How one can do Previous Year Question Papers Analysis while preparing for UPSC Exam?

I think previous year’s papers are extremely important for the preparation of CSE. One can read and re-read the previous prelims as well as mains papers many times to get an understanding of UPSC pattern and it will really help. This is how you can analyse them:

Prelims:

One can go back as far as 10 years and solved all the papers multiple times. If you are easily getting above 100 marks in old CSAT papers, you will not have any trouble easily qualifying this one since only 33% marks are required.

However, for Paper 1(GS), you need to read into how the question of UPSC is framed and how the choices are framed. You also need to focus on what type of question UPSC likes to ask for each subject. For example, for geography, UPSC asks basic conceptual questions about air flow systems, winds, map questions about the location of important geographic landscapes, rivers (only really important ones or unique ones) etc. These are quite predictable if you closely analyse and you will see a trend in the type of questions. Similarly, for art and culture know dances, important sculptures and paintings etc. These are standard and UPSC likes to ask those that are unique or stand out.

Also, many wrong answer options can be eliminated by understanding wordings such as extreme sentences using ‘only’ or ‘always’ could be wrong.

Mains:

For mains, no need to go back 10 years. Last 3–4 years will be enough. However, for optional, try to see how many years back you can go (as many questions repeat verbatim). For ethics in GS, case studies can repeat. For GS-2 and 3 try to understand the way UPSC words its questions. You will notice that they always ask for a specific answer/analysis in the question and if you start catching that, it becomes much easier to answer.

Until Next Time…

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