Previous year UPSC Question papers collection (PDF)

Students preparing for any UPSC exam should not restrict them to refer question papers of their exam alone. Here is the complete collection of UPSC exam question papers since 2009. This collection will be extremely useful for the preparation of civil service exam.

Question papers that are useful for the preparation of CSP, 2015

Practicing many mock tests is the crucial step in the preparation of high level exam such as civil service exam. Previous year question papers is a never miss asset for every serious civil service aspirants. I have complied more than 80 objective type UPSC questions papers into a single RAR file and i hope they will be highly useful during the Civil service preliminary exam preparation.

How to use this collection effectively for CSP preparation?

SCRA and STENOGRAPHER question papers have HSC level syllabus. Believe it or not. 25% of the CSP questions are of HSC level. So even lower exam exam helps you in your preparation. Other exam question papers provided in the collection is of Degree level and so they are directly useful in your civil service preparation. Download link of the collection is given below.

Collection of UPSC question papers since 2009  (Size: 122 MB)

Note: This collection does not contain specialized exam papers such as Medicine, Maths, Engineering, Economics, etc. In other words this collection has only General studies and Aptitude question papers.

Exam wise Question paper collection:

Following section has individual collection for all important UPSC exams.

1. SCRA (9.75 MB)

2. CDS (26.5 MB)

3. NDA (17.0 MB)

4. Stenographer (9.61 MB)

5.CAPF (4.67 MB)

6.CISF (3.49 MB)

7. Civil service exam (68.4 MB)

Question paper collection for Civil service Mains will be posted soon

Basic computing terms part 3

Recycle bin: Files that are deleted from the hard disk will be moved to Recycle bin. Hence, Recycle bin stores deleted files and they can be restored, when they are needed.

Router: It is a physical device or software that forwards the data in the form of packets to other network.

Registry: It contains vital information about system’s settings, software and hardware configuration. Whenever a software is installed, software’s configuration settings is stored in the registry.

Rootkit: It is a stealth malware designed to enable complete access to the system without being detected.

Scanner: It is a input device that scans photos and papers.

Search engine: It is a software that is designed to search the web by indexing millions of websites. Famous search engine includes AOL,Google, Alta vista, Yahoo search and Bing.

Script: Script is nothing but an program that is usually created to do something automatically.

Skimming: Skimming is the theft of credit or debit card information. Skimmer is the device that is usually inserted into ATM  or POS machine to collect debit card  or credit card information that is stored in the magnetic strip.

Snipper: It is a network spying software or device. It collects all the available information about the network and it tracks all the data sent and received by the network.

Spam: It is unwanted message that is intended to cause annoyance or to do financial fraud.

Spyware: It is a malicious software installed without the knowledge of the user to monitor and store his activity. To know more information, visit Computer threats)

Syntax: Syntax is the general rules which have to be followed while writing a program. Each programming language has different syntax. Syntax is analogous to grammar. If one does not follow syntax while writing program, syntax error will appear.

Telnet: Telnet is the networking protocol that facilitates bidirectional text communication over internet or LAN.

Teleconference:Word “Tele” means “at distance”. Hence teleconference means attending a meeting or conference from any place.

Throughput: Throughput is defined as the amount of data transmitted over a network in a specific time.

Username: It is a unique name that is used to identify a physical person in the network or website. Each username has a password to prevent impersonation.

Virtual reality: It is the technology in which some real life situations or environment are simulated using advanced devices.

Virus: It is a self replicating malicious program.

Virtual memory: It is a technique in which temporary memory usage is transferred from RAM to secondary memory such as hard disk, pen drive, etc. note: High end Games are executed in the computer ,as the computer uses virtual memory. Following image shows the Navy personnel being trained in Virtual reality environment.

Web or World wide web: It is the collection of websites that can be accessed over internet.

Web site: It is the collection of related web pages that are usually hosted in separate domain.

Web browser: It is a software to access web sites and to transfer data over internet.

Web crawlers or spiders or ants: It is a automated program used by search engines for indexing by collecting information about the websites regularly.

Web scraping: It is  the automated process of extracting huge information from websites.

Open source books for TNPSC Group 1 and Civil service(Download)

In this article, you will find some interesting books which will be useful for your exam preparation. I hope that you have downloaded the NCERT books already. If not, i would suggest you to download them in this link.

