UPSC CSE Prelims 2021 GS Paper 1 Subject-wise Weightage |ForumIAS

UPSC Prelims 2021 GS Paper 1 Question paper is out. We have observed the following general trends regarding this year’s question paper:

UPSC has not followed previous year’s trends i.e. hard and analytical questions. This year’s questions were more basic and applied in nature, similar to UPSC trends in 2010-16.
Some of the sections that have been completely ignored, in the previous years by UPSC, have reappeared this year. i.e. Sports and awards.
The weightage of ancient & medieval history has been increased.
Overall, UPSC has maintained its reputation of being unpredictable. The nature of the question paper is very different from the expectations of aspirants, preparing specifically for UPSC CSE Exam.

UPSC CSE Prelims 2021 Question Paper – GS Paper 1

UPSC CSE Prelims 2021 GS Paper 1 Subject-wise Weightage

Subjects	Science and Tech	Polity	Sports and awards	Economy	Environment	Art and culture	History	Geography
No. of Questions	12	20	4	14	17	5	15	13

UPSC CSE Prelims 2021 GS Paper 1 Subject-wise Weightage with comparison to PYQs:

There is not much difference in terms of the overall weightage of the subjects in the question paper. However, there can be variations in terms of sub-topics within the subjects, for example in history more weightage has been given to ancient and medieval history compared to modern history. Following is the year-wise comparison of this year’s question paper:

Subjects	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Economics	10	13	18	16	18	14	15	14
Polity	14	13	7	22	13	15	17	20
Environment	18	11	18	15	13	11	10	17
History	20	17	15	14	22	17	20	20
Geography	14	16	7	9	10	14	10	13
S&T	16	8	8	9	10	7	10	12