CSAT is the qualifying General Studies Paper II of the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination. Under the 2026 scheme, you need at least 66 of 200 marks, must attend both Preliminary papers and lose one-third of a question’s marks for a wrong answer. The examples below show how to practise reasoning, comprehension and numeracy, with a separate calendar check for the next cycle.
What the CSAT paper is and how it is scored
Paper II is a two-hour, 200-mark objective paper in which you need 66 of 200 marks to qualify, with negative marking for wrong answers.
General Studies Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination is the paper most candidates call the CSAT. It is one of two compulsory objective papers, each carrying 200 marks and lasting two hours, and the question papers are set in both Hindi and English.
Scoring is straightforward once you see the design. The paper is a filter, not a merit score: you need at least 33 per cent, which works out to 66 of the 200 marks, and Preliminary marks are not added to your final ranking. Your real competition is the cut-off in General Studies Paper-I, which the Commission fixes each year.
Marking has three rules worth memorising. A wrong answer costs one-third of the marks assigned to that question. Marking more than one option counts as wrong even if one of them is correct, with the same penalty. A blank answer draws no penalty at all.
Attendance is compulsory in both papers. A candidate who does not appear in both papers of the Preliminary Examination is disqualified from that examination.
- Comprehension
- Interpersonal and communication skills
- Logical reasoning and analytical ability
- Decision making and problem solving
- General mental ability
- Basic numeracy and data interpretation, including data sufficiency, at Class X level
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
Eligibility, attempts and fee
The 2026 notice required a graduate degree or equivalent, ordinarily at least 21 and under 32 on 1 August 2026, and six attempts before applicable relaxations. Preliminary fees were Rs 100 with specified exemptions. Check the next notice for that cycle’s conditions.
The published 2026 conditions give you the shape of the requirements. A candidate needed a graduate degree or an equivalent qualification, and had to be at least 21 and under 32 years old as on 1 August 2026, with age relaxations for scheduled castes and tribes, other backward classes, ex-servicemen and persons with benchmark disabilities. The 2027 notice, expected in January 2027, will set that year's own limits, so check it before judging your own eligibility.
On cost, the 2026 notice charged Rs 100 for the Preliminary Examination, with women, SC, ST and persons with benchmark disabilities exempt, and a further Rs 200 for candidates admitted to the Main Examination. Treat these as 2026 figures until the 2027 notice states its own.
Attempts matter more than most candidates expect. Six attempts are permitted ordinarily, with relaxations by category. Appearing in any one Preliminary paper is deemed an attempt at the examination, and that holds even if your candidature is later cancelled — so enter the examination only when you intend to sit it.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
Dates for the 2027 cycle
The 2027 calendar plans notification on 13 January, applications closing on 2 February and the Preliminary Examination on 23 May. These dates are subject to change.
The 2026 Preliminary Examination was held on 24 May 2026 and its question papers are downloadable from the examination page. For the next cycle, UPSC's annual calendar lists the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination 2027 notification for 13 January 2027, applications closing on 2 February 2027, and a one-day examination on 23 May 2027. Registration had not opened as of mid-September 2026.
The calendar carries an explicit warning that these dates can change if circumstances require, so treat them as a planning guide and confirm on upsc.gov.in when the notification appears.
Official sources: UPSC Annual Calendar 2027, published 20 May 2026 — Row 9, Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination 2027; Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2026 | UPSC — Examination dates and released question papers
Data sufficiency: decide uniqueness before you solve
Check whether the available information fixes the answer asked for. Read that question’s option scheme, test each statement alone, and then test them together if necessary.
For a numerical question, sufficient information fixes one value. For a yes-or-no question, it can instead fix a definite yes or a definite no even if several numerical values remain possible. Do not assume that every paper uses the same answer-option order.
When Statement I is sufficient, you still need to test Statement II independently if the options distinguish “I alone” from “either alone.” Keep the statements separate during these checks; silently carrying information from one into the other is a common practice error. The original exercise below asks for the number itself.
Worked example
What is the two-digit number N? Statement I: the digits of N sum to 9. Statement II: N is divisible by 4. Are the data sufficient to find N?
Show answer
No. Neither statement alone fixes N, and the two statements together still leave two possible values, so the data are insufficient.
Statement I alone allows 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81 and 90. Statement II alone allows 12, 16, 20 and many others. Combining them: of the digit-sum-9 numbers, 36 and 72 are both divisible by 4, so two candidates remain. Enumerating the candidates settles the question in seconds and prevents the tempting error of combining the clues into one equation, landing on a single plausible number, and marking 'sufficient'.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
Inference, assumption and conclusion behave differently
Read the stem before comparing options: it may ask what must follow, what the author concludes, or what an argument needs but has not stated.
Use the wording of the particular task. A “must follow” option needs support from the supplied statements; a main-point question asks for the author’s central claim. A necessary-assumption question asks about unstated support the argument depends on. Negating an option can help test a necessary assumption, but it is not a rule for every assumption or inference task.
Consider this original example: every officer in a wing attended a briefing, and some briefing attendees signed a circular. It does not follow that some officers signed: all the signers could be non-officers. Constructing that possible counterexample shows why the conclusion is not guaranteed by the premises. An option’s wording and support decide the answer, not its label alone.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
Reading comprehension: match the strength of each option
Match the option to the passage and the task. Check both the people, place or period covered and the strength of the claim.
Words such as all, only and always require appropriate support. A cautious-sounding option is not automatically correct either: it can introduce a different subject or fail to answer the question. Locate the supporting sentence, then check whether the option changes its meaning.
