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Indian Express
18-05-2025
- General
- Indian Express
Practice Set 14 — Sharpen your skills before the May 25 Prelims
Dear UPSC aspirants, The UPSC Prelims is scheduled for May 25, just a week from now. It's high time you fasten your seatbelt for the qualifying yet most challenging paper – CSAT. Recognizing the difficulty level, UPSC Essentials launched the 'UPSC CSAT Simplified' series earlier this year. The aim: to break down key concepts from the CSAT paper and offer practice questions to help candidates track their progress. Here is our final practice set for this year's Prelims season. Enhance your preparation with UPSC CSAT Practice Set 14. Haven't tried the previous sets yet? Check out UPSC CSAT Practice Set 1 (click here), Practice Set 2 (click here), Practice Set 3 (click here), Practice Set 4 (click here),Practice Set 5 (click here) , Practice Set 6 (click here) , Practice Set 7 (click here) , Practice Set 8 (click here) ,Practice Set 9 (click here), Practice Set 10 (click here)., Practice Set 11 (click here), Practice Set 12 (click here). and Practice Set 13 (click here). —Mudit Gupta Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer should be based on the passage only. In recent years, the demand for skilled professionals in the technology sector has grown exponentially. However, a significant portion of engineering graduates in India lack the necessary technical and soft skills required by the industry. Surveys indicate that nearly 60% of engineering graduates are unemployable due to gaps in their education and training. Many of these graduates come from rural areas and are the first in their families to pursue higher education. While the government has introduced initiatives to improve the quality of technical education, the results have been mixed. Employers often complain that the curriculum in engineering colleges is outdated and does not align with industry needs. Additionally, there is a lack of emphasis on practical training and problem-solving skills. Based on the above passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. The primary responsibility for improving the employability of engineering graduates lies with the government rather than educational institutions. 2. A revised curriculum that incorporates industry requirements and focuses on practical skills could significantly enhance the employability of engineering graduates. (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 The first assumption puts the entire onus to improve the technical education ecosystem on the Government. However, the Government alone is not responsible for this. The paragraph puts the onus on the Universities also to update the curriculum as per the industry standards. Hence, the 1st assumption is incorrect. The 2nd assumption is correct as it talks about the revision in the curriculum to make the engineers more employable inline with the industry standards. Hence, the 2nd assumption is correct. Therefore, (b) is the correct answer. At what time between 3 O'clock and 4 O'clock will the hand of the clock be together? (a) 16 (3/11) min past 3 (b) 14 (3/11) min past 3 (c) 13 (2/11) min past 3 (d) 16 (4/11) min past 3 To find out the time at which the hour and the minute hands will be together or, in other words, to find out the time at which the hour and the minute hand will make an angle of 0 degrees, we have to multiply 3 by 60/11. Multiplying 3 with 60/11 we get 180/11 or 16 (4/11). It means that at 3:16 (4/11) or 16 (4/11) minutes after 3:00, the minute and the hour hands of the clock will be together making an angle of 0 Degrees. Therefore, (d) is the correct answer. Five men and four women are to be seated in a row for a group photograph such that no two women sit together and no two men sit together. Find the number of ways in which this can be arranged. (a) 2880 (b) 1440 (c) 720 (d) 1 5 men and 4 women are to be seated in such a way that no 2 men are together and no 2 women are together. Let us say that the arrangement looks like this: M W M W M W M W M In the above arrangement, we can see that 5 men are to be seated in such a way that no 2 men are together. So, 5 men are to be seated at 5 places so we will use the Permutation here i.e. 5P5 (We have used permutation here because the order of seating is important) After 