The Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT / Paper 2) was introduced by UPSC in 2011 to evaluate logical thinking, numerical ability, decision making, and reading comprehension. With increasing difficulty in recent years, mastering previous year questions (PYQs) is crucial for securing the qualifying threshold of 33% (66 marks).
Candidates must score at least 33% marks (66 marks out of 200) in CSAT Paper 2. While CSAT marks do not determine your rank or merit list, failure to score 66 marks results in immediate disqualification, regardless of your GS Paper 1 score.
Focus on understanding tone, assumptions, and inferences. Rather than reading external passages, practice UPSC's authentic comprehension questions from 2011–2026 on Examnetwork to align with UPSC's official answer key logic.
Attempting 45–55 questions with 80%+ accuracy is considered a safe target to comfortably cross the 66-mark barrier while avoiding excessive negative penalties.