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GS MAINS (2011) PAPER-1 ANALYSIS

BY
MRUNAL PATEL
CONTENTS
Topicwise Marks distribution..................................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Polity.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Polity: 12 markers...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Polity: 5 marker .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
History............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Yearbook stuff & Development administration .................................................................................................................................................. 7
20 marker (250 words) ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 7
12 marker 150 words ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
5 markers ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Geography cum Polity cum administratio n .......................................................................................................................................................... 9
5 markers ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Economy.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................10
Culture ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................10
Science and Tech related stuff 5 markers............................................................................................................................................................11
Person in news 2 markers .........................................................................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................12
A Tough paper? ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................12
Filler stuff and cock n bull stories ..........................................................................................................................................................................14
Tough paper = not lengthy paper = saves time ...............................................................................................................................................15
Dont ask me cut off marks ......................................................................................................................................................................................15
Prediction for Mains 2012 ........................................................................................................................................................................................16

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TOPICWISE MARKS DISTRIBUTION

It is absolutely necessary to compare 2011 with 2010. Here is markwise breakup.

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Topic
2010 2011
Polity
46
106
History
36
35
Yearbook stuff 73
106
Geography
114 46
Economy
33
17
Culture
24
20
Science & Tech 6
20
Person in news 16
14
This will not addup to exact 300 marks for each year, because there is write any 5
out of 6. So Ive added value of each and every question.

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You can frame interesting Data interpretation questions for Bank PO and Bschool exams from these charts.
Anyways here are some interesting observations from my side:
1. Polity and Geography have interchanged their importance!
2. History is consistently given medium importance.
3. Culture and people in news: Consistent in their low importance.
4. Yearbook stuff steady and noticeable increase
5. Economy shows decrease only because paper-II marks are not counted,
otherwise economy also runs in 106 league with Yearbook and polity. Same
way for Science and Tech, we are looking only at paper-Is data.
Now look at questions- topicwise
POLITY
Write any three, 250 words each. (20x3=60 marks)
1. Part IV-A is codification of Indian way of life
2. Executive clemency is not a privilege.
3. PoPNDT Act Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act Salient features and its
amendment in 2003
Lets see
1. Few years back, there was a trend in Essay papers: Atleast one topic related
to women empowerment or women issues but since last two years we
havent seen it in Essay, so I think theyve shifted it to GS papers. In 2009 ,
they asked about Domestic Violence prevention act. When it comes to
women empowerment, the general questions most would speculate are 1.
The reservation bill 2. The SHGs, but its Pre-natal Diag. test act. Theyve
asked to write 250 words about features and 2003 amendment, now thats
hard to do unless you actually know it. You might write philosophical or
statistical filler stuff related to sex ratio and contribution of women in Vedic

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age etc and but that doesnt translate much into marks. Question is about
what were provisions, what was the amendment, implications.
2. Executive clemency: current affairs hot issue given the Rajiv Gandhi
Assassins, Punjab ex-CMs killers, and Omar Abdullas tweets. If you couldnt
handle this question properly, youve must blame yourself.
3. I find the Nutrition transition in India -basically the Development
administration and yearbook stuff question. Not exactly a polity question
except the remote connections with DPSP.
4. All these years, the first question of the GS paper 1 used to be from History
portion but this time it started with Polity.
POLITY: 12 MARKERS
1. Green Benches in Higher judiciary. (both polity + current affairs)
No excuse. You were supposed to be well versed in this. This topic is making rounds
in Current affairs since last two years.
2. Difference between Departmental standing Committee and parliament
forums.
Any Public Administration candidate is supposed to remember Departmental
standing committees like the back of his hand. Besides this topic is hot due to 2G
scam.
3. Problems specific to denotified and nomadic tribes of India
I find this question more to polity than to geography (they had asked this in
geography section). But still No excuse for polity questions. This is one of those
rare questions directly from the book.. Page 149 of Wizards Indian polity (6 th
edition). That was only for information - Im not saying go and buy the book. If you
start buying books with that criteria, youll run out of money and cupboard space.
POLITY: 5 MARKER
1. Bihar special courts act
2. E-governance initiatives of UPSC. (lolz better late than never. How many of
us have lost sleep over whether my prelim form reached UPSC or not?)

