In the Union Public Service Commission Civil Services Examination (UPSC CSE), there are two language papers which are undoubtedly crucial components of the exam.
The Compulsory Language Paper evaluates applicants' language skills, and to qualify it, aspirants must obtain a score of 25 percent, or 75 or more points out of 300.
An IRS and IFS officer provide some helpful tips and insights on how to prepare for UPSC CSE qualifying exams, based on their experiences.
Debotosh Chatterjee, 2016-batch IRS officer, explained the marks distribution in the paper as follows:Essay - 100Grammar - 40Comprehension - 60Translation - 40récis Writing - 60
“Download question papers of at least the last five years. The pattern is more or less the same. You can easily identify the areas which you have to target in order to score the qualifying marks,” he wrote on Quora.
He also suggested referring to the Class 10 book of that particular language for grammar. “Write an essay in simple language. Practice 4 or 5 essays in the 2 weeks before the exam,” he added.
“Comprehension is the easiest and most scoring part of the paper. There are 5 throwaway questions, each worth 12 marks and to be written in 100 words only. Answer them after reading the passage,” he said.
Debotosh opined that précis writing is also quite manageable. “Compress the passage into a summary of 1/3rd the original length. Understand the passage and summarise it in your own words,” he added.
Translation has two components — Language to English (20 marks) and English to Language (20 marks).
“First is doable, but second often turns out to be very difficult. However, if you have done the other questions well enough, you are already way past the red line of 75 marks,” he said.
IFS officer Anupam Sharma says that the order to attempt questions during the exam should be — grammar, passage, Hindi to English, précis, essay, and English to Hindi.
“Allot 40 minutes for essay, 30 minutes for passage, 40 minutes for précis, 50 minutes for both translations, and 30 minutes for grammar,” shares Anupam, who secured AIR 2 in the 2017-18 IFS exam.
“Out of all the sections, the translation from English to Hindi is the most time-consuming and one needs to take extra care here. Thus, attempt this part towards the end,” he adds.