Befriending CSAT

CSAT has become an issue of national debate in the recent times. It is now a word so commonly occurring in news that many people outside the UPSC CSE world equate CSE with CSAT. Frankly CSAT has brought a lot of changes in CSE. Most importantly it resulted in a uniform Prelims question paper, and avoided the imbalance created by Optional paper. However, it done more good to students who were more exposed to such type of questions than the others. But this happens for any kind of change in exam pattern. In the initial years some students are at advantage. But now after 3-4 years, every student is expected to have enough exposure to CSAT so as to attempt it successfully.

     It is a common perception that CSAT is the toughest part of prelims or CSAT is difficult for non-technical background people etc. However once we think calmly about this issue, it becomes clear that this is more of a misconception. CSAT is more about skills. These skills are to be learnt only once, and then you just need to brush them up. This has reduced the time required to prepare for Prelims. So CSAT is actually a boon for aspirants working or attending college, who have limited time to study.

      A lot of questions were also raised on the relevance of CSAT in Civil Services. In my opinion, CSAT is more useful in service than GS. In the era of Internet on finger-tips, knowledge and information is freely accessible; hence the focus is totally on interpersonal skills and decision making. A government officer has to read rims and rims of pages on daily basis. These pages mean a lot; they are about a question of life for somebody. And time is the scarcest resource you have. To read this matter and decide on it is the real challenge. This needs tremendous comprehension skills. I have seen senior officers just scanning the pages with eyes and getting the gist in seconds.

     Once you join the service, the most important quality becomes your ability to take decisions and communicate with all sorts of stakeholders. This makes Interpersonal Skills and Decision making vey relevant. Similarly good numerical aptitude helps a lot to save time and work efficiently, especially in financial matters. You definitely need a knack to calculate quickly in the matters of budgeting and accounting. Moral of the story is that these skills are very much needed in real life administration. And training programmes after selection are not expected to look after these skills. So mark my words, that one day you will thank UPSC for making you expert in CSAT even before entering the service.

     After this much dose about application of CSAT, let us see how CSAT can be tackled. CSAT includes seven heads:

• Comprehension,
• Interpersonal skills,
• Logical reasoning,
• Decision making,
• General mental ability,
• Basic numeracy,
• English Comprehension.

     Of these seven, Decision making and Interpersonal skills are the easiest. Only thing is that the questions are lengthy. So faster reading skills help a lot here. One strategy is to use elimination method, which makes the selection of most appropriate option simpler. A lot of these questions overlap with Ethics case study questions, so it is also covered in Mains preparation now. There is no negative marking in these questions; therefore these are free-hits. This is the best section to start your CSAT paper (provided UPSC asks it, remember 2014 prelims!)

     Regarding English Comprehension (the part which is not translated), though the level of difficulty is higher than Class X, it is certainly easier than CAT, or even general Comprehension (which is translated). These passages just need focused and fast reading. For faster reading, Norman Lewis’ “How to read better and faster” can be helpful. However even this part was not included while checking Paper II in 2014. Many aspirants are of view that this actually made the paper tougher. If it is retained, it can be a good scoring section.

     Coming to Numeracy, Logical Reasoning and General Mental Ability, this is no rocket science. It is all a matter of practice. I know hundreds of aspirants who are fluent in Logical Reasoning and Numeracy despite being from non-technical background. You don’t really need an Engineering degree to solve questions based on data like “Find the average speed of vehicle” or “What is the profession of person staying on third floor.” Yes, an Engineer might have more exposure to these ‘Apti’ questions. But then we all have time and resources to get exposed to these questions. This means one and only one thing matters: Practice. Solve as many questions as possible. Remember: Fear is of the unknown. Know these questions well, face them whenever possible. Focus on accuracy and speed. With more and more practice, you will improve speed. Good speed in these sections means you get more time for Comprehension.

     Numeracy is no Mathematics. Many students have the complex of being weak in Mathematics in school or college. But CSAT doesn’t include Basic Proportionality Theorem or Leibnitz rule or Trigonometry. It is simple arithmetic, far simpler than SSC CGL or Banking . Any person who can calculate how much distance his/ her vehicle can cover in 5 litres petrol or what is the required run rate in last 5 overs can face Numeracy easily. But again, one must be psychologically ready to face the problem. And more importantly focus on speed of solving. RS Agarwal is the best book in my opinion for Reasoning and Numeracy. Focus on clearing the concept. Then start solving the problems. Keep solving till you feel confident. Then switch over to next topic. You can mark tricky problems to revise later. Once you get familiar with problem solving, arithmetic is simply a matter of few calculations. Similarly for Reasoning, solve more and more examples. Try to get a feel of examples of different types. For Data Interpretation focus on basics of reading the graph/ chart. In case of 3-4 questions based on some information or data, you may need few minutes to understand the data; but then you get 3-4 answers in a flash. So solve these questions with confidence.

     This leaves us with the topic which has maximum weightage: Comprehension. Comprehension needs good concentration. So first thing is to work on improving concentration. I personally used to divide the passage in 3-4 sub-passages and read them separately. It is easier to concentrate on smaller parts. Then I would ask myself what is the summary of this sub-passage. So from the whole passage, I would get a 3-4 line summary of passage. Now this summary is actually the gist you need to comprehend. You will find that 2-3 questions are actually from the same gist you have summarized. For the remaining questions, you at least know from which part of the passage the question has come. This simplifies tackling the questions. You can just give a trial to the strategy and use if you find it useful. But this strategy requires a lot of practice. Basic idea is to solve questions by reading the passage only once.

         Frankly speaking, in UPSC Prelims it is very very difficult to cross 130 in GS. So for ensuring total score to be well above cut-off, CSAT must be the target. Dedicated efforts and a lot of practice can make CSAT your best friend. But first of all throw away the fear of CSAT. If one can attempt more difficult aptitude questions in SSC CGL or IBPS or Insurance Companies entrance exams, it is perfectly fine to face them in UPSC CSE, which is arguably the toughest exam in India. It is essential to remove all the psychological barriers. Because it’s all in the mind!