UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Exam 2018 was held on June 3
New Delhi:
The UPSC conducted the Civil Services Preliminary Exam 2018 in many centres across the country yesterday. According to both experts and candidates, Union Public Service Commission or UPSC has maintained its usual nature of being "unpredictable" about the questions this year also. The UPSC Civil Services Prelims or CSP exam was organized in two parts with Paper-I being conducted in the morning and Paper-II conducted in the afternoon. Candidates need to clear the 66 marks cut-off in Paper-II, after which on the basis of their Paper-I scores they are selected for the mains.
"This year too, UPSC lived up to its reputation among students of being the 'Unpredictable service commission'," commented Aditya Jagtap, mentor, Career Launcher.
UPSC Civil Services Paper 1 Review
In GS Paper-I, according to Mr. Jagtap, the areas from which questions are usually asked was different for many questions.
"Traditional topics like polity, which were asked conceptually in 2017, were this around asked with a much different focus in mind. Some questions such as the one on National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) also tested allied knowledge of students," said Mr. Jagtap.
"Conceptual questions too saw an innovation in the form of a paragraph based question on Internet-of-things. The dominance of environment based questions ebbed as this year we saw around 14 environment based questions, the same as polity, which stood at 24! So, the questions were more well distributed across topics and subtopics this time around. This played a positive role as candidates were not rewarded or punished based on his/her individual strength or weaknesses," he added.
UPSC Civil Services Paper 1 Review
"There were several changes in GS Paper-II," said Mr. Jagtap.
"Candidates are expected to clear this hump before their scores in Paper-I are checked and some who went in fully unprepared were in for a surprise. There were no Verbal Logic questions and only 26 Reading Comprehension based questions were asked. Data interpretation and Analytical Reasoning had 11 questions each. Those candidates who could use question selection strategies could significantly ease the solving process," he said.
Broadly speaking, according to Mr. Jagtap, the level of difficulty has increased and this will have an effect on the cut-off marks as well.
"There could be a 2-3 points drop from 105.3 marks, which was the cut-off for Prelims 2017, but it is difficult to say as there are some questions in Paper-I where many answer keys could be wrong," he said.
Candidates Review
According to a candidate who appeared from a centre in Kerala, in first paper, compared to last year, questions on Government schemes were very less and the questions from current affairs part were not so "recent".
He also said the commission was able to keep the "unpredictability" of the questions this year also.
"In first paper, earlier, current affair portion was given more important, but, this year, more important was given to all the areas," commented another candidate while adding that it seemed like the paper was going to back to the old pattern.
"Both the papers were equally tough. Second paper was time consuming," she added.
She also expected that the cut-off is going to be lower this year.
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"This year too, UPSC lived up to its reputation among students of being the 'Unpredictable service commission'," commented Aditya Jagtap, mentor, Career Launcher.
UPSC Civil Services Paper 1 Review
In GS Paper-I, according to Mr. Jagtap, the areas from which questions are usually asked was different for many questions.
"Traditional topics like polity, which were asked conceptually in 2017, were this around asked with a much different focus in mind. Some questions such as the one on National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) also tested allied knowledge of students," said Mr. Jagtap.
"Conceptual questions too saw an innovation in the form of a paragraph based question on Internet-of-things. The dominance of environment based questions ebbed as this year we saw around 14 environment based questions, the same as polity, which stood at 24! So, the questions were more well distributed across topics and subtopics this time around. This played a positive role as candidates were not rewarded or punished based on his/her individual strength or weaknesses," he added.
UPSC Civil Services Paper 1 Review
"There were several changes in GS Paper-II," said Mr. Jagtap.
"Candidates are expected to clear this hump before their scores in Paper-I are checked and some who went in fully unprepared were in for a surprise. There were no Verbal Logic questions and only 26 Reading Comprehension based questions were asked. Data interpretation and Analytical Reasoning had 11 questions each. Those candidates who could use question selection strategies could significantly ease the solving process," he said.
Broadly speaking, according to Mr. Jagtap, the level of difficulty has increased and this will have an effect on the cut-off marks as well.
"There could be a 2-3 points drop from 105.3 marks, which was the cut-off for Prelims 2017, but it is difficult to say as there are some questions in Paper-I where many answer keys could be wrong," he said.
Candidates Review
According to a candidate who appeared from a centre in Kerala, in first paper, compared to last year, questions on Government schemes were very less and the questions from current affairs part were not so "recent".
He also said the commission was able to keep the "unpredictability" of the questions this year also.
"In first paper, earlier, current affair portion was given more important, but, this year, more important was given to all the areas," commented another candidate while adding that it seemed like the paper was going to back to the old pattern.
"Both the papers were equally tough. Second paper was time consuming," she added.
She also expected that the cut-off is going to be lower this year.
Click here for more Jobs News