Download NIOS BOOKS:

NIOS books are useful to form strong foundation in each subject. If you found any broken link, please report.

1.Economics

2. Computing

3. Polity

4.Political science

5. Sociology

6. Indian culture

7. Science and Technology

8. Environmental studies

Note: All the links given above are links to download file in ZIP format. If any of the file ask you a for a password, enter examhacker as password.

I didn’t own copyrights for anyone of the following book.They are owned by OPENSTAX. I am just redistributing them under CC-3.0. Following books are reference book, hence refer through them to maximize your score in preliminary and main exam. Following books are in PDF format.

1.Physics reference book 

2. Principles of Economics

3. Concepts of Biology

4. Sociology Reference book

Updated books

5. Biology Reference book

6. Microeconomics book (Useful for economics optional paper)

7.Macroeconomics book(Useful for economics optional paper)

Above books are given to public domain by OPENSTAX college. You can donate for them in this link. More open books will be added soon.

Study plan for civil service exam preparation

Roughly ,only 6 months are left for civil service preliminary exam,2015. So, if you are really determined to crack civil service exam, you should start preparation from today. Trust me!!! 120 days are enough to crack civil service preliminary exam. There are two main parts of preparation 1. Static 2. Current Affairs

Static subjects include concepts of polity, concepts of economics, history,General science, aptitude, Reasoning and Reading comprehension.  You should have deep knowledge on current trends in polity, international relations, economic development, social development, environmental issues, development in science and technology and any other news that draws national and international attention. Maintain notes for the current affairs and research the topic by yourself.

Time Management: Allocate at least 42 hours a week or 6 hours a day. If you are working, you may find it difficult to allocate time daily. I would suggest the working person to allocate time on weekly manner. Allocate 25% of the time to the current affairs note making process. Allocate another 15% of time to research major issues that happened during the week. Allocate remaining 60% of the time to study static portion. Try to relate static concepts with ongoing issues. This will help you to allocate time for both static and current affairs section without any problem.

Tips:

• Think of various time options. Somebody may find it easy to read during early morning while others not. So, find your optimum time to read.
• Think of a flexible time plan. Don’t force yourself to complete unrealistic target in a short time.
• Take short breaks of 4-5 minutes every 40 minute.

Study plan for civil service exam preparation,2015:

• Start with polity and economics. You can finish it within 3 weeks. Lakshimikanth and Ramesh Singh book is enough. If you don’t understand any basic concepts, please refer NCERT book. I assume that you start preparing by today(11.01.2014), so you can complete polity and economics by this month
• You can easily complete the basic concepts of environment within 2 weeks. I will complete all the articles relating to environment within February 10 so that you can freely complete them by February 15.
• Study History ,Indian culture and geography at the same time. You can complete them by March end. John kelly and Bipin Chandra book is recommended for History while Majjid Hussain book is recommended for Geography.
• Complete general science by April 20. For general science NCERT books are enough and refer old question papers.
• Take one month to practice aptitude, Reasoning and RC questions. So your deadline for completing them is May 20.
• Revision period: May 20- May 30. Revise all the things that you have learnt in the above period.
• Study Concepts of ethics for GS4 paper by June 15
• Testing period: June 16-June 31. Do SWOT analysis . Review your strengths, weakness, Opportunity and strength in cracking civil service preparation by taking at least two mock tests during this period.. If you are not satisfied with the analysis,increase your momentum by correcting your weakness.
• Review the top events that happened during the half year that is from January 1 to  June 30 for 15 day and research the most important topic.
• Fill the weakness by learning new stuffs related to static portion. Allocate 15 days for this period. So July 31st is the deadline for learning new stuffs. So after this period, never study any new stuff in static portion for the preliminary exam.
• Final revision and mock test practice: August month.
• Never stop updating yourself as main exam is mainly concerned with current affairs. Study world history and revise Indian history and Indian culture by September end.
• Revise polity and review news related to GS2 paper from October 1 to October 15.
• Revise concepts of environment and review news related to GS2 paper from October 15 to October 31.
• You can study everything related to your Optional subject by 20th November, Provided that you have specialization in the optional subject or you know the basics of the subject.
• Remaining time: Revision period

How to prepare for civil service exam

This article gives general guidelines and tips that you may find useful in your preparation. First of all, Civil service is neither the easiest nor the toughest exam. It is a mix of both extremes. According to me, the level of civil service is restructured in such a way only knowledgeable person can crack it. I mean no one can crack it by mugging some dozens of suggested book. You should read everything with grass root approach. You should not study even a single sentence without asking yourself a question. Ask yourself how,why this thing happens when you are preparing for your exam.

