General Mental Ability: The area of General mental ability is not new to candidates since it existed in Paper I i.e. the GS paper earlier but is now shifted to CSAT Paper II. It includes questions on verbal and non-verbal aptitude like general verbal reasoning, analogies, coding-decoding, anagrams, working with words and alphabets, abstract reasoning, spatial and 3-D reasoning etc.

·         Basic Numeracy: Basic Numeracy is not about higher Mathematical Skills, but about the ability to handle basic quantitative & financial data which is a must for a Civil Servant. UPSC expects a Civil Servant to be well versed with numbers, finances, quantitative data, budgets etc. Just like English partly, Data Interpretation questions also existed earlier as a part of Mains Syllabus but now covered with much more weightage (now expected 10-12 questions which earlier was 1-2 questions), since mains syllabus remains the same, this topic will help you in preparing for mains as well.

·         Logical & Analytical Ability: Problems on logical and analytical ability deal with problems on comparison, attributes, blood relations, statement and arguments, statements and conclusions, statements and assumptions, theme detection, conclusion determination and so on. For this you need to be well versed in the ability to reason the basic information given in the question and have a sound knowledge of current affairs on which these questions will most probably be based. Such questions have a wide range of easy and complex nature from the questions that appear in clerical and banking examination to those in CAT and GMAT. So, one should be prepared to face any level of difficulty among these questions.

·         Decision Making & Logical Problem Solving: Decision making involves taking right decisions without negotiating with moral and ethical values instead of taking just facts based decision. It will reflect the candidate’s ability to analyze than ability to memorize. The decision making section will include questions on assertion-reason, cause-effect, course of action, judgment and decision making. It will include questions on different economic situation, areas of security, intelligence, technologies, law and order, revenue and budgets, management etc.

·         Interpersonal Skills & Communication Skills: Interpersonal skills and communication skills being an important part of the personality of civil servants, will include the questions on behavioristic approach with typical questions on conflict resolution, behaving in a given situation, anger management, organizational hierarchy etc.

Important conditions to score better:

·         Self-Study

·         Expert Guidance

·         Good study material and books to refer

·         Lot of Practice

·         Solving wide range of questions

Practice, Practice & Practice, that's the key success tip!!

Refer CSAT Topics for complete coverage on the sub-topics