Sakshi Education
By,
Vinnakota Srikanth,
Director,
Analog IAS Institute, Hyderabad
The CSAT has been introduced in 2011, which comprises seven test areas - English Comprehension, Basic Numeracy, General Mental Ability, Analytical ability & Logical Reasoning, Decision making & Problem Solving, Mental Ability and Interpersonal Skills including Communication Skills. This paper consists of 80 questions. Each of the 80 questions carries equal marks of 2.5, making total marks 200.
The paper has no ‘SECTIONS’; questions from any of the seven test areas can come at any place. There are 72 questions, which attract 0.833 negative marks (one-third) in case of wrong answer. The remaining 8 questions are on Decision Making and Problem Solving and they do not attract any negative marks.
Analysis of CSAT-2011 Paper
CSAT-2011 Paper II was broadly in line with the sample questions released by UPSC and there was no surprise element. Paper II had 80 questions and the paper had no sections. The questions from the seven test areas were jumbled without maintaining any specific sequence.
The 80 questions carried 200 marks, with equal marks of 2.5 for each question. Aforementioned negative marking pattern in place.
Questions are manageable when you read and understand English
Out of these 80 questions, there were 36 questions, which were based on passage – Comprehension (27 questions from 8 passages) and English Language Skills (9 questions from 3 passages). Students, with non-vernacular background, found that the difficulty level of the paper was manageable. Students who can read and understand English at a past pace will not find it difficult to answer most of the questions.
No separate cut-off marks for Paper I and II
The remaining 44 questions were from different topics like Data Interpretation (Pie Charts), Time and Distance, Numbers, Equations, Percentages, Mensuration, Counting Techniques, Cubes and Faces, Triangles, Number Series, Blood relations, Venn Diagrams, Situation Analysis etc.
In order to answer these questions, good conceptual, mathematical and reasoning skills are required. Overall, the difficulty level of the paper was average. Most of the well prepared students did not have any problem in solving the paper. There were no separate cutoff marks declared and the UPSC considered the grand total of the two papers for the cutoff.
The categorization of the questions based on the difficulty level is as follows:
The area wise split-up of questions is as follows:
For CSAT 2012 Paper II Analysis Click Here
For CSAT 2013 Paper II Analysis Click Here
Vinnakota Srikanth,
Director,
Analog IAS Institute, Hyderabad
The CSAT has been introduced in 2011, which comprises seven test areas - English Comprehension, Basic Numeracy, General Mental Ability, Analytical ability & Logical Reasoning, Decision making & Problem Solving, Mental Ability and Interpersonal Skills including Communication Skills. This paper consists of 80 questions. Each of the 80 questions carries equal marks of 2.5, making total marks 200.
The paper has no ‘SECTIONS’; questions from any of the seven test areas can come at any place. There are 72 questions, which attract 0.833 negative marks (one-third) in case of wrong answer. The remaining 8 questions are on Decision Making and Problem Solving and they do not attract any negative marks.
Analysis of CSAT-2011 Paper
CSAT-2011 Paper II was broadly in line with the sample questions released by UPSC and there was no surprise element. Paper II had 80 questions and the paper had no sections. The questions from the seven test areas were jumbled without maintaining any specific sequence.
The 80 questions carried 200 marks, with equal marks of 2.5 for each question. Aforementioned negative marking pattern in place.
Questions are manageable when you read and understand English
Out of these 80 questions, there were 36 questions, which were based on passage – Comprehension (27 questions from 8 passages) and English Language Skills (9 questions from 3 passages). Students, with non-vernacular background, found that the difficulty level of the paper was manageable. Students who can read and understand English at a past pace will not find it difficult to answer most of the questions.
No separate cut-off marks for Paper I and II
The remaining 44 questions were from different topics like Data Interpretation (Pie Charts), Time and Distance, Numbers, Equations, Percentages, Mensuration, Counting Techniques, Cubes and Faces, Triangles, Number Series, Blood relations, Venn Diagrams, Situation Analysis etc.
In order to answer these questions, good conceptual, mathematical and reasoning skills are required. Overall, the difficulty level of the paper was average. Most of the well prepared students did not have any problem in solving the paper. There were no separate cutoff marks declared and the UPSC considered the grand total of the two papers for the cutoff.
The categorization of the questions based on the difficulty level is as follows:
| Difficulty level | Number of questions |
| Easy | 30 |
| Medium | 36 |
| Difficult | 14 |
| Total | 80 |
The area wise split-up of questions is as follows:
| Test area | Number of questions | Marks |
| English Comprehension | 27 | 67.5 |
| Decision making & problem solving |
16 |
40 |
| Analytical ability & logical reasoning | ||
| General mental ability |
28 |
70 |
| Basic numeracy | ||
| English language comprehension skills | 9 | 22.5 |
| Interpersonal skills including communication skills | - | - |
| Total | 80 | 200 |
For CSAT 2012 Paper II Analysis Click Here
For CSAT 2013 Paper II Analysis Click Here
Published date : 26 Jun 2014 12:07PM
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