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Competitions » CSAT (Civil Services Aptitude Test)  » New Pattern & Old Pattern of CSAT

The comparison between the old pattern and the new pattern on different parameters like Marks, questions, marks per question, time, negative marking.

 

 

Old Pattern(till 2010)

New Pattern(from 2011)

Name of the examination

Civil Services Preliminary examination

Civil Services Aptitude Test

Paper

Paper 1(General Studies)

Paper 2(One optional
paper out of 23 subjects)

Paper 1

Paper 2

Marks

150 marks

300 marks

200 marks

200 marks

Questions

150

100/120 **

*

*

Marks Per question

1

3/2.5**

*

*

Time

120 mins

120 mins

120 mins

120 mins

Negative Marking

0.33 marks

0.33 of the marks allotted
to that question

*

*

Note (**): In Paper-2, the candidate had to choose one optional paper (out of 23 subjects). For Mathematics and Statistics, the number of questions was 100, while the number of questions for any of the remaining 21 optional subjects was 120.
Note (*): The number of questions marks per question, and negative marking has not been released by UPSC till date.

Comparison: Past and Present (for Paper-1)
The comparison between the old syllabus for Paper-1 and the new syllabus for Paper-2. It can clearly be observed that the test area of 'General Mental Ability" which was there in Paper-1 (old syllabus) has now been taken out from Paper-1 and kept in Paper-2 (as the next table indicates).

Old Syllabus-Paper 1 or General Studies(till 2010)

New Syllabus -Paper 1(from 2011)

General Science

General Science

Current events of national and international importance

Current events of national and international importance

History of India and Indian national Movement

History of India and Indian national Movement

India and World Geography

India and World Geography

Indian Polity and Economy

Indian Polity and Governance

General Mental Ability

Economic and Social Development

 

General Issues on Environmental Ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate change

 

Comparison: Past and Present (for Paper-2)

The table below gives the comparison between the old syllabus and the new syllabus for Paper-II. It can be observed that Paper-II had undergone a major change in light of the fact that lots of new areas have been included, which were earlier not there in Civil services (Preliminary) examination.

Old Syllabus

Of Paper 2

(till 2010)

New Syllabus- Paper 2(from 2011)




Optional Paper

(any one out of 23 subjects)

Comprehension

Interpersonal Skills including Comprehension Skills

Logical reasoning & Analytical ability

Decision making and Problem Solving

General Mental Ability

Basic Numeracy (Numbers & their relations, orders of magnitude etc)-Class Xth level, Data Interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc)-Class Xth level.

English Language Comprehension Skills(Class Xth level)


Main Examination:
The candidates who clear the first stage of the civil services examination (i.e. CSAT), will be called for the next stage (i.e main examination). In year 2008, the number of candidates who qualified for mains was approximately 7% of the total number of candidates who appeared for civil services preliminary examination. The Main Examination consists of a written examination and an interview test. The written examination will consist of 9 papers of conventional essay type. Out of these 9 papers, first two papers are only qualifying in nature.

PAPER

SUBJECT

MARKS

Paper-I

One of the Indian languages to be selected by the candidate from the Languages included in the eigth schedule to the constitution (Qualifying Paper).

300

Paper-II

English(Qualifying Paper)

300

Paper-III

Essay

200

Papers-IV & V

General Studies (2 papers)

600(300 marks for each of the two papers)

Papers-VI, VII, VIII & IX

Any two subjects to be selected from the list of optional subjects. Each subject will have two papers. Thus, a total of four papers

1200 (300 marks for each of the four papers)

Interview

300

Total (Excluding the marks obtained in the qualifying paper)

2300


Number of Test Takers-Prelims & Mains
The table below gives the number of candidates who applied for civil services (prelims & mains) for different post

Year of Examination

Number of Candidates applied for CS(Prelims)

Number
of Candidates appeared for CS(Prelims)

Number
of Candidates applied for CS(Mains)

Number
of Candidates appeared for CS(Mains)

Total number of vacancies

2002

301585

157486

3430

3301

310

2003

316496

160784

5972

5750

457

2004

349020

174475

5565

5328

453

2005

345106

175202

5140

4923

457

2006

383983

195803

7692

7496

533

2007

333680

161469

9158

8886

734

2008

325433

167035

11669

11330

767

2009

409110

193091

12096

11516

875

2010

547698

269036

12491

-

920

Interview:
Candidates who obtain minimum qualifying marks in the written Main Examination will be called for an interview for a Personality Test. However, the papers on Indian Languages and English will be of qualifying nature. The marks obtained in these qualifying papers will not be counted for ranking. The number of candidates to be called for interview will be about twice the number of vacancies to be filled. The interview will carry 300 marks (with no minimum qualifying marks).

Centres for Preliminary Examination:
The examination centres for the preliminary exam usually are:

Agartala

Chandigarh

Imphal

Lucknow

Ranchi

Ahmedabad

Chennai

Itanagar

Madurai

Sambalpur

Aizwal

Cuttack

Jaipur

Mumbai

Shillong

Aligarh

Dehradun

Jammu

Nagpur

Shimla

Allahabad

Delhi

Jodhpur

Panaji (Goa)

Srinagar

Aurangabad

Dharwad

Jorhat

Patna

Thiruvanathapuram

Bangalore

Dispur

Kochi

Port blair

Tirupati

Bareilly

Gangtok

Kohima

Puducherry

Udaipur

Bhopal

Hyderabad

Kolkata

Raipur

Vishakhapatnam


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