Thursday, May 11, 2023

Logical Thinking for UPSC Prelims by Anupam Sharma


Logical Thinking for UPSC CSE/IFS Prelims
- Anupam Sharma

Note: 
This post is for those aspirants who have followed my Logical Thinking series on Twitter/Telegram and had requested or were searching for a compilation of scattered Tweets, for quick revision.

If you are appearing in UPSC CSE/IFS Prelims 2023 (28th May) and haven't followed the Logical Thinking series till now, then you must Ignore & Leave this post. Else, it may confuse you. It would be better if you invest your time in Revising whatever you have read till now.


Important points to remember:
  • Knowledge is more important than any Logic or Trick.
  • Decent background knowledge aids & improves the accuracy of Logic.
  • Supplementary/Supporting logic or knowledge reduces risk & improves accuracy.
  • Don’t use it if it’s not suiting you, or you aren’t feeling confident.
  • Logical thinking may not give the correct answer every time. But if properly applied, overall it would be positive.

General Tips:
  • Read question carefully
    • All statements
      • Different parts/segments of the statement
    • All options
  • Check if the Question is asking “incorrect / not correct”
  • Don’t fear lengthy Questions. Often, they are very easy. They can be solved in 2nd round.

Logical thinking tricks:
(Don't worry if you don't understand any or all of the following points. You will automatically get to know as you go through the Questions in this post.)
  • Extreme/Absolute statements (having words like “only”, “always”, “all”, “never”, “totally”, etc) have higher probability of being wrong.
    • Not always, Ex.: Sun always/only rises in the East.
  • General/ Probabilistic/ Broad statements (having works like “some”, “can”, “may”, etc) have a slightly higher probability of being correct.
  • Statements with Data/Place/Organization/Name are easy to tweak or modify. So, high probability of such statements being wrong.
  • Think if any statement or its contrasting/refuting statement can be found in any standard source/book.
  • Take ideas from Name/Nomenclature/Etymology.
  • For any difficult word in English, check Hindi Translation.
  • Imagine the possibility of statements, particularly in S&T, Environment.
  • Think about the possible reason why the Question has been asked by the UPSC.
  • Elimination of options …
    • Having incorrect statements
    • Not having correct statements

Solving UPSC Prelims PYQs using Logical Thinking 

(Wait for a few seconds till the Embedded Tweets get visible.)

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11. 

?

Looks like I made a small mistake in the numbering of my Tweets: I didn't post anything as "11. ...", but posted 11th Tweet as  "12. ...".  And so on. As a result, the numbering of all the following posts is actually erroneous.

Similar mistake can happen in exam time also: You didn't know a Question (say, Q.11), and you left / skipped it. Then, you attempted Q.12. But, instead of bubbling in the space of 12th, you bubbled in the space for 11th Q/A in the OMR sheet. And so, a chain of mistakes can carry forward.

So, be careful in cross-checking the Question number you have solved, and the serial number of the bubble you are filling.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

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23. 

24.

Answer = B

25.

26. 

27.

28.

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34.

35.

Random

36. 

 37.

Again, made an error in the numbering of tweets.

38.

39.

40.

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48. 

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65, 

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at
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Location: Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India

1 comment:

  1. Mayur PanchamiaMay 14, 2023 at 10:03 PM

    Thank you so much Anupam sir... your a gem of a person. :)

    ReplyDelete

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