Expert Talk | UPSC Prelims CSAT Challenge: Why aspirants fail and how to prepare better

About our expert: For UPSC aspirants grappling with the challenges of CSAT, Dr. Mansoor Agha Siddiqui brings decades of experience to the conversation. With over three decades of guiding students through aptitude and assessment tests such as GMAT, IIM-CAT, GRE, SAT, LSAT, CUET and others, he has worked extensively with the design and demands of aptitude-based examinations. His expertise also includes mentoring UPSC aspirants across multiple areas, including CSAT, making his insights particularly relevant for candidates preparing for this crucial paper.

Manas: Why does CSAT remain challenging even after so many years of its inclusion in the UPSC Prelims exam?

Mansoor Agha Siddiqui: The inclusion of CSAT in the UPSC Prelims exam may have been done way back in 2011, but it will remain challenging as long as UPSC aspirants, teachers, and coaching institutes keep treating it as an assessment test that examines Mathematics and English in the same way these two subjects are taught and tested in school.

School and college exams are called assessment tests, which focus on a certain quantum of knowledge to be memorised along with a bit of application of that knowledge. This ability to apply knowledge is actually not even required in some subjects. You already have at least 15 years of experience in preparing for and scoring in assessment tests.

CSAT stands for Civil Services Aptitude Test, which means that it is an aptitude test (and not an assessment test) for the Civil Services. Aptitude tests are modified IQ tests that test the sharpness and abilities of your brain. They also test a specific set of skills needed for a certain job (e.g., CSAT to qualify for a career in the Civil Services) or an advanced academic course (e.g., IIM-CAT for MBA admission). You have never prepared for or taken an intelligence test.

All aptitude tests are IQ or intelligence tests modified to a certain requirement. This means that CSAT is an intelligence test that also checks whether you have the attitude and perception of a civil servant. But remember—you have never prepared for or taken an IQ test and do not know the parameters tested in an IQ test.

Being an aptitude test or a psychometric test, CSAT is created by specialised psychologists called psychometricians. They design questions testing intelligence and attitude, but these questions are framed in the language of Mathematics and English. So, CSAT questions may look like Mathematics and English questions, but they are not testing your prowess in these subjects. A certain amount of Mathematics and English skills is required to understand the foundations of the questions, but Mathematics and English are not the tested areas.

In India, there are very few psychometricians who are good teachers and have a clear sense of the parameters tested by UPSC. As a result, many teachers from Mathematics and English backgrounds are employed by coaching institutes merely to complete the formality of teaching enrolled students.

You would never study History from a Chemistry teacher, but in the case of CSAT, this is a mistake many students make.

All these reasons make CSAT challenging, and about 80% of UPSC aspirants fail in CSAT and end up wasting all their hard work done for General Studies preparation.

Manas: What are the most common mistakes aspirants make in CSAT that lead to unexpected failure, despite strong GS performance?

Mansoor Agha Siddiqui: GS and CSAT have different syllabi and test different abilities. A strong performance in GS is not related to or does not impact your CSAT score. CSAT requires preparation that is different from GS.

CSAT tests your IQ and attitude. The questions test your decision-making skills, problem-solving skills, ability to take split-second decisions, ability to solve problems faster, ability to avoid being fooled by the sneaky and confusing language of questions, focus on accuracy rather than attempting more questions, and a certain amount of foundational knowledge of Mathematics, vocabulary, grammar, reading ability, paraphrasing, language mechanics, etc. For example, you should be good at identifying the 45 different types of Reading Comprehension questions and the individual strategies to solve each of them.

Let us look at the common mistakes made by aspirants in CSAT.

• Focusing completely on GS and very little on CSAT, despite 80% of students failing the UPSC Prelims exam because of CSAT.
• Treating CSAT as a school-like examination of Mathematics and English, whereas it actually tests the sharpness of your brain and perception.
• Not taking enough previous years’ actual CSAT papers as mock tests to gauge performance under complete simulated test conditions.
• Not working enough on the foundations of Mathematics and English due to mental barriers, and not following this up with sufficient practice of actual exam questions or PYQs to determine whether they have developed the ability to crack CSAT PYQs and mock practice questions on a studied topic.

