It’s always easy to contemplate the nature of paper at home thus preliminary exam of this year might seem not very different from the rest of the years. But, though there were similarities paper this year was trickier and standard a notch higher. Also spread of the questions across the sections was more even. Moreover, there were not many repetitive questions unlike previous years which only adds to the difficulty of the paper as mere rote learning of previous year questions might not be sufficient. For a change, there are not many silly mistakes in the paper and not many questions would be contentious. So there won’t be many questions removed from merit consideration. All in all, UPPPSC has raised the bar.
Coming to sections wise analysis, Current affairs with more than 33 questions remains the flagbearer. There were many questions pertaining date therefore making them tad difficult to remember and make educated guess.
Next comes geography and environment. I consider environment as part of geography and together they had least 34 questions (including 15 from environment). Not far behind with 23 questions is general science where number of repetitive questions were less than that of past year papers which raises the standard of the section requiring comprehensive coverage of general science from NCERTs and knowledge of daily applied science.
Polity and Governance had 19 questions to its kitty and this is the section which can be considered trickiest. Standard of polity Qs were good. Though those who have thoroughly revised will not find it that difficult but guesses based on faint memory has greater chance of getting answer wrong. For instance, casual reader will stumble upon question like that of model code of conduct and question asking the concept of “A union of states in the Indian constitution has been derived from”. Also questions like that of Rajya Sabha seat allocation tests presence of mind and not mere rote-learning. In this Que, many would not remember state wise distribution but common-sense dictates that less the population less would be the seats allocated and once you figure out that Kerala is the one with lowest population among the options it becomes all easy. Also, Options in many questions were diverse and lengthy requiring detailed study of reference books.
In History section, there were no surprises with around 11, 7 and 4 questions were from Modern, Ancient and Medieval history respectively, albeit level of Ancient history question was higher than that of last year.
Economics surprised with only 6 questions. Many questions considered that of economics belong to current affairs section requiring careful reading and revision of the same.
Rest of the sections had few questions with Uttar Pradesh GK, Population and Urbanization together having around 10 questions.
At last It can be safely inferred that the level of paper was better than what we are used to thus it won’t be surprising if cut-off for general category comes down lying in the range of 100 questions plus minus 5 questions. Those in this range and even bit below should not waste time and get on with mains preparation because it’s evident that Ayog has raised the bar requiring more effort from aspirants in mains stage also.
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