5 men are seated M _ M _ M _ M _ M, we have to arrange for women in the 4 spaces between 5 men as shown in the arrangement. So, 4 women can be seated at 4 places in 4P4 ways. (We have used permutation because the order of seating is important) Total number of ways = 5P5 X 4P4 = 2880 ways. Therefore, (a) is the correct answer. A man can row 9 km/h in still water. It takes him twice as long as to row up as to row down. Find the rate of stream of the river. (a) 3 Km/Hr (b) 3.5 Km/Hr (c) 4Km/Hr (d) 4.5 Km/Hr Speed of the boat in still water – 9 Km/Hr Let the speed of the stream be – x Km/Hr So, the net speed while going up will be – 9-x Km/Hr The net speed while going down will be – 9+x Km/hr The question says that the time taken by the boat to go up is twice the time taken by the boat to go down. We can write the same in the form of an equation like: (Time up/Time down = 2/1) Since, time and speed are inversely proportion to each other, we can rephrase the above equation as follows: (Speed down/Speed up = 2/1) Putting the values of Speed Up and Speed Down in the above equation we get: (9+x)/(9-x) = 2/1 Solving the equation we get x = 3 Km/Hr i.e. the speed of the stream is 3 Km/Hr. Therefore, (a) is the correct answer. A Question is given followed by two Statements I and II. Consider the Question and the Statements. A certain amount was distributed among X, Y and Z. Question: Who received the least amount? Statement-I: X received 4/5 of what Y and Z together received. Statement-II: Y received 2/7 of what X and Z together received. Which one of the following is correct regarding the above Question and the Statements? (a) The Question can be answered by using one of the Statements alone, but cannot be answered using the other Statement alone (b) The Question can be answered by using either Statement alone (c) The Question can be answered by using both the Statements together, but cannot be answered using either statement alone (d) The Question cannot be answered even by using both Statements together This is PYQ of UPSC CSE CSAT 2024. (The question can be answered using both statements together but cannot be answered using either statement alone.) In such data sufficiency type questions, first, we must consider statement-1 and statement-2 alone. If we are not able to find the answer using the statements alone, we must consider both statements together. In this above question, let us consider Statement-1 alone first of all. Please note, whenever we are considering Statement-1 alone, we will never consider Statement-2 along with it. (We will act as if Statement-2 is not given altogether). Considering Statement-1 alone: From the above equation, we cannot tell who received the least amount. There is no clarity about the exact value of and relation between X, Y, and Z. Hence, Statement-1 alone is not sufficient to answer the question. Now, let us consider the Statement-2 alone (assuming that Statement-1 does not exist): Considering Statement-2 alone: From the above equation, we cannot tell who received the least amount. There is no clarity about the exact value of and relation between X, Y, and Z. Hence, Statement-2 alone is not sufficient to answer the question. Since, we have been unable to solve the question using both the Statements individually, let us now consider both the Statements together. Considering both the statements together we get: Substituting the value of Y in the first equation we get: The above relation clearly shows that X is greater than Z. Now let us substitute the value of X in the equation above to find the relation between Y and Z. In this equation, let us substitute the value of X. The above relation clearly shows that Z is greater than Y. Combining all the relations derived above, we get X>Z>Y; hence, Y is the smallest number. So, we could find the solution to the question using both Statements. Therefore, (c) is the correct answer. (About our Expert: Mudit Gupta has been a mentor and faculty for the UPSC Civil Services exam for 8 years with expertise in CSAT, Polity, International Relations, and Current Affairs. He is known to break complex concepts into simpler ones that allow UPSC aspirants to develop a grip over the subject matter.) Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week relevant for your UPSC Exam. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.
