General Studies (Preliminary )
The importance of ‘General Studies’ is uncontroversial in Civil Services Examination. After examining the result of previous few years, we found that the basic reason behind failure in achieving desired success by Hindi medium students has been their disappointing performance in ‘General Studies’. Students have been gaining highly qualitative guidance in Hindi medium in optional subjects (Public Administration, Philosophy, History, Political Science, Geography, Public Administration etc.) but General Studies has a worrying condition.
The key features of the programme offered by tcs academy are as follows:-
- Regular practice of questions of main examinations of last ten years.
- Latest course material prepared on the basis of most reliable sources.
- A complete class programme of more than 500 hours.
- More than 20 mock tests.
- Practice of more than 3000 objective questions for preliminary examination.
Segments of General Studies
1 | Indian Heritage and Culture | भारत की विरासत एवं संस्कृति |
2 | History of India and World | भारत और विश्व का इतिहास |
3 | Indian Society & Social Problems | भारतीय समाज तथा सामाजिक समस्याएँ |
4 | Geography of India & World | भारत और विश्व का भूगोल |
5 | Governance, Constitution and Polity | शासन, संविधान तथा राजव्यवस्था |
6 | Social Justice & Social Welfare | सामाजिक न्याय तथा समाज कल्याण |
7 | India & world and International Issues & Organisations | भारत और विश्व तथा अंतर्राष्ट्रीय मुद्दे और संगठन |
8 | Economy and Economic Development | अर्थव्यवस्था और आर्थिक विकास |
9 | Science & Technology | विज्ञान एवं प्रौद्योगिकी |
10 | Biodiversity, Environment & Ecology | जैव विविधता, पर्यावरण एवं पारिस्थितिकी |
11 | Disaster Management | आपदा प्रबंधन |
12 | Security (Specially Internal Security) | सुरक्षा (विशेषतः आंतरिक सुरक्षा) |
13 | Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude | नैतिकता, सत्यनिष्ठा एवं अभिवृत्ति |
14 | General Science | सामान्य विज्ञान |
IAS Preliminary Exam Syllabus
The Preliminary Examination of Union Public Service Commission for Civil Services Examination is popularly called CSAT or Civil Services Aptitude Test. The CSAT is actually the second paper of General Studies introduced in 2011. The CSAT was introduced to end the use of scaling system for varying subjects in the General Studies paper.
The benefit of introducing aptitude tests in the civil exam is that it assesses your logical reasoning and thinking performance. It is based on multiple choice questions answered in exam conditions. No subject influences, or can have an effect on an aptitude test.
Some changes are made in the format of Civil Services Examination since 2013. It’s for the first time the Indian Forest Service (IFS) aspirants were combined with the Civil Services aspirants and are made to take the preliminary examination. Those Indian Forest Service aspirants who may eventually clear the Preliminary examination have to write separate exams for their Mains Indian Forest Service examination.
There is also a change in the pattern of the Civil Services Mains examination from 2013. Now there are four compulsory papers of General Studies, and only one optional subject instead of two, one compulsory essay paper is also there. Besides, English and one language paper is of only qualifying nature.
Some changes have been done in 2014, in this year civil services preliminary exam was conducted on 24-08-2014 had 80 questions but only 74 questions were evaluated for the cut off marks. Questions related to English language comprehension skills was not countable or its marks were not added in the final merit list to decide cut-off for prelims – CSE 2014. Thus CSAT comprises 185 marks only. From this year English comprehension is excluded from the CSAT syllabus.
From 2015 G.S Paper-II (CSAT) was only a qualifying paper and minimum qualifying marks of 33% required.
The UPSC Preliminary Examination shall comprise two compulsory papers of 200 marks each.
Paper I – (200 marks) Duration : Two hours
- Current events of national and international importance.
- History of India and Indian National Movement.
- Indian and World Geography – Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World.
- Indian Polity and Governance – Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.
- Economic and Social Development Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector initiatives, etc.
- General issues on Environmental Ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change – that do not require subject specialization.
- General Science.
Paper II- (200 marks) Duration: Two hours
- Comprehension
- Interpersonal skills including communication skills;
- Logical reasoning and analytical ability
- Decision-making and problem-solving
- General mental ability
- Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc.) (Class X level), Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. – Class X level).
Note:The questions will be of multiple choice, objective type.