UPSC Prelims CSAT Solved Papers

Seven cubes are identical in shape. Out of these, the weight of each of the six cubes is equal and the weight of the remaining cube is less than the weight of any other cube. A balance is used to identify the lightest cube. What is the minimum number of attempts required to distinguish the odd cube with certainty?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the items that follow. Your answers should be based solely on the passage.

Previous waves of customer-service technology, including email and those pesky voice menus, stoked concerns of job losses, only for them to fail to materialise. AI could yet prove different. And if it does, its effects may be salutary. Human agents could be freed up to spend more time on creative and rewarding tasks, like using feedback to make products and services better and thereby spend less time listening to irate customers!

Which one among the following statements most appropriately reflects the point of view of the given passage?

Which of the following conclusions, made on the basis of the given passage, is/are correct?

1. The advent of new customer-service technology had invariably sparked fears about job losses.
2. Often it is found that instead of job losses, alternative channels for employee engagement are discovered while certain tasks are replaced by technology.
3. The advent of technology inevitably leads to stressful outcomes.

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the items that follow. Your answers should be based solely on the passage.

Cattle from the nearby villages came to the common ground to graze, and there was still a cool freshness in the air. Hori took several deep breaths and thought of sitting down for a while, since he'd be dying of heat in the scorching 'loo' wind the rest of the day. A number of farmers were eager to lease this bit of land and had offered a good price, but Rai Sahib—God bless him—had plainly told them it was reserved for grazing and would not be relinquished for any price. If he'd been one of those selfish Zamindars, he'd have said the cattle could go to hell, that there was no reason for him to miss the chance to make a little money. But the Rai Sahib still held to the old values, feeling that any landlord who didn't look after his tenants was less than human.

Which of the following conclusions is/are correct?

1. All landlords essentially have some goodness trapped within them.
2. The common grazing grounds of a village are intended for use by the cattle of that village.
3. Landlords who believe in tradition tend to be more concerned about their tenants.
4. Winds later in the day tend to be cooler post the hot winds of the morning.

Which of the following statements are not correct?

1. The landholdings of Rai Sahib were currently not being used for farming.
2. Temperamentally, Rai Sahib was as greedy as other landlords.
3. It cannot be ascertained that Rai Sahib could have made some money by leasing out the grazing land.
4. It may be asserted that Rai Sahib valued his tenants and wanted to protect their livelihood.

A person facing the East travels 4 km straight and then turns right and travels 3 km, then further turns left and travels 2 km and finally turns left and travels 3 km. The minimum distance between the final point and the initial point, and the direction in which the person is facing at the final point are, respectively

In a sequence of numbers, each number other than the first two is the sum of the two immediately preceding numbers from it. If the first two numbers in the sequence are 4 and 7, then the sixth number is

The ratio of male to female workers in two companies A and B is 13: 10 and 7: 5, respectively. If both the companies have the same number of female workers, then what is the ratio of the total number of workers in A to those in B?

If the product of the HCF and LCM of two distinct numbers is the cube of one of the numbers, then which of the following statements is/are correct?

I. The difference of the numbers is an even number.
II. One of the numbers is a perfect square.

If x and y are two digits and the number 4x5y790 is divisible by 11, then what is the remainder, if x + y is divided by 11?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the items that follow. Your answers should be based solely on the passage.

Was it the sun-dappled ambience, the strawberries and cream, the frustration of Flavio Cobolli's unforced errors against Serbian Novak Djokovic on Centre Court or simply the crushing weight of being a 64-year-old man in the third act of a very public life? Whatever the reason, Hugh Grant, the actor, deserves empathy. There he was, in the Royal Box at Wimbledon, flanked by Britain's well-dressed and well-rested spectators, watching the men's singles quarterfinals, when the actor did something quietly radical—head at a tilt, eyes closed, utterly unbothered, he took a nap. So praise be to Grant for serving up an unexpected ace. In that small, delicious moment, he didn't merely catch forty winks, he made an elegant case for surrender. Not to laziness, but to limits. To the body's quiet wisdom over society's relentless performance metrics. Wimbledon had its tennis. The perpetually sleep-deprived discovered a leading man, not of action, but of rest.

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

1. Radical action can also be attributed to mild surrender where one acts against societal expectations.
2. Submitting to one's limitations, given the effect of age and other factors, ought not to be conflated with laziness.
3. 'Leading man' usually refers to one who plays the lead role in a movie; in this instance the implication is that Hugh Grant is performing the role of not an action hero, but that of a resting one!