Manas: With CSAT becoming more analytical each year, what new preparation strategies should aspirants adopt to stay ahead of the trend?

Mansoor Agha Siddiqui: CSAT is not becoming more analytical; rather, it has started meeting the requirements of an aptitude test to a greater extent. It has begun testing intelligence, attitude, and perception in a true-blue psychometric way. People, for lack of words, say that it is becoming more analytical.

Since 2015, when UPSC was forced to make CSAT a qualifying paper, it has fought back. UPSC had introduced CSAT after extensive research and finally recommended it in the Dr. Y. S. Alagh Committee Report. When CSAT was made a qualifying paper, UPSC ensured that its purpose and importance were not diluted. As a result, CSAT has been made progressively more difficult with each passing year.

The questions began to have trickier language and started testing mathematical and verbal reasoning in a manner far removed from assessment tests conducted in schools and colleges.

Assessment tests conducted in schools and colleges use clear and direct language, regardless of whether they test easy or difficult concepts. Aptitude tests such as CSAT test easy concepts, but the confusing language of the questions causes students to make silly mistakes or waste a lot of time arriving at the answer.

There are five subjects tested in CSAT, so I will restrict myself to the preparation process for Comprehension. Aspirants need to improve their vocabulary, grammar, and reading skills by doing extensive and wide reading across different subjects. This should be followed by attempting PYQs. If they get a question wrong, they must figure out where they made a mistake and ensure that it is not repeated. This is where real improvement and learning happen.

Manas: How can students with a non-math background confidently handle the increasingly tough quantitative aptitude questions in CSAT?

Mansoor Agha Siddiqui: Aspirants with a non-math background fear Basic Numeracy and Data Interpretation because they treat it as being the same as Mathematics taught in schools.

Basic Numeracy and Data Interpretation is a different subject that tests easier concepts but presents them in confusing and tricky language. School Mathematics questions, whether testing easy or difficult concepts, still use clear and direct language, allowing aspirants to get a hint about the approach required to solve the question.

In Basic Numeracy and Data Interpretation, students often do not understand the sequence of steps needed to solve a question. A question that appears to be from Number Systems may actually be an Arithmetic Progression question, causing students to waste a lot of time and still arrive at the wrong answer.

Out of the 21 topics in Basic Numeracy and Data Interpretation, students do not need to study certain topics, as barely one or two questions have appeared in CSAT. Examples of chapters that can be ignored include Partnership, Pipes and Cisterns, Boats and Streams, Races, Area, SI, CI, Algebra, and Geometry.

Manas: Is solving previous years’ papers enough for CSAT, or should aspirants follow a different practice-based approach from 2025 onwards?

Mansoor Agha Siddiqui: None of the PYQs will reappear in future CSAT papers. However, PYQs are still the most important questions for UPSC aspirants. Let us understand their role. After students prepare a particular subject, PYQs help diagnose whether their preparation is in the right direction.

If, despite preparing a subject, a student is unable to solve PYQs, it indicates that they need to prepare in a different way so that they become capable of cracking them.

Manas: What daily routine or habits can significantly improve comprehension speed and accuracy, given the rising difficulty of RC passages in CSAT?

Mansoor Agha Siddiqui: Students can improve their vocabulary, grammar, and reading ability to build a strong foundation for Comprehension. They need to read more and read more widely across different subjects. They also require technical knowledge of Comprehension to identify the 45 different types of Comprehension questions and the specific strategy required to solve each type. Broadly, this includes identifying and applying strategies for the seven types of Specific questions, 19 types of General questions, and 19 types of Perception questions.

Moreover, students must learn critical reasoning and argumentation skills, which are essential for handling Comprehension Perception questions based on critical reasoning.

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