u/Appropriate_Pop9248

A moment I think that I will clear prelims quite comfortably. The next hour I am freaking about a topic that is uncovered. Then, I am worrying about CSAT. Sleep has gone for a toss and so has my diet. Eating anything and everything that comes my way due to the anxiety.

Sunday feels so so far. I am barely able to focus either

I no longer care about the result. Just want to be done with prelims and breathe easy

What they are calling mathematics is anything but mathematics. The paper is filled with questions that involves "tricks" and speed maths. How are you checking someone's "aptitude" by asking them a unit digit of some exponent. That is just a plain trick.

Similarly, for questions that involve permutations and combinations, surely you are not recruiting statisticians. The level of questions make it look like that

For reasoning, why do you expect somebody to know what day will be on which date in what year..How does that check your aptitude.

Imho, the paper should consist of basic arithmetic and reasoning if they really want to check the "aptitude" of a candidate. Otherwise it is just plain mockery. Imagine someone clearing the forest cutoff and losing out by a few marks due to CSAT. The joke is on you UPSC.

Hopefully they make a rational paper for CSAT this time around

PIB, RBI circulars, coaching compilation, budget and economic survey, schemes, reports,static gk. To add to it, mock tests.All of it is just scary. And no matter even if you cover everything, some questions will pop out of nowhere.

How are you guys managing?

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Will turn 27 soon. Have already given 4 attempts at it. 2023 was my best chance. Cleared the overall phase 1 cutoff by 10 marks but missed the reasoning cutoff by 2 marks.

The number of attempts left, my age, the number of vacancies all seem to be against me 🫣. Quants and reasoning have always messed up things for me and their cutoff might even be higher this year.

Genuine suggestions are welcomed

By god's grace , I am pretty good at GA and English, but equally terrible in reasoning and quant. In 2023, I was around 10-12 marks above the overall cutoff, but around 2 marks short of the reasoning cutoff.

Now some sources are saying that the sectional cutoff might be 35 percent. That is above 10 in quant and above 20 in reasoning . While I still have the confidence of clearing the overall cutoff, the sectional cutoffs scare me.

I am afraid of putting in so much effort and then getting rejected because I selected the wrong questions to solve in reasoning and quant.

Anyone else in a similar boat?