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

1. Hugh Grant was watching, from the Royal Box, the men's semifinal match on Centre Court between Flavio Cobolli and Novak Djokovic.
2. The phrase 'unexpected ace' in the context uses a term from the game of tennis to highlight Hugh Grant's somewhat uncharacteristic act of 'catching forty winks'; an act that is viewed with opprobrium.
3. Grant subjects the demands of society to the wisdom of his body.

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the items that follow. Your answers should be based solely on the passage.

The process by which countries close their labour-productivity gap with the technology leader is based on convergence theory. The convergence model divides economic eras into three phases—the breakaway, the catch-up, and the fine-tuning phase. It also divides economic entities into two categories—the technology leaders and the technology followers. The process begins with the development of a new technology, such as scavenging three million years ago (MYA), hunting—one MYA, farming—12 thousand years ago, and industrial technology—a little more than 200 years ago. During the breakaway phase, the per capita income of the technology leaders (e.g., Western Europe and North America in the industrial era) rises, but is unchanged for the technology followers. In the catch-up phase, the followers adopt the new technology and close their per capita income gap with the technology leaders. In the fine-tuning phase, where participants try to extract the remaining benefits from an increasingly exhausted technology, leaders and followers have similar per capita incomes.

Which of the following conclusions are correct?

1. In the breakaway phase, economic progress is slow for the technology followers.
2. In the catch-up phase, leaders stagnate and followers, therefore, close the gap between them and the leaders.
3. In the fine-tuning phase, technology is exhausted, as it were, and both leaders and followers attempt to extract leftover benefits, leading to more or less similar per capita income levels.
4. Industrial technology followed scavenging, which preceded hunting, which itself was followed by farming.

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

1. The convergence model divides nations into three phases of economic progress.
2. At the heart of the convergence theory is the closing of the gap between labour and productivity.
3. Technology leaders typically have arrived earlier at different economic eras.
4. The time period covered by the convergence theory presented herein encompasses, as mentioned, 4012200 years.

An alloy P contains 20% copper and 80% zinc by weight. Another alloy Q contains 60% copper and 40% zinc by weight. A third alloy R is to be prepared from P and Q so that it contains equal amount of copper and zinc. In what ratio, amounts of P and Q be mixed in order to get R?

A is a 2-digit number with different digits. B is also a 2-digit number and is obtained by reversing the digits of A. If A - B is a multiple of 27, where A > B, how many such different A's are possible?

If ZERO is encoded as ADSN, then how do you encode STOP?

There are three types of rectangular tiles: 3' × 3', 3' × 7' and 3' × 11'. An area of rectangular shape of dimensions 3' × 100' is to be covered using these tiles without breaking them. If x and y are the maximum and minimum numbers of tiles of various sizes, respectively, that can be used to cover the area exactly, then x - y is

A train has to complete a journey of 800 km. If it meets a minor accident, its speed becomes half of the existing speed. If there is a mechanical defect, the speed becomes one-fourth of the existing speed. On its way, the train meets with a minor accident after 200 km; and 400 km thereafter, it develops a mechanical defect. Had the train developed the mechanical defect after 200 km and met the minor accident 400 km thereafter, it would have taken 4 more hours to reach its destination. What was the original speed of the train in km per hour?

In a recruitment process, the selection of candidates is based on their performance in three components. The weightages of the components 1, 2 and 3 are 0.2, 0.3 and 0.5, respectively. Use the data given below and find the cutoff score if exactly three candidates are to be selected:

Consider the following three statements, namely S1, S2 and S3:
S1. Protecting the environment is an existential exigency for humans, given the impact of environmental degradation on climate change.
S2. Scientific consensus has not been achieved with regard to the extent of the contribution of human intervention to climate change.
S3. Environmental activism includes climate alarmism and other extremist points of view that often become the focus of climate change deniers.

Which of the following relationships based on the statements given above is/are correct?
1. S3 is a counterpoint to S1
2. S3 is unconnected to S1 and S2
3. S2 could be the reason for S3

Match List-I with List-II and select the answer using the code given below the Lists:

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Match List-I with List-II and select the answer using the code given below the Lists:

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Which among the following actions would constitute the most appropriate directive(s) in resolving interpersonal conflict in an office with culturally diverse personnel?

1. Direct personnel to practise activities that are the cultural markers of diverse groups
2. Allow conflicts to resolve naturally over time to set an appropriate precedent of leadership
3. Encourage personnel to seek each other's perspectives

Match List-I with List-II and select the answer using the code given below the Lists:

Code: