UPSC CSE Prelims 2023 was conducted on 28 May, 2023 to select the best possible talent for the Indian bureaucracy.
No of Vacancies: 1105 (approx)
Overall, the GS 1 was more difficult than last year. So the cut off is expected to go down a little. Cut off was 88.22 last year.
This year it is expected to be in the range of 82-85.
UPSC has surprised by ensuring the oft cited ‘elimination method’ used by candidates to arrive at an answer is not suitable.
Here is the general subject wise trend:
POLITY
15 Questions covering topics such as presidential elections, Money Bill, Due process of law, emergency provisions.
Difficulty level: Moderate.
Few purely factual questions were asked which may appear difficult to answer.
HISTORY
1. No of questions asked: 16
2. Difficulty level: Easy to Moderate
3. Key focus areas: Heterodox Religions, Awards, Literature, constitutional history timelines and chronology.
4. Current Affairs or static dominated or a mix: Static oriented with 2 questions on current affairs and 2 which are a mix
5. Comparison with last year question paper: The history questions were comparatively easier this time. One difficult question from Ancient Modern Art and Culture. Medieval was easy and art and culture generally remained the moderately difficult area. Modern India except for one question all easy.
5 questions on (sports/govt schemes/reports)
2. Difficulty level: Moderate
3. Key focus areas: Health related govt initiatives
4. Current Affairs dominated
5. Comparison with last year question paper: On similar lines wrt govt schemes, sports questions are in line with 2021 paper
ECONOMICS
1. No of the questions asked - 14
2. Difficulty level - difficult
3. Key focus areas - banking, financial market, agriculture
4. Current Affairs or static dominated or a mix - CA dominated
5. Comparison with last year's question paper - more difficult compared to last year
ENVIRONMENT & ECOLOGY
1 No of questions - 16
2 Difficulty level - Moderate to Difficult.
3 Key focus areas - Species details, concepts, More on biodiversity.
4 Current affairs or static dominated or a mix - Current affairs of last two years, more fact based.
5 Comparison with last year's paper - questions seemed to be easy, but facts asked made it a bit more difficult than last year.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
A total of 12 questions have been asked from Science and Technology this year. The question paper is of moderate difficulty level with a mix of static and current affairs questions.
The major areas have their fair share as usual - 2 questions from Space Technology, 3 from Energy, and 2 from Biotechnology. This makes 7 out of 12 questions asked. Questions from General Science are absent yet again, as has been the trend in the recent few papers.
Compared to the last two papers, this is the easier paper as the options given in some of the questions could help the candidate to get to the answer. Yet, not an easy paper as some of the questions are from unusual areas.
GEOGRAPHY
1. No of the questions asked - 16
2. Difficulty level - moderate
3. Key focus areas - physical geography
4. Current Affairs or static dominated or a mix - static dominated and few concepts from CA
5. Comparison with last year's question paper - easier compared to last year
This analysis is attributed to Sarmad Mehraj, Teacher and VP, Product (UPSC) at BYJU’S