There are two papers in Civil Service Prelims Examination. The questions are objective in nature with the provision of negative marking. The two papers are:
General Studies Paper 1 [which deals with subjects like History, Polity, Economics etc.]
General Studies Paper 2 [which deals with subjects like Mental Ability, English Comprehension etc. This paper is popularly known as CSAT – Civil Services Aptitude Test).
This examination is meant to serve as a screening test only; the marks obtained will not be counted for determining their final order of merit.
Moreoever, the CSAT paper is of qualifying nature( with 33% score). That means, out of 80 questions, a candidate is required to answer just 27 questions correctly. It does not matter if you score 28 questions or 80 questions correctly. This change was implemented recently to ward off the fear of candidates from humanities stream.