Tips and Guidance on Mental Ability Preparation for Prelims

Mental Ability is an important part of the UPSC Prelims syllabus. A good number of questions have been asked from this portion throughout the past years in the PT Exam. Thus judicial importance should be given for the preparation of Mental for the Prelims Exam.

From 2011 CSAT pattern of the UPSC Prelims, Mental Ability is placed in the syllabus with its place changed. Traditionally Mental Ability questions were asked in the GS paper. In 2011 PT, the place of Mental Ability has been shuffled. It has been removed from the GS paper and placed in the CSAT.

In Mental Ability, Questions were asked from Numerical Ability, Algebra, Profit-loss, Data interpretation, Logical Reasoning etc. And now, these questions would be asked in the Paper II of the UPSC PT Exam under different headings. These headings are –

•    Logical reasoning and analytical ability
•    General mental ability
•    Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations)
•    Orders of magnitude (Class X level)
•    Data interpretation: charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. (Class X level)

For the preparation of Mental Ability candidates need to practice the NCERT Maths books till Xth Standard. Along with this one should practice the Previous years’ Questions asked in the UPSC PT Exam. R.S.Agarwal’s Quantitative Aptitude and Verbal Reasoning are also of good help for the Mental Ability preparation.