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UPSC as a topic is a combo of administration (yearbook stuff) and polity. Im

keeping it in polity
Total: 60+36+10=106
HISTORY
Write any 1 in 250 words (20 marks)
1. RIN mutiny
2. 3 important womens organizations in 20th century in India.
UPSC asked unusual questions in History, again- (a tradition they started since
2009). RIN mutiny is something the people expect as 2 marker, not 20 marker!
History 5 markers 5x3=15
1. Benoy Badal Dinesh
2. Bharat Naujavan Sabha
3. Babbar Akali moment.
Instead of 2 marker, these are worth 5 marks and no options, all are compulsory.
The list of freedom fighter 2/5 markers is endless and luck dependent. You may
prepare all of them but yet you might not be able to recall them during the exam.
But still Bharat Naujvan Sabha can be handled in any case.
YEARBOOK STUFF & DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION
20 MARKER (250 WORDS)
1. National rural livelihood mission vs SGSY
2. Advertising standard council of India, and 2006 notification.
3. Nutrition transition in India: extend, cause and implication
12 MARKER 150 WORDS
1. Deendayal disabled rehab scheme

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Now this is a to-the-point question, you either know the features or you dont
know them. Writing cock n bull stories dont fetch much marks here.
2. Pro cons of Direct Cash transfers to BPL.
The regular readers of my blog may recall that I had given this question in my
mock questions-set on 26th October 2011
http://mrunal-exam.blogspot.com/2011/10/mock-questions-for-gs-mains-andessay.html
Now I shall say with same enthusiasm of a Delhi coaching class sir that Look my
predicted question was asked in UPSC so I know the pulse of UPSC, come join
my class and buy my postal-mock test series and blindly choose the optional
subject which Im teaching! Ofcourse not. This is a mere coincidence. Anyone who
follows newspaper and editorials, should know that conditional cash-transfer
topic had been making rounds, since a long time. So you had to prepare it.
Btw, That NAC dude Jean Dreze (whom I fulsomely loath otherwise) had wrote a
lengthy editorial in Indian Express about the pro-cons of Direct Cash transfers.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-cash-mantra/788791/0
If you had read it, you can easily write 150 words with decent points. This one of
the rare moments, something directly comes from the anti-Congress, anti-Leftist
The Indian express, UPSC babus broke the sacred vow of asking only from the
Hindu and Frontline, or perhaps just another coincidence.
3. National program of control of blindness: new initiatives.
5 MARKERS
1. Telecom ministrys spectrum Management Commission
2. Community led total sanitization program
Total: 60+36+10=106

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GEOGRAPHY CUM POLITY CUM ADMINISTRATION

Any three for 12 marks 12x3=36
1. Impact of Climate change on water resources of India
No excuse. It was current affairs hot - topic earlier, how our dams were drying
out because of low monsoon.
2. Measures taken by Indian Government to combat piracy.
No excuse, it has been current-hot since 2 years. This was fit for paper-II topic
rather than paper I. According to notification, paper I topic 4(v) says internal
security and law n order Piracy has international connections.
3. Counter urbanization measures in metropolitan.
5 MARKERS
1. Phase 4 of tiger monitoring.
This tiger-project is what lawn tennis was for prelims few years ago. When UPSC
gets obsessed with something, they dont ask anything else. Back in early 90s,
was Tagores nationalism, then came women empowerment essays, for a time
being Lawn Tennis had became important question for prelims and now this
tiger. Anyways no excuse question.
2. National disaster Management authoritys Executive council : function and
composition
No excuse question. Disaster Management is a topic important for both prelims
and mains.
Total: 36+10=46
Now this is unusual, last time (2010) they asked 114 marks worth questions from
geography and environment. Now barely 46! Why did UPSC do this? Perhaps to
give a heart attack to some coaching sirs who keep advocating geography as an
optional subject, saying it helps tremendously in prelims and mains. (well it used
to!)

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After 2010s paper I had said Its a good time for the Geography coaching classes
to brainwash newcomers into believing that Geography as an optional subject
tremendously helps in GS thats why they mustnt select any other optional subject!
And all 700 vacancies of UPSC are going to be filled by Geography optional subject
only.
Now .This time theyll brainwash people into believing that Public
Administration tremendously helps in GS (all those yearbook and polity
questions). Next year 2012, UPSC gives same humiliating treatment to polity as
they did to geography this time.
ECONOMY
1. Damodaran Committee of RBI, its recommendations on consumer banks.
(12 marks)
To-the-point. You either know it or you dont know it. Last time it was Wadhawa
Committees recommendation on PDS. (Is it a trend to ask one Committees
recommendation ? I leave it to you to guess)
2. Why CSO came up with new consumer price index?
No excuse. (but unfortunately 5 marks only!)
Total 12+5=just 17 marks. Does it mean Economy is irrelevant? Ofcourse not. In
GS Paper-II, almost every international affairs question had economy links.
Roughly 90 marks worth questions in GS paper II are related to economy. So total
17 from paper 1 and about 90 from paper 2=107. Means economy is as
important as polity.
CULTURE
1. Difference between 2 festivals of Nagaland or Arunanchal Pradesh.

