Monday, June 4, 2012

CSAT Preparation: The way Ahead


How to prepare for CSAT:- By Rushikesh Dudhat 
Last year UPSC brought in a major change in civil services preliminary exam pattern by removing the optional subject and introducing a new paper 2 commonly known as CSAT. Though it caused lot of anxiety in students initially, the two preliminary examinations on new pattern gives us fair idea about paper 2. Most importantly it dispels the myth that CSAT favors students with mathematics background. In fact the number of mathematics questions in 2011 paper which were around 15, could be categorized into more of logical questions and this year, i.e. in 2012 paper the number of  mathematics question were reduced to just two.
Also a comparative analysis of paper 1 and paper 2 shows that , CSAT paper consists of 80 questions with each question carrying 2.5 marks as against 2 marks carried by each question of paper 1 (G.S.) having 100 questions. So the weightage is more to paper 2. But the number of question may vary in coming years as UPSC has not specified number of questions thus making the current pattern more dynamic.