Story Brunch
This year’s UPSC Prelims 2023 Paper 1 has just concluded and we wish all the aspirants good luck for their performance. We tried to get a grasp of the difficulty level of the GS-1 Prelims question paper by talking to coaching industry experts and a few aspirants and we found it to be a mixed bag of some very tough, medium and easy-level questions. Preparation from basic books such as NCERT, Laxmikanth Polity, Spectrum Modern History, Environment Books, CCRT Culture resources and a good grasp of current affairs will help aspirants sail through in this exam.
The exam pattern may be new to fresher aspirants,specially those appearing since 2020-21 era but the aspirants from an era before that would have realised that UPSC has returned to it’s traditional mode of selection of questions. The paper has tried to cover all sections in the same proportion as it used to do 5-6 years ago. Focus in history questions has always been on Buddhism and Jainism philosophy and we found questions from the topic this year too. Vijayanagar empire has been a favorite topic for prelims exam for a long time now and there was a question again. Questions from Environment were on similar track as they used to be till 2017-18. Polity questions were easily doable from Laxmikanth polity book.
The question paper this year was more factual compared to previous years and will be helpful to students who have gone through preparation phase more than once.
Some of the topics from which questions came today and can be categorized as ‘Easy’ are :
- Vijayanagar empire Tungabhadra river dam question
- Governor General of India
- Constitutional Bodies
- 2 questions on President
- Finance Bill and Money bill question
- Community reserves
- Schedules Areas- another favorite topic of UPSC which appears time to time in Prelims exam.
- Uranium/Coal power plants
- Marsupials
- Lion-tailed Macaque/Malabar Civet/Sambhar Deer
- Mushrooms
- Microorganisms
- Hydrofluorocarbons
- Lakes on rivers Jhelum, Krishna
- Ports
- Deciduous trees
- India China arable/irrigated area comparison
- Congo basin
- Amarkantak Hills
- Question on Highways
- Carbon Markets
- RBI- Sterilisation term
- Niger seed- Minimum Support Price
- Intangible Investments- needed application of logic then and there itself.
- 15th Finance Commission
- Conflict Zones- 2 questions- both were in news in recent times.
- Abraham Accords
- Green Hydrogen – 2 questions- UPSC always asks questions from renewable sources in news.
- G-20- from current affairs- a very much expected topic
- Land border with Ukraine- Map of Ukraine was important due to ongoing war- Conflict zones are favorite topics of UPSC
- Tropical Rainforest Soil- a question repeated from previous years,it was asked more than a decade back with slight change.
- Solar isolation and infrared waves- traditional UPSC question from NCERTs
- Seismograph,S waves,P waves- typical NCERT geography question
- Carbon capture- related questions have come many times in the past.
- Coal based power plants
- Wolbachia- from NCERT
- Janani Suraksha Yojana- has been asked in the previous prelims
- Carbon fibres- expected topic for last few years- UPSC asks questions related to new materials based on carbon, just like Graphene has been asked multiple times in the past.
- Ballistic missiles and Agni IV- typical questions from Defence
- Mercury pollution- often repeated topic in Prelims
Questions on endangered species and environment topics were in plenty similar to what it used to be 5-6 years back. A few questions from Polity were conceptual and not directly from books. They needed application of mind.
It can be easily said that about there were about 50 questions directly from standard UPSC preparation basic books and in which students could have scored easily with good preparation.
There were a few tough questions and many moderately tough questions. Elimination method was applicable in less questions compared to previous years which could have been a hurdle in guessing a few questions right.
As per the coaching experts the cut off will be higher compared to last year. UPSC has returned to conventional question paper setting after a hiatus of 2-3 years. Students who have focused on probable and important topics and basic books have higher chances of sailing through the Prelims exam.