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2. Traditional dance theatre forms. (6 given, you had to write on any 5)

3. Different styles of unglazed pottery in India
4. Classical dance forms as per Sangeet Natak Acadamy. (No excuse.)
Total 20 marks.
This time they asked about unglazed pottery, next time perhaps garment weaving
styles?
This time they asked about Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh festivals, next time
perhaps Chattisgarh and Jharkhand? There is no end to such questions. Before
you start investing heavy time and energy into it, You should ask yourself, what is
my capacity to handle process, store and recall information?
In 2010, Art-culture-sports were together in paper 1. This time F1 flags (Sports)
went to paper II.
SCIENCE AND TECH RELATED STUFF 5 MARKERS
1. Nisarga tech of BARC
2. First aid to fainted person @ bus stop
3. Kaveri K10 aero engine
4. Molecular breast imaging
Curiously in 2010 GS paper there was bus-accident and this time a person faints
at bus-stop, Why doesnt it happen in theatre or airport or railway station, college
campus or office? What next? I guess in 2012 someone gets a snake bite @ Bus
stop or a chain-snatching or fist-fight or rioting?
Total: 4x5=20 marks.
Technically Science and tech questions belong to paper II. But above questions
are in pretext of Current National Issues and Topics of Social Relevance topic of
paper-I.
According to UPSC notification, page #6:
GS paper I syllabus topic#4 (iv) says medical research and pharmaceuticals. But
then paper-II syllabus says biotechnology. These three topics go hand in hand.
This bifurcation sounds dillogical.

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Earlier, Sports used to be paper-I topic. In 2010 paper, they asked aerostate
balloon and common wealth games in paper-I but this time 2011, they asked F1
race flags in paper-II and nothing in the official syllabus of paper, even remotely
suggests anything about sports. (unless F1 sporting authority is considered to be
an international institution like IMF and world bank) Anyways this is nothing
compared to what people went through in Pali and Zoology where UPSC
(allegedly) asked outside the syllabus.
PERSON IN NEWS 2 MARKERS
Total 14 marks. Anyways lot depends on luck here. Hard to recall them all
successfully even after having prepared the notes.
There is no dearth of people in news but there is a lot of dearth in brains storage
capacity, so you calculate a cost : benefit ratio -the time and energy required to
get this 14 marks.
CONCLUSION
As usual these are my personal conclusions and Im not looking for any
Congress-BJP debate on this.
A TOUGH PAPER?
This is nothing new. UPSC is hell-bent to break the backs of Coaching classes,
and to prevent the senior players (those who already wrote 2-3 mains) from
gaining advantage.
One strong conspiracy theory, which has been making rounds in orkut
communities since last three years: The new UPSC chairman doesnt like
coaching classes or the senior players. He prefers first attempt candidates, he
openly admitted it in an interview. All these tough, (or irrelevant or ridiculous)
questions in prelims and mains are intentionally setup to keep coaching classes
and senior players at bay.
Same way countless theories about how History /geography ignored to prevent
some people from gaining unnecessary advantage.

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UPSC doesnt tell you the prelim marks, their scaling system is hard to decrypt. So
It gives birth to many conspiracy theories.
You may or may not subscribe to these theories, based on which boat youre
sailing in.
This theories are open to different interpretation of same statistical data: Back in
2009, the AIR#1 was first timer, but 2010, the AIR#1 was third attempt. Success in
IAS exam, is an individuals achievement. A person with B gender with C optional
subjects in D language medium with E number of attempts made it to IAS/IPS/IFS
so itll work for you if youve the same profile? No it may not!
Anyways, back to paper: Many candidates are complaining that paper was tough.
As Ive been saying since the beginning that if something is tough, then its tough
to many others, not just you. But the condition: you must be a serious player. If
you believe that you had prepared seriously, and you couldnt prepare any better,
then there is no need to lose sleep over this tough GS paper because youre not
alone. Youve played your part, now the God and your luck do their part. Same
advice for prelims, interview and any other competitive exam.
And Some seemly irrelevant and tough questions are put only to see how well
you perform under pressure, they dont actually expect you to answer them (or
perhaps to check how lucky youre!)
Ill classify the questions in two parts: those which can be handled without any
excuse.
Total marks 364. (Yes total marks is 300 but thanks to Write any 5 out of 6 Im
counting all of them.) So out of 364 marks, almost 100 marks worth polity is noexcuse.
Same way
for History 25
Geography 34 marks,
Yearbook=40-45