Myths: 

1. IAS exam can be passed only by rigorous coaching

Not true. Now, Many aspirants crack it without coaching. Truth to be told, self study is the difficult choice. It depends on the person. Self study is only effective when you have effective time management skills , patience and self discipline. So IAS can be cracked by anyone with above skills. If you think you don’t have those, it is better for you join a coaching center or try to develop those skills.

2. Aspirant needs at least 3 years to crack IAS exam:

I dob’t what is level of expertise but i can assure you 9 months are enough to crack IAS exam. I am not kidding!!. I have seen many people who has cracked IAS exam with top ranks in first attempt itself. How? It is really easy to answer this question. UPSC will not ask any factual data such as the name of the person who won some award or number of persons qualified in particular event. They really feel very reluctant to ask such questions. It is really easy to understand the problem instead of mugging up the factual data associated with it.

General guidelines:

1. Stick to the syllabus:

Know your syllabus and know your limit. Of course in competitive exams such as Civil service it is really difficult to define your limit but it is essential to define your limit. In upcoming articles, i will try to define limit for each subject.

2.Be updated:

This is a really a crucial part of civil service exam preparation. Everyone will suggest you to study Hindu and to subscribe to various competitive magazines. I would suggest Hindu is fairly enough and magazines are not recommended. Why? It will waste your time and the time spent on reading various magazine is not really worth. Look for the news that is related to  polity, International relation, Diplomacy, Geography and environment and Economics. Take notes on them and research the most important news yourself. I would try to update in weekly manner in my site.

3. Practice more aptitude and reasoning questions:

CSAT or civil service aptitude test forms a crucial part in civil service preliminary exam as it contains 100 marks. Important aspect of solving aptitude question is speed and accuracy. Both the aspects need to maintained at reasonable level. The only solution to do that thing is to practice lots of question in such a manner that every model of question will become familiar to us.For solving aptitude and reasoning questions, i recommend Quantitative aptitude by R.S.Agarwal and A modern approach to non verbal reasoning by R.S.Agarwal. In our site, we do provide some practice questions and you can them check in this link.

4. Increase your reading skill:

If you don’t know Hindi, then you must consider improving your English reading skills for maximizing your score in CSAT. Basically, two types of questions will be asked in the RC: 1. Direct type 2. Indirect type. Direct type question will test your understanding of specific point said by a author. Indirect type question is little complicated one it will test your understanding of the complete Paragraph. Commonly asked Indirect questions are “What do you infer from the passage” “What is correct title for the passage. Hence, they should be answered only after the dept study of the passage.

5. Never Give up- Fill the vacuum:

It is very common to get demotivated during the preparation of civil service. Stay motivated and stay positive. Doing routine things will definitely incite you to give up. Hang on!! It is very important to fill the demotivated period by your confidence. If you are preparing for civil service for many years, you are more likely to give up. Before giving up, think of at least one reason why you still want to do it!!

5.TAKE MOCKS TEST-SUCCESS IS ABOUT CORRECTING THE MISTAKE

Take at least 3 mock/practice tests. In this website i will try update a mock test on civil service soon. Take that test,take your time to analyse your strength and weakness in various subjects.  Remember: Just taking many tests will not make you score more. Learning the mistakes and correcting them will make you score more.

6.REFER PREVIOUS YEAR QUESTIONS

Although it may sound like an old advice, it will help you in understanding the syllabus.Warning: Don’t go beyond 2013 because before that period we had a different syllabus. However you can still study general studies from that question papers. You can the previous year question paper in the UPSC website.

SUGGESTED BOOKS For CSP:

1.Quantitative aptitude by R.S.Agarwal and A modern approach to non verbal reasoning by  R.S.Agarwal

2.Indian Polity by Lakshimikant

3.Indian economy by Ramesh Singh and 10th to 12th NCERT books for basics

5.India a history: John Keay and 10th to 12th NCERT books for basics

6.Indian and world geography: Majjid Yussain and 10th to 12th NCERT books for basics

7.General Science: 8th to 12th NCERT books and i will upload reference book from them in our site.