Indian Express
14-05-2025
- General
- Indian Express
CSAT Exam Hall Strategy : Step-by-step guide to score atleast 66.67 marks in UPSC Prelims 2025
Dear UPSC aspirants, The UPSC CSAT examination is just a few days away, and with the admit cards now released, many aspirants are turning their attention to exam hall strategy and how best to attempt the paper. Over the past few years, CSAT — once considered a qualifying formality — has evolved into a silent eliminator, filtering out candidates regardless of their General Studies performance. With just days remaining before the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2025, aspirants across the country are intensifying their preparations. While General Studies continues to command the bulk of attention, the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) presents its own set of challenges — and risks. Recognising this shift, UPSC Essentials launched the 'UPSC CSAT Simplified' series earlier this year. The aim: to break down key concepts from the CSAT paper and offer practice questions to help candidates track their progress. Today, we pause from the usual syllabus-driven discussions to address an often overlooked yet vital aspect of preparation: exam hall strategy. In this article, Manas Srivastava speaks with CSAT expert Mudit Gupta, who shares practical strategies to help candidates secure the crucial one-third qualifying marks in CSAT. His insights focus not just on improving accuracy, but also on avoiding common time traps. Whether you're a first-time candidate or a returning aspirant, a methodical approach to the CSAT paper could make all the difference on May 25 — the day of prelims exams. About our Expert: Mudit Gupta has been a mentor and faculty for the UPSC Civil Services exam for 8 years with expertise in CSAT, Polity, International Relations, and Current Affairs. He is known to break complex concepts into simpler ones that allow UPSC aspirants to develop a grip over the subject matter. There is a widespread misconception that CSAT is all about tough mathematics questions, and students from a humanities background cannot solve them. Experience tells me that CSAT is an unpredictable turf ground. There have been instances when English reading comprehension was more difficult than quantitative aptitude. So, there is no generalised fixed trend regarding the difficulty level of the CSAT exam. It varies every year. Moreover, many aspirants from premier engineering colleges of the country have failed to score the minimum 1/3 marks in CSAT on multiple occasions. So, the stream of the candidate is immaterial while solving the CSAT paper. It's a misconception that students from a science background have an edge over others in the CSAT paper. Each one of us has certain strong and weak areas in a subject. However, to clear the exam, we cannot just attempt the questions only from our strong areas. The weightage of every chapter is limited, and to be able to clear the cut-off comfortably, we need to attempt the questions from across the spectrum. Sometimes, aspirants move ahead with the strategy of finding the questions from a specific chapter or a specific subject in the paper first and then attempting questions from other areas. This is a time-consuming and inefficient strategy. To find questions from a specific chapter or subject out of the mixed bag of 80 questions is time-consuming and will eat up the time from the limited 120 minutes that we have to solve the 80 questions. It is always advisable to solve the questions in the order in which they appear in the question paper. Before pouncing on the prey, a lion always takes a step back. That stepping back is not a weakness, but rather the strength of a lion. Following the similar analogy, whenever you encounter a question that you think is partially solvable or you're not very confident about its answer, it is always better to skip that question. Every negative mark will erode your positive marks and thus pull you downwards. Skipping a question will fetch you 0 marks, but wrongly attempting a question will take away your 0.83 marks Just before the exam, this is one question that I am asked the most. The number of questions to be attempted depends solely on your accuracy in the exam hall. It is a given that you don't need to attempt all 80 questions. Some aspirants have a preset number in mind regarding the number of questions to be attempted. In the quest to achieve that number, they tend to over-attempt, ultimately leading to negative marking. Never enter the exam hall with a preset number. Depending on the difficulty level of the overall paper and the difficulty level of individual subjects of quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning, and English reading comprehension, you should decide how much to attempt in the overall paper and how much to attempt from each subject. Ideally, to attempt 80 questions in 120 minutes, you need 1.5 minutes per question. However, the requirement of CSAT is such that we don't need to attempt all 80 questions to be on the other side of the cut-off. While attempting the CSAT paper, different questions will require different amounts of time depending on the length of the paragraph or the length of the calculation involved. Hence, we cannot assign a uniform amount of time to every question. However, a few basic parameters to be kept in mind while solving the questions would be: if you think that a question is a bit on the lengthier side, but you're confident of getting close to the right answer, you should attempt it. Moreover, avoid the ego battles at all costs. If there's a tough question from your strong area, and it is likely that you will not get the answer, in such cases, you should not be stubborn and, rather, move ahead to capture the low-hanging fruit. BTW: Haven't tried our UPSC CSAT Practice Sets yet? Check out CSAT Practice Set 1 (click here), Practice Set 2 (click here), Practice Set 3 (click here), Practice Set 4 (click here),Practice Set 5 (click here) , Practice Set 6 (click here) , Practice Set 7 (click here) , Practice Set 8 (click here) ,Practice Set 9(click here),Practice Set 10(click here)., Practice Set 11(click here), Practice Set 12 (click here). and Practice Set 13 (click here). The CSAT paper refers to the General Studies Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination which is a qualifying paper with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33 per cent or 66.67 marks. This 200 marks paper comprises questions on comprehension, interpersonal skills including communication skills, logical reasoning, and analytical ability, decision making and problem solving, general mental ability, basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc.) (Class 10 level), data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. — Class 10 level). The questions are of multiple choice, objective type. Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week relevant for your UPSC Exam. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.
