CSAT 2024 Exam

CSAT ( Civil Services Aptitude Test) is commonly known as the General Studies-2 in the UPSC Prelims, and it has been a part of the UPSC Syllabus since 2011. The CSAT 2022 has been conducted on 5th June 2022 in the second shift after the GS Paper 1 from 02:30 P.M. to 04:30 P.M. Candidates preparing for the upcoming CSAT exam must be aware of these facts.

• At first, the CSAT or UPSC GS Paper 2 marks were counted in preparing the merit list for the Prelims exam. 
• In 2015, the Commission made some huge changes in the UPSC Exam Pattern by making the CSAT paper qualifying in nature. As per the UPSC exam pattern candidates only need 33% of 66 marks out of 200 marks to qualify.

UPSC released the exam notification for CSAT 2022 in March with the date of the exam.  For the year 2022, the exams were supposed to be held in June but due to the COVID pandemic, the dates of the exam are postponed to October 2022.

All the corresponding dates like the date of release of admit card, date for mains, and then personal interview have been subsequently moved ahead too.

Following is the latest date chart of UPSC CSAT exam 2022-

To appear for the UPSC CSAT exam, candidates need to fulfill certain criteria. They must ensure of these before filling up the application form as there will be no refund of the application fee

Candidates must also remember they can attempt these exams only 6 times (though the number of attempts varies for different categories). Thus candidates must make sure they fulfill these criteria before applying. These criteria are divided into different categories.

• Candidates appearing for the UPSC CSAT must be a graduate from govt. recognized university.
• Candidates who have appeared for the exam of their final year of graduation and are awaiting the result can also apply for the UPSC CSAT but must present proof of their certification for the Mains.
• Technical graduates i.e. candidates with MBBS or BE degrees can also apply for CSAT.
• A candidate with a technical or professional qualification recognized by govt. of India which is equivalent to the technical or professional degree can also apply.

There is an age limit for candidates appearing for UPSC CSAT. This is different for candidates of different categories-

• Candidates applying for the UPSC CSAT must be at least 21 years old but not older than 32 years.
• The upper age limit for candidates of the SC/ST category is relaxed by 5 years.
• The upper age limit for candidates of the OBC category is relaxed by 3 years.

• For IFS, IAS, and IPS, only candidates with Indian nationality can apply.
• For other services candidates can be-
  • A citizen of India
  • A subject of Bhutan
  • a subject of Nepal
  • A Tibetan refugee who immigrated to India to permanently settle here.
  • Citizens of Indian origin who immigrated from Burma, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, East African nations like Tanzania, Zambia, Ethiopia, or Vietnam to permanently settle in India.

PSC does not declare the number of vacancies for the UPSC CSAT exam. Vacancies are declared for the civil service positions which are filled by candidates based on their preference and merit position. The candidates who clear CSAT are selected based on the cut-off for the year.

For the year 2022, the UPSC has declared a total of 712 vacancies that will be filled by the Civil Service exam. This was announced after the exam notification for the UPSC CSAT came out on 02nd February 2022.

Candidates must be extremely cautious while downloading the Admit Card. This is the most critical document for candidates to go to the exam premises. The candidates can find the direct link below to download the admit card. The candidates can follow the below steps to download the UPSC IAS Admit Card 2023.

Step 1: Visit the official website of CSAT .

Step 2: A new page will appear on the candidate’s screen. Click on the mode you want to log in by clicking the Registration ID or Roll Number option.

Step 3: Type in your Roll Number, Date of Birth, and Captcha and click on the submit button.

Step 4: After Downloading the UPSC IAS mains admit card PDF and take some extra printouts of the same.

Step 5: Double-check the details on the admit card and download/print out for further use.
 

Note: Read the necessary instructions as given on the official website before downloading the UPSC admit card.

CSAT or General Studies-2 Syllabus is designed to test the analytical, aptitude, and decision-making ability of the candidates. The CSAT syllabus covers basic numeracy, comprehension, general mental ability, etc. Candidates need to practice thoroughly to fetch good marks in this paper. The complete UPSC CSAT Syllabus is covered below.
 

1. Comprehension
2. Interpersonal skills including communication skills
3. Logical reasoning and analytical ability
4. Decision-making and problem-solving
5. General mental ability
6. Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc.) (Class X level), Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency, etc. – Class X level)

The CSAT Syllabus is a part of the UPSC Prelims Syllabus as GS 2. The syllabus provides an overview of the topics to be covered for the upcoming IAS Exam. 

Without knowing the CSAT exam pattern candidates won’t be able to figure out an effective preparation strategy. That’s why we are going to cover the CSAT paper pattern in detail here. There will be a total of 80 questions in the CSAT exam and the time allotted for the paper will be 2 hours. Each question carries 2.5 marks, and the total marks will be 200. 

For every wrong answer, 1/3rd of the total marks given to the question will be deducted which means 0.83 marks. However, there is no deduction for unanswered questions. Candidates need to score at least 33% or 66 marks to qualify for this paper.

For the year 2022, the UPSC announced exam notification for CSAT in March. Candidates who are looking to apply for the UPSC CSAT exam in the coming year should keep the following things in mind-

• UPSC announces the exam notification on its official website, upsc.gov.in.
• These announcements are not made in any other newspaper or any other exam or government platform.
• Before applying for these exams, candidates must make sure they fulfill all the requirements or eligibility criteria since they cannot claim a refund of the application form.
• Candidates can apply only a certain number of times to these exams thus they should make sure to apply only when they are fully prepared.

• Candidates must visit the official website of UPSC
• Click on “Examination”
• Choose “Active Examination”
• Along with all the other active exams, they will find an announcement for the “Civil Service Examination”
• They must first register for part A of the examination form using their name, their father’s name, mother’s name, contact details, and date of birth.
• For Part B of the form, they must fill in their educational details and center preference. Candidates need to upload the required documents too.
• Once these are done, they would pay application fees.
• Candidates must check the details they are providing. They should complete the documents they are uploading. So there is no mistake and no chances of application rejection.

For the UPSC CSAT application, the fee is different for a different categories. For candidates of general category or economic weaker section or OBC category, the fee is Rs 200. There is no application fee for female candidates or candidates of the SC/ST category or candidates with disabilities.

The economic weaker section is that sub-category in which candidates belong to the family with less than 8 lacs as their annual income and do not belong to any SC/ST or OBC class.