For those students who have not written Prelims before, a good approach to begin your CSAT preparation would be through the following steps:-
STEP 1:- Go through the past 3 years question papers.
This should be the first step towards preparing for CSAT. Download the CSAT test papers from the UPSC website, and try solving them. Official Answer key to the CSAT exams of 2011 & 2012 & 2013 can be found by carefully searching over the Internet & or ForumIAS.com website. Students must try to solve at least the last year question paper and check their answer with standard keys available. Through this they should be able to identify:-
- The nature of the examination
- The demand and level of difficulty of the question paper
- Their own weaknesses and strengths
STEP 2:- Decide what books to read for CSAT
Students who have not appeared for CAT or other management examinations that have some similarity to CSAT paper of UPSC, must zero in on some books. We recommend Arihant’s Cracking the CSAT OR Arun Sharma’s book on Quant. While studying quant, the students must focus on the below topics in the below order of importance :-
- Averages
- Percentages
- Profit & Loss
- Time, Speed & Distance
- Time & Work
- Interest
- Ratio & Proportion
- Alligation
- Number System
Solving even the solved examples given in the books above can help you rebuild your base over these topics.
STEP 3:- PRACTICE
Here, first students need to select the topics above and do solved questions on the above topics from the books mentioned above. The level of Arun Sharma’s book may be a little tough for CSAT level, but students can try to do the solved problems ONLY. For practice, students may try to solve LOD (Level of Difficulty )-1 problems, but need not go beyond that.
They may then proceed to downloading past 10-15 years question papers of General Studies and try solving the General Mental Ability questions of the GS paper, prior to the year 2011.
For Reading Comprehension & all other topics, students must practice as many questions as possible. This is the single biggest requirement of the CSAT paper. Please remember that CSAT cannot be taught. It has to be developed by practice over a period of time. Hence begin your CSAT preparation as early as possible.
Students who are poor in English need not worry too much. With enough practice one can overcome any barrier, just like someone who is weak at geography or history can make it a strong point for himself by studying hard.
Students must follow the Hindu regularly. Editorials must be followed and after reading, few minutes can be devoted to pondering over what the essence of the article is. This will help develop Reading Comprehension. This will also help solve the questions based on TOEL (Test of English Language – now removed)
Students must try and solve as many question papers as they can from various sources within the given time limit. Working hard for CSAT for 10-15 days can ensure a good level of comfort with CSAT questions, and then just practising questions can help build from there onwards.
