ForumIAS announcing GS Foundation Program for UPSC CSE 2025-26 from 19 April. Click Here for more information.
ForumIAS Answer Writing Focus Group (AWFG) for Mains 2024 commencing from 24th June 2024. The Entrance Test for the program will be held on 28th April 2024 at 9 AM. To know more about the program visit: https://forumias.com/blog/awfg2024
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 |
To download previous year’s Prelims Question Papers – Click Here
