In the days following up to the UPSC CSAT exam, many candidates are focusing on exam hall strategies and the most effective ways to tackle the paper now that the admit cards have been made public. CSAT, which was formerly considered as a qualifying requirement, has changed in recent years into a silent exclusion exam that rejects applicants based only on their performance in general studies.
As the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2025 approaches, candidates nationwide are starting up their preparations. The Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) has its own set of risks and difficulties, but General Studies still receives the majority of focus.
CSAT 2025: In-Hall Strategy
Candidates can follow below mentioned strategies:
1. Enter the Exam Hall with a Neutral Mindset
It's a common misunderstanding that CSAT is all difficult math problems that candidates with a humanities background can't solve. In certain cases, reading comprehension in English has proven more challenging than quantitative aptitude. Therefore, there is no universally accepted pattern in the degree of difficulty of the CSAT exam. Every year, it changes.
Furthermore, numerous applicants from the nation's top engineering schools have repeatedly fallen short of the required minimum score of one-third on the CSAT. Therefore, when answering the CSAT paper, the candidate's stream is irrelevant.
2. Avoid Looking for Familiar Topics
Everybody has areas of strength and weakness in a certain field. But we can't merely try the questions from our areas of strength if we want to pass the examination. Each chapter has a limited amount of weight, thus we must tackle the questions from a variety of sources in order to easily pass the cutoff. Aspirants occasionally proceed using the tactic of finding the paper's questions from a particular chapter or topic first, then trying questions from other sections. This approach is ineffective and time-consuming.
Finding questions from a particular chapter or topic among the 80 mixed questions takes a lot of time and will take up more of the 120 minutes we have allotted to complete the 80 questions. Solving the questions in the order they appear on the question paper is always advised.
3. Limit Blind Attempts
It is usually preferable to avoid questions that you believe are only partially solvable or about which you are unsure of the answer.
4. Optimal Attempt Strategy
This is the question which is asked the most right before the examination. Your accuracy in the exam hall will determine how many questions you have to try. You obviously don't have to try every one of the 80 questions. Regarding the amount of questions to be attempted, some candidates have a specific number in mind. They often over-try in an attempt to reach that number, which eventually results in poor marking. Never use a set number to enter the exam hall. Depending on the difficulty level of the overall paper and the difficulty level of individual subjects of quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning, and English reading comprehension, you should decide how much to attempt in the overall paper and how much to attempt from each subject.
5. Time Allocation per Question
You should aim for 1.5 minutes per question to complete 80 questions in 120 minutes. The CSAT requirements, however, are such that we do not have to attempt all 80 questions in order to pass the cutoff. The length of the content or the length of the computation required will determine how long it takes to complete each question on the CSAT. As a result, we are unable to give each question a consistent length of time. Some fundamental guidelines to follow when answering the questions, however, are as follows: if you believe a question is a little bit lengthy, but you are certain that you will come near to the correct answer, you should try it.
