UPSC civil services prelims 2023: Tough paper, tricky questions stump aspirants

According to coaching experts, there was no room for the guess work for answering the questions in this year’s examination

Hyderabad: Tough question paper in comparison with the last year and tricky questions with less number of options to choose from has stumped the aspirants who appeared for the Civil Services Preliminary Test 2023 conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) here on Sunday. This year, the paper-I had more questions from Ecology and Current affairs. While the questions were not lengthy, candidates were tested in conceptual clarity.

There were 13 questions from Current Affairs, 11 from Economic and Social Development, 12 from History & Culture, 3 from General Science, 17 from Indian Polity and Governance, 20 from Environment and Ecology, 15 from Geography and about 9 questions from General Knowledge. The question paper was more advantageous to urban candidates who studied in the English medium. This time, more emphasis was laid on southern history.

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“The paper had questions from all the areas but was loaded in favour of Ecology and Current affairs. India’s role in the international arena was also emphasised upon. Questions tested conceptual clarity and choosing the right option was not an easy task for any candidate as the options were close to each other,” said Gopala Krishna, Director, Brain Tree Hyderabad.

According to coaching experts, there was no room for the guess work for answering the questions in this year’s examination.

“Unlike the previous years, wherein the candidates could arrive at the correct answer using elimination method, the paper this year was set ensuring little room to use the elimination method or guess the answers. Candidates required thorough understanding and application of the concepts to answer the questions,” said Deepika Reddy, Director, Shikara Academy.

The CSAT (paper-II) was moderate and students required good grip over the concepts in the quant and reasoning sections. A total of 45,611 candidates registered for the test in Hyderabad and 60.20 per cent attended the paper-I and 59.49 took the paper-II conducted in 99 centres in Hyderabad.