8. Environment: Our site ( I don’t find any book as comprehensive to cover this subject as questions on this subject are based on current affairs)

Note: I will update the strategy,syllabus and books for mains and interview in a separate article.

Feel free to comment if you have any doubt.

Everything goes online including the war- An introduction to cyber terrorism, cyber espionage and cyber warfare

Before proceeding further, i would request you to read my previous article in this link so that you can understand this article in better way.A question on based on this topic that was asked in Civil service main 2013. Screenshot of that question is given below.

Image copyrighted by UK Ministry of defense under CC 2.0

Basic definitions:

Cyber terrorism: It is the use of information and technology by anyone for their personal motives. Pakistan terrorist may hack an Indian website to gain attention or to access classified information.

Cyber warfare: It is the next generation war. It is the use of Information and technology for political motives of the state . It is a state sponsored war. Why cyber warfare are deadly? Every device is connected to internet.  It is referred by the term called “internet of thing“. Devices that is to the connected to the internet is going to increase exponentially. According to a research organisation, there will be 26 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020. Every device becomes smart and intelligent, as there are connected to the Internet. Connecting to the network may give lot of flexibility but at the cost of exposing the critical information to the outside world. Critical areas that face risk of being exploited by cyber warfare or cyber terrorism are Energy sector, Defense sector and  Finance sector.

Cyber espionage or cyber spying: It is the use of Information and technology to access and gather classified documents without permission for personal or political or economic motives.

Information warfare: It is the use of Information and technology to collect information and use it for the advantage of national security. It is simply legal way of collecting information by exploiting technological advancement of the country. It also helps nation in preventing the upcoming terror attacks. It was introduced by US army.

Is India prepared for Cyber warfare?

The answer is nope.India is not ready for cyber war. India is still lagging in  the technical expertise required for handling the latest cyber threats.Now the attack has became sophisticated. India has severe shortage of network experts. In a reply to a RTI question, it was stated that there are only 300 network experts working under all the department of government of India. Annual budget spent by India on cyber security is around $7.7 million dollars while US spends around $100 million dollar on cyber security. This clearly shows the complete ignorance of India in cyber security. They may have underestimated the risks or may have overestimated their capacity.

Risks associated with Cyber warfare and cyber terrorism:

•  Classified information associated with critical sectors such as defense, finance and energy are at risk of being intercepted by mass surveillance programs and by cyber espionage.
• Websites providing E governance service are at the risk of being hacked and hence results in denial of services to the concerned users.
• If classified information is leaked, it will be used for military strategy.  Hence, it is similar to inside attack which is the worst nightmare for the national security.

India’s stand on cyber security:

As we have discussed earlier, India is not ready for cyber war as it lacks expertise in the field. In the following passage we will discuss the strategy of India with respect to cyber security.

• India released National cyber policy on the month of July of 2013 due to the pressure created due to Edward Snowden’s disclosure of NSA’s surveillance program. It is aimed to create safe cyber space for ordinary citizen and government officials.
• National cyber policy,2013 proposes the formation of National Cyber Coordination Centre which will helps india in intelligence gathering and hence it is aimed to prevent cyber attack by screening the metadata of all types of electronic communication.
• National cyber policy,2013(NCP) also proposes the formation of National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) which will be responsible for the security of Critical data of defense,finance and energy sector.Before this policy,CERT-IN (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) was responsible for the security of critical data along with being a nodal agency to handle cyber threats in India.
• NCP,2013 also proposes to create 5 lakh skilled professionals in IT in next 5 years

Thanks for the patience. Share if you find this article as useful.

Internet censorship in India.

Image credits: Brian J Matls and it is copyrighted under CC 2.0

This article will be useful for mains(GS4-Information technology). Why again internet censorship? Even a week ago, 32 famous sites including Daily motion, Vimeo and Github were blocked to avoid the spread of Jihahid Propaganda by ISIS. Netizens and Internet rights activists condemned this move. After all, India is a democratic country. Our constitution provides us freedom of speech and expression. Those sites were used by normal people too. You can’t block the entire site, if someone spreads derogatory or messages that promotes terrorism. Of course, Terrorism has to be curbed but not at the cost of grabbing ordinary citizen’s right. Internet censorship has been implemented