CSAT focuses on holistic skills of civil sevices aspirants

Updated on: Wednesday, December 14, 2011

India's most honoured civil sevices exams has come out with few changes in syllabus for the 2011 preliminary examination giving more emphasise on testing holistic skills of the candidate.

Hencforth, the new Recruitment Process of Civil Services Exam conducted by the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) would be called as CSAT or the Civil Services Aptitude Test. The CSAT would come into effect from the Civil Services Examination, 2011.

CSAT would not only enable us to choose civil servants with right aptitudes but also end the use of scaling system for varying subjects that has been a matter of concern for many.

At this stage, no changes are introduced in the Civil Services (Main) Examination and Personality Test in the scheme of Civil Services Examination (CSE).

The Preliminary Examination conducted by the UPSC would consists of two papers of objective type (multiple-choice questions) carrying a maximum of 400 marks. The Question Papers (Test Booklets) would be in both English & Hindi.

From Civil Service Examination 2011, Preliminary Examination would consist of two papers- Paper I and Paper II. The syllabus and pattern of the Preliminary Examination would be as under :

(Paper 1) General Studies (200 marks) - Duration : Two hrs.

* 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 and climate change-that do not require subject specialization.
* General science.

(Paper II) Civil Services Aptitude Test (200 marks) Duration : Two hrs

* 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)
* English language comprehension skills (Class X level)
* Questions relating to English Language Comprehension skills of Class X level (last item in the Syllabus of Paper-II) will be tested through passages from English language only without providing Hindi translation thereof in the question paper.

The questions will be of multiple choice, objective type.

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