UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Exam 2019 Question Paper Review

UPSC CIVIL SERVICES PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2019 REVIEW

DIFFICULTY LEVEL

The CSE Preliminary examination conducted on June 2, 2019, has been touted as most onerous one since the last five years. Exam had been designed this time to test a candidate’s detailed understanding of concepts rather than just mere relying on his superficial memory. Owing to a higher level of difficulty, it is likely that the qualifying score can be significantly reduced. Both the mentors of the reputed institutes as well as aspirants felt that a thorough review of India Year Book and Economic Survey had put them in great standing as the majority of the questions were framed from these sources. Topics centred on key initiatives of Central Government such as Goods and Services Tax (GST), Smart India Hackathon and National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF). Qualifying marks in the last year IAS preliminary exam was approximately 58% (116/200). Considering the higher level of difficulty, the expected cut-off score is likely to be much lower.

STUDENT’S REVIEW

UPSC CSE Preliminary examination was conducted nationwide and the students felt that the examination was beyond the scope of their preparation. Since the last year, there has been a transformation in the style of the exam from the original regular style to the contemporary. Questions now are based on awareness and not merely textual. Most of the students felt that the questions asked are unexpected and just couldn’t be attempted by referring to the textbooks alone. Paper1 had a comprehensive perspective with the questions requiring smart thinking. Such type of questions was being asked in the areas of Indian Polity and Indian Governance.
Paper II General Studies or CSAT was well balanced and distributed.

UPSC PRELIMINARY EXAM PATTERN

The Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2019 comprises two papers-General Studies I and General Studies II. Paper II is also called as the CSAT paper.

GENERAL STUDIES-I

General Studies Paper-1 comprises of 100 questions related to subjects like Indian Polity, Geography, History etc. Some of the other subjects from which the questions taken are History of India and Indian National Movement, Indian and World Geography, Indian Polity and Governance, Economic and Social Development, General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change ( Covers only general awareness of the issues, no subject specialization required).

General Studies II (CSAT)

Second paper of General Studies has 80 questions based on Reasoning, Quantitative and Verbal Aptitude. Topics covered in the CSAT examination are based on Comprehension, Interpersonal skills including communication skills, Logical reasoning and analytical ability, Decision making and problem-solving, General mental ability, Basic numeracy (Class 10 level), Numbers and their relations, Orders of magnitude, etc. Data interpretation (Class 10 level)

DISTRIBUTION OF QUESTIONS IN THE PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION

GENERAL STUDIES PAPER-1

Distribution of question in the General Studies Paper 1, the questions are spread over Current Affairs, Indian Geography and Environment. Most of the students found the questions in the Indian Polity as relatively easy, however, the questions in History were extremely difficult and unpredictable. Economics questions required the students to apply their knowledge in order to answer them. Topics on which the Economics paper concentrated on was
Money Multiplier and Poverty Line. Candidates are expected to be extremely thorough with the concepts in order to answer such questions. There has been a reduction in the environment based questions this year making the exam pretty much uniformly distributed across topics and subtopics. Ideally, it has played a key role in that it has exempted the candidates being penalized for their weak areas.

GENERAL STUDIES PAPER -II OR CSAT

There have been some changes in the pattern of the CSAT paper this year especially in the section of Verbal Aptitude. Quantitative and Reasoning sections remained the same as last year. Most aspirants expressed a concern that there were long passages in the critical reasoning questions. Candidates had to resort to applying time-saving strategies in order to finish the examination.CSAT exam to their surprise didn’t have any Data Interpretation questions although the questions on visual reasoning were there. In comparison, the overall examination was moderate in the difficulty as compared to the last year.

Paper II or CSAT, had some changes in the pattern of the Verbal (English) Section. The quantitative and reasoning sections followed almost the last year’s paper pattern.

Passages overall dominated the paper and with the number of critical reasoning questions. Those candidates who could use question selection strategies could ease the solving process. Interestingly, this year there was no Data Interpretation question. But there were some questions which required visual reasoning. Overall the level of difficulty was moderate which means that difficulty increased slightly as compared to last year. Candidates are required to score a cut off of 66 in paper 2 to qualify.

EXPECTED DATE OF UPSC PRELIM 2019 EXAM RESULT

Expected date of declaration of result is in the month of July as the IAS Mains is scheduled for September. Only the candidates that meet the cut-off scores shall be able to sit in the Mains Exam.
The result is expected to release in the month of July as IAS Mains is scheduled for September 20, 2019.
Only candidates clearing the prelims cut off will be eligible to appear in IAS Mains exam. Check IAS Cut Offs

STEPS TO ACCESS THE IAS RESULT

Visit the official website of IAS i.e. upsc.gov.in.Click on the link which says ‘View IAS Result 2019’.
Find your roll number in the list of the roll numbers mentioned in the PDF
Download PDF for future reference.

EXPECTED CUT-OFF SCORES OF UPSC PRELIM 2019 EXAM

As mentioned above the questions asked in the UPSC Preliminary Examination varied from moderate to extremely difficult. Difficulty level varied with the subject. There is also negative marking of 1/3rd marks for wrong answers. Expected cut-off figures for IAS Prelims 2019 exam in each category

Category Expected Cut-Off GS Paper-I (Out of 200 Marks)

General 95-105

EWS 95-100

OBC 90-100

SC 85-95

ST 80-90

Previous Minimum Qualifying Marks for IAS Prelims GS Paper –II (CSAT) 2019 (Out of 200 Marks)

Minimum Percentage of Marks

33%

CONCLUSION

There had been many surprise elements to this year’s UPSC 2019 examination. In spite of that, the students who had carried an in-depth study of the material were able to score comparatively higher than those who had merely referred to the NCERT textbooks.