CSAT- What helps...

         When UPSC  announced for introduction of CSAT in November 2009, there was widespread anticipation about its structure and  content until it finally conducted the CSAT prelims on 12 June 2011. What perhaps UPSC has thought about its introduction was that it would lead to reduced dependency of aspirants on coaching. But we saw that with its introduction, a new range of market players emerged who boasted about being 100 percentiles or 10 times CAT qualifier. Sometimes it creates confusion in my mind and any other aspirant preparing CSAT for first time that why they are showing their Management aptitude credentials for CSAT as business and administration require entirely different aptitude which is rooted in their basic concept of profit and public service respectively.

So, straight forwardly those of us who are preparing for CSAT, please make it clear that this is CSAT  and not  CAT and don’t get carried away with CAT scorers. So we find that  quantitative aptitude in last years, was only limited to finding average speed or simple calculation so  as to check basic numeracy skills (and also skill of  reading between the lines). District Magistrate’s need to do that only and need not solve complex equations as they are assisted by plenty of management guys.

So what D.M.’s do is that they take decisions and that too very quickly and momentous and that is what UPSC wants from you, so not only specific decision making questions, almost every question in CSAT is one such problem whether it is picking right choice answer from seemingly correct multiple options in COMPREHENSION or to decide proper course of action for a given situation based on civil servants perspective which should be the pragmatic decision under given circumstances.

For this we need-

·       -  Skill to Comprehend  the given paragraph which can be improved by practice.  

·        - Good command on English or Hindi.

·         -Faster reading speed which can be mastered by practice and few techniques.

·         -Skill to identify block questions or what to leave as 1 wrong choice can spoil your all good work as it wastes relatively more time and if solved will fetch same marks but if still unsolved, it upsets mind throughout exam

·         -Full concentration while reading as distracted mind hampers all the above mentioned skills.

For comprehension- try to solve as much you can, one thing which I would suggest is that pick any random page from a seemingly difficult language like any fiction or Amartya Sen or any such, then ask your friend to frame few questions for you and you can frame from him/her. So in the process you can undergo through psychology of examiner and also discuss options with friend. What I observed in test series of Career Launcher is that they have long paragraphs with 4-5 questions while UPSC goes for multiple sets with few questions like 2-3 on each(it even follows this strategy for mains as well). Secondly, Vajiram and Ravi test series is one of their worst product for CSAT and anybody who has appeared in CSAT 2011 and 2012 and has seen their  test-series would agree with me.

For quantitative aptitude- as syllabus of UPSC mentions that paper would have basic numeracy as key for this section so my advice for non-math’s background student is that don’t bother much about complex questions of series etc. Rather than wasting time in learning entire new  beasts of probability and permutation you should focus on basic arithmetic, comprehension, decision-making (last 8 questions) and GS -1 paper. In any case average, time-distance, LCM-HCF can be practiced from any standard book like R.S.Agarwal. Quicker mathematics by M.Tyra is good book but sometimes it takes more than required energy for such problems. also it is useful when arithmetic question are in sufficient nos.

Reasoning and data interpretation etc- relationship, short puzzles (in set of 3-4 ques.), figures like pie and bar-chart are easy and unlike CAT/MAT/PO they do not involve lengthy calculations but they are woven in a “mirage” like language and lets easily to fall in trap by excellent use of art of language, like those few questions which came in 2011. So thoughtfully read units given in data set and units in which options/answers are given, whether they are asking %age  or quantity. In any case do not assume anything granted due to common-sensical knowledge as any minor assumptions leads to entire different conclusion which is more harmful in questions which are asked in set of 4-5 questions as the whole set could be wrong. As far as issue of any practice book is concerned TMH or Pearson’s CSAT manual are comprehensive and good for practice purpose. CSE aspirants with HINDI/VERNACULAR background should improve their language grasping and understanding skills in their medium of exam and also in English as it is also a compulsory part as well as they can refer to English part when it is difficult to grab the essence of passage in Hindi/Vernacular because it is very standard use of language and sometimes technical words are typical in such medium or vice-versa as we observed in CSE mains’2012 that reading translation part can help you to attempt the  question.

Once again I would like to add that CSE is the product your long learning process so those who are aware about surroundings are at upper edge and as everybody’s learning route is specific so there can be various paths to success depending upon his/her’s history and background so there can be no tailor-made prescriptions and this applies to above write-up also,but yes,honest and dedicated efforts are rewarded with success, if not immediate then with some delay but it will come for sure.

 Any suggestion to improve this write-up's efficiency will be most welcome.