Original illustration: a passage states only that a reform occurred and urban emissions fell the following year. Those facts establish a sequence; by themselves they do not establish that the reform caused the fall. An option claiming causation adds a relationship the passage has not supplied.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
Arithmetic: choose the representation first
State the quantities and assumptions before calculating. A rate table or percentage multiplier can make a problem easier to check.
For constant, independent work rates with no interference, express each rate as a fraction of one job per day. Add rates only for time spent working simultaneously; alternating workers require a timeline. For a percentage change p on a specified base, the new value is base × (1+p/100); a later change uses its own stated base.
Original exercise: A completes one job in 12 working days and B in 18, each at a constant rate. They work alone on alternate full days, starting with A; the work transfers without loss and a partial final day is allowed. Each two-day cycle completes 1/12 + 1/18 = 5/36 of the job. Seven cycles use 14 days and complete 35/36. A needs (1/36)/(1/12) = 1/3 day for the remainder, so completion takes 14⅓ working days. Averaging 12 and 18 ignores the alternating schedule.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
Counting: order, constraints and the complement
Decide whether order matters, define the allowed outcomes and count each exactly once. Comparing with the excluded outcomes can provide a useful check.
Permutations count ordered arrangements; combinations count selections, so a committee and a queue are different objects even with the same people. Overlapping cases are the classic double-count hazard: if two of your cases can describe the same outcome, the total is inflated. Two habits follow reliably. First, handle the most restrictive condition before anything else. Second, when a condition says 'at least', consider the complement: total outcomes minus the forbidden ones is often a two-line calculation instead of a three-case split.
Worked example
A committee of four is to be formed from five men and four women. How many committees contain at least two women?
Show answer
81.
Split into non-overlapping cases. Exactly two women: C(4,2) × C(5,2) = 6 × 10 = 60. Exactly three women: C(4,3) × C(5,1) = 4 × 5 = 20. Exactly four women: C(4,4) = 1. Total = 60 + 20 + 1 = 81. The complement confirms it: C(9,4) = 126 committees in all, minus 5 all-male committees, minus C(4,1) × C(5,3) = 40 one-woman committees, leaving 126 − 45 = 81. Two independent routes landing on 81 is your confirmation. The tempting shortcut — computing only the two-women case and stopping — gives 60 and quietly ignores committees with three or four women.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
Data interpretation: name the denominator first
Before calculating a ratio, identify the total or earlier value it is measured against, and keep the units consistent.
For a share, use the specified total; it is not necessarily the whole table. For growth, divide the change by the stated starting value. A percentage-point difference subtracts two percentages, while a percentage change divides their difference by the starting percentage. Read row labels and footnotes before choosing the denominator.
A scenario shows how the numbers stay the same while the claims differ. A table lists output of 40 in one year and 50 the next, in thousand tonnes. Writing the fraction first settles everything: 50/40 = 1.25 supports '125 per cent of the previous year', and subtracting the base gives the 25 per cent increase. A third option saying production 'increased by 125 per cent' quietly swaps the two framings — same numbers, different claims.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
Decision making and interpersonal skills items
The syllabus includes decision making, problem solving and interpersonal skills. Practise identifying the stated objective, constraints and information before comparing actions.
The syllabus establishes these areas, but the retrieved notice does not supply a universal answer-selection formula or their question allocation. The following drill is optional preparation advice.
For a practice scenario, write down the decision-maker’s stated role, the problem to solve and any constraints. Compare what each action would do under those facts. Distinguish a justified request for missing information from an option that simply invents facts; do not apply an “always escalate” or “never escalate” shortcut.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
A practice routine that fits the paper
Build accuracy first with one question family at a time, then move to timed mixed sets, and log every error by its cause rather than by topic.
A realistic, adaptable sequence runs in two phases. First, untimed drills on one family at a time — sufficiency one day, counting the next — where the goal is stating the checkpoint, not piling up answers. Second, timed mini-sets that mix families, so classifying each item has to happen under pressure. After each set, sort your errors by cause: misread stem, wrong denominator, missed constraint, over-strong option. The categories tell you which checkpoint to drill next; no routine can promise a particular score.
Calculators are not permitted for objective-type papers, so all Preliminary arithmetic is done by hand — practise accordingly, and keep every computation small enough to finish mentally or on paper quickly. You can start with the free CSAT practice questions on this site, then graduate to full two-hour timed sets.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus)
Final checklist before the 2027 notification
Use the notification window in January 2027 to confirm the rules, and use the months before it to build the checkpoints this guide has taught.
When the 2027 notice is published, confirm the items below against it rather than relying on memory of any earlier cycle. Between now and then, the highest-value work is deliberate practice on the question families themselves.
- When published, confirm the 2027 notice and any changes to eligibility, fees or calendar dates.
- Plan to appear in both Preliminary papers; remember that appearing in either one counts as an attempt.
- In the paper, prefer a blank to a multi-marked answer: blanks draw no penalty, multiple markings are treated as wrong.
- Practise independent statement checks, passage-supported reasoning, non-overlapping counting and correctly chosen denominators.
- Sit at least one full two-hour mock without a calculator, and log every error by cause.
- Browse the study guides for the rest of the Preliminary and Main papers once Paper II practice is steady.
Official sources: UPSC Civil Services Examination 2026 notice: eligibility, fees, scheme and syllabuses — Appendix I, Section II–III (Preliminary scheme, Paper II syllabus); UPSC Annual Calendar 2027, published 20 May 2026 — Row 9, Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination 2027
Official sources
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