Things No one Told You about Negative Marking in UPSC AND How to Avoid Them

Negative Marking in UPSC

Civil Services Preliminary Exam is really challenging and needs thorough preparation, practice and proper guidance. In preliminary exam, the question booklet provided is of many pages and consist 100 questions. GS (General Studies) paper- 1 takes 80 marks and CSAT (Civil Services Aptitude Test) paper-2 takes 20 marks. All the questions in paper 1 and 2 are of objective types with options to choose the answer from. Each paper is allotted 2 hours and 1/3rd negative marking on for each wrong answer. Time is very limited here as one has to read the whole question booklet, which is of 20-25 pages, to mark the correct answers. One should not invest much time in reading the question as time is limited and will be divided per question.

Each question carries 2 marks, one-third of the marks will deducted as penalty. Marking 2 options for one question will also be considered as wrong and negative marking will also be applied. Unanswered question will not attract negative marking.

The article is solely aimed at giving the candidates a clear picture before writing in the examination. Please don’t be discouraged or scared by the facts listed. Following points are worth following to avoid negative marking in the examination.

Civil Services Preliminary exam is a few months away as it has been scheduled on June 2nd, 2019. So it is needless to say that each passing day is very important for aspirants who are aiming for the UPSC prelims.

Read through the article to find out important tips to steer clear of negative marking and effectively using time to answer more question easily.

The first and foremost thing to do is to get a clear idea about the patterns of examination, question and probable questions. Before sitting for the prelims, make sure you cover the entire syllabus, previous year question papers, better understanding about the exam patters and appear for mock tests.  Living under and experiencing the pressure of exam beforehand is going to help you very much for the actual examination. Many IAS coaching centers in Bhubaneswar can offer you very similar tests for UPSC prelims.     

Reading the questions carefully
Aspirants need to very careful while reading the questions, which will give ideas about the knowledge they have related to topics and chances of answering the all the questions correctly. The question you are very sure about, note them in your mind or you mark them subtly with a pencil.

Start with the easiest question
As followed by many aspirants, start solving the questions you are 100 percent sure about. Try not be panicked by just seeing the question booklet and don’t ever try to solve the question randomly or numerically.

Put your mind to work
Which means, once you answer all the question you were 100 percent sure about, now turn to those questions, which might need your guess work. The catch is- read the question thoroughly- try linking it to topics – eliminate two wrong choices. Now that might seem easy, but it isn’t. Now you have 2 options left, mark them subtly with pencil and quickly think about more related topics, so that you can eliminate one of them and tick on the final answer. Do the same with rest and leave the toughest questions for last, so that you can invest more time on them. Do remember that wild guess is not appropriate here; you need to follow the method of calculated risk.These things you can learn better at some of the top IAS coaching centers in Bhubaneswar

Attempting each question is a strict NO
Came a across some questions that you have no idea about, stop, don’t even touch them. WHY? Because, 1/3rd negative marking for every wrong answer, your whole effort will puff for negative marking. So just leave them, yes you heard that right. There’s no negative marking for leaving the questions. Sure shot questions are way more worthy than those unanswered questions. 

Last Thought
All done you think? Well, have a look at your watch, if there’s still time left then go through the booklet again to check if any question is unanswered accidentally. Have a look again at those tough questions, as said before: put that head of yours to work to see if something positive comes out of it. Do remember that wild guess is not appropriate here; you need to follow the method of calculated risk.

Aforementioned points may seem of little importance, but remember aspirants; they are of utmost importance while appearing for the exam. So keep them in mind and we will come up with something more useful and exiting with our next post.

As followed by many aspirants, start solving the questions you are 100 percent sure about. Try not be panicked by just see the question booklet and don’t ever try to solve the question randomly or numerically. Do remember that the tips and tricks for avoiding negative marking can be learned from experts at best IAS Coaching Institute in Bhubaneswar.

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