IMPORTANCE OF CSAT

Importance of CSAT

In the UPSC Prelims exam, the first paper that is checked is the CSAT or GS Paper 2.

If a student does not qualify the CSAT, that student’s GS Paper 1 is not even checked, and then the student does not get the chance to attempt the UPSC Main exam.

Failing in the CSAT wastes all the hard-work done for Prelims GS Paper 1 and UPSC Main exam

CSAT is singularly responsible for rejecting 70% of the serious students. In UPSC 2025 Prelims result declared in June 2025, 11,94,700 students out of 13,40,000 who gave the Prelims exam were rejected by the CSAT and only 1,45,300 students qualified the CSAT. All these 11,94,700 students, who could not qualify the CSAT, their hard work done on GS paper 2 and Main exam was wasted.

By the way, every year almost 40% of the students who register for the UPSC exam realise that they will not be able to qualify this first stage of the UPSC exam, so they do not even have the guts to go to the examination hall.

CSAT preparation is very different from the knowledge-application-perception-expression preparation done for General Studies of UPSC Prelims and Main exams. A lot of UPSC aspirants, who treat CSAT as a Mathematics and English exam are shocked by failing in the CSAT exam. Do not be one of them. Ensure that you do the right preparation needed for CSAT, so that the rest of your hard work in GS helps you to succeed.

CSAT stand for Civil Services Aptitude Test. All aptitude tests are modified intelligence or IQ tests. As an aptitude test, CSAT tests your intelligence through questions that are framed in the language of Mathematics and English. But it is not an exam of Mathematics and English language.

All questions are based on Reasoning and Intelligence questions. The questions are not straightforward, rather they use tricky confusing language to encourage you to make mistakes. A foundation of Mathematics and English language is definitely needed but it is not enough.

CSAT is a psychometric exam, so any preparatory course where people coming from a Mathematics or an English background teach you is not good for you. It is a matter of common sense – Will you ever make the mistake of studying Indian Economy from a teacher of Chemistry ? At IvyLeague Career Services, psychometricians with 30 years of teaching experience will teach you. They will develop your foundation of Mathematics and English, then teach you Reasoning based on it, follow it up with Hallmarks of Intelligence, and finally polish you on Test Dynamics and Test Taking Techniques.

Your teacher for the CSAT Foundation Course 2025, Dr. Mansoor Agha, joined Raus IAS Study Circle as Academic Head in 2010, when UPSC had first announced the introduction of CSAT exam. Dr. Mansoor Agha designed the CSAT Foundation Course at Raus and has taught it for the last 16 years. In these 16 successful years of the CSAT Foundation Course, he and his academic team have constantly improved it according to the feedback given by the students, the challenges faced, and how students benefited from it.

Dr. Mansoor Agha is a psychometrician, who completed his PhD in Learning Behavior of Young Adults in 1996 and has teaching experience of 30 years, helping students who prepare for aptitude tests such as CSAT-UPSC, IIM-CAT, GMAT, GRE, SAT, LSAT, CUET, CLAT, and IPMAT.

He helps UPSC aspirants with 5 courses in Live Online and Asynchronous Online formats :

UPSC CSAT / Prelims GS Paper 2 Foundation Course
UPSC Main Paper 1 Essay Paper Foundation Course
UPSC Main GS Questions - Answer Writing Foundation Course.
UPSC Main Paper B Compulsory English Paper Foundation Course
UPSC Main Exam - Optional Subject Foundation Course