There is a need to address the issue of increased difficulty in UPSC civil services exam. Many students have found it difficult to tackle the new line of questioning which UPSC has taken in last couple of years. First, let us look at its reasons and implications:

• Weed out non-serious candidates: It needs to be understood that a difficult question paper is an advantage for serious candidates. It helps in weeding out non-serious candidates who have not prepared vigorously for the examination. In contrast, in an easy paper, the margin of error for a serious aspirant is very less as some of the non-serious candidates might also clear the cut-off with Fluke or elimination techniques.
• Discourage rote learning: The focus of UPSC has been on recruiting candidates who have a better grasp over concepts and are not dependent on rote learning methods. The new pattern of questioning is also a step in the same direction.
• Focus on communication and numeracy: With the increase in the difficulty of CSAT paper, it seems UPSC wants to recruit students who have a command over language and logic. Although, this may lead to increased difficulties for Hindi medium students.
• Discourage coaching culture: To protect the students living in remote areas, as well as, the students from humble backgrounds, UPSC has taken innovative approaches in setting the question paper of civil services examination. The new pattern of questioning is expected to decrease the importance of coaching-based notes, and instead, the students may need to rely on self-study.

---

Preparation Strategy

Following modifications may help in the preparation as per the changing demands of the question paper:

• In-depth reading and Conceptual clarity: To clear the UPSC examination, the student must first zero in on a strategy on the basis of interviews of previous toppers. However, once the required system is in place, the student must stick to it and refine it in due course of preparation. Despite the changes in the allocation of questions to different subjects each year, the student must be thorough in preparation and should not leave anything to chance. Every subject is important and any laxity in preparation has the potential to kick the candidate out of the final pdf.
• Current Affairs: For current affairs preparation, especially for the UPSC examination, it is not just enough to consume the ready-made material available in the market. Rather, the student must go through the newspaper, make her/his own notes and should keep updating them regularly.
• Not all questions are to be answered: Many times, it has been found that the students lose their precious time trying to find unnecessary facts and reading extra books during their preparation. Instead, it is advised that the students focus on strengthening their fundamentals and multiple revisions. During the examination, If you do not know the answer, skipping the question is better than trying to mark a blind Fluke.
• Focus on your Strengths: The most important piece of advice for any UPSC aspirant is to not panic in the exam situation. The paper is the same for everyone, therefore, if it is tough, you must decrease your number of attempts accordingly. The goal in the examination hall is not to find the right answer to an out of syllabus question, but to not give a wrong answer to an easy or average question.
• Study with the help of maps, tables and diagrams: in geography-based questions, there is a need to study with the help of maps and Atlas. For example, it is not just enough to remember the tributaries and distributaries of different rivers, you must also draw them on the map so that when the question comes, even an approximate idea can help in solving the question paper.
  • Similarly, there was a question regarding Congo Basin, which would have been answered if the aspirant had carefully studied the Atlas.
• Interdisciplinary studies: Some questions required the students to have knowledge of different categories of questions. For example, an approximate knowledge of the locations of lakes as well as rivers would have been enough to solve some questions. In the future also, UPSC is expected to combine facts from related subjects like geography and environment, or geography and international relations to frame a question.
• Factual retention: Many questions in this year’s paper required the students to apply their memory. For example, the question on mineral resources (Ilmenite and Rutile) required knowledge about metals and their ores. For such questions, it can be a good strategy to make a reference table and look at it multiple times during the course of preparation.
  • The new pattern of questions has increased the importance of questions based on history, as they seem to be more factual in nature than questions from other subjects. However, UPSC may be expected to counter this trend also in the upcoming years.
• All of you are in the same boat: It needs to be understood that whatever changes are occurring in the question paper, they will affect all of the students in the same way. Therefore, it does not matter whether the question paper is difficult or not. The list of successful candidates remains the same, only the thing which changes is the cut-off.