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Economy + culture: 5+5=10

Science-tech=15
This is roughly, 230/361=63% of the paper can be handled by a serious player.
Im saying this, not to speculate any cut-off marks but to show that it was not an
entirely unsolvable tough paper that was set by angels of heaven and fell from
sky.
FILLER STUFF AND COCK N BULL STORIES
During the mains exam, lot of people start writing filler stuff by speculating the
answers. But in 9/10 cases, its unfruitful:
Lets take an example: they asked about Damodaran Committees
recommendations on consumer banks. Assuming that you had never prepared
that topic
1. If you start speculating the answer hmmm, whatre the problems with
consumer banks: oh yes customer grievances. They take a lot of time
making the demand-drafts and charge heavily. There are endless waiting
queues and no token system. There are frequent verbal-fights in the queue
and the security guard or the Staff doesnt intervene to maintain the linediscipline.
Now you fill up 150 words beating around the bush with mere 3 points
:grievance, service delivery and queue/crowd-control. It takes considerable time
to reframe these points into UPSC level answer-language. And some of them
might not be in the actual recommendations. Besides Damodaran isnt only
about these 3 points, it deals with SHG, Tribal areas, frauds, loans and lot many
things. So, Your pedestrian quality filler answer consisting of three puny points,
doesnt fetch much marks here. There is difference between college exam and
UPSC exam. Mere filling up the answersheets doesnt translate into first class
marks. There has to be some substance and quality- not just quantity.

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Basically, You wasted your time and ink. You shouldve invested it in tweaking the
answers, for other questions where you were comfortable.
Lot depends on how you present your answers, you choice of words, the
structure of your answers. Having knowledge is one thing, having the ability to
present it in a palatable manner, is another thing. Take the this paper-II
Two question , attempt any one.
1. Jasmine revolution
2. 6-pack solution of Eurozone debt crisis vs Stability and growth pact.
Since most people are not well versed in the second topic, obviously they pick up
the Jasmine revolution. So, how are you better than 9000 others whore writing
the same question? What separates the toppers from the crowd here is: the
answer presentation, structure, command over both knowledge and language.
When youve the fear of an imaginary cut-off in the head, it prompts you to
start a race of attempting each and every question with pedestrian quality
answers to cover as much ground as you can. Better First handle all the
manageable questions with extreme care and then (if) the time and brain permits,
venture into in the filler stories and speculative answers.
TOUGH PAPER = NOT LENGTHY PAPER = SAVES TIME
Look at the bright side of this tough paper. GS papers are notoriously lengthy. If
you know each and every answer, it is extremely difficult to finish the paper in the
time-limit. In that sense you should thank UPSC for setting the tough paper. (itd
have burned your heart even more, had there been easy questions and you
couldnt finish the paper!)
DONT ASK ME CUT OFF MARKS

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I dont involve myself in the game of speculating cut-off marks for any
competitive exam. So please dont ask me about the cut-offs or scaling- trend for
this mains exam 2011. Let the result come. Your fate was sealed the moment you
gave your answersheet to the supervisor. There is nothing you can do about it
now. If you ask me to predict things, Im going to give the usual answer : yes
youll be selected so start preparing for interview and simultaneously for next
prelims.
PREDICTION FOR MAINS 2012
2+2=4 and 2x2=4 so 3+3=6 and 3x3=6!! Dont apply that type of logic while
picking up optionals or while preparing topics. Just because they did not ask
much geography you need not start neglecting it. UPSC keeps changing the
importance of a topic. The core areas at the moment are
1. Polity
2. Yearbook / Development administration
3. Economy
4. International relations (with emphasis on economy)
5. Science and tech
In my opinion, your energy and time is better utilized handling these core areas,
rather than in trivial 2 or 5 marker culture, freedom fighters and person in news
or trying to mug up all terminologies of all games just because they asked about
F1 race.
Your brain has a limited capacity to process, store and recall information. If there
are MCQ (Multi-choice question), you can still can eliminate wrong options even
if you cant recall the exact answer. But in mains, there no MCQs, youve to recall
it absolutely. You either know Lt.Navdeep Singh or you dont know him.
I think Ive read it somewhere, doesnt fetch any marks and neither does a
smartass answer he is lieutenant in the army.

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Btw, Speaking of optionals: Friends, the rumor-market is busy saying UPSC might
remove optionals from 2012, now there is only one way to find out: wait for
UPSCs official notification until December end 2011. Until then, not much point
in investing money buying books or taking coaching for optional subjects. Same
reason Im not going to do analysis of Public Administration (mains 2011) until
UPSC notification confirms that theyll continue optionals in 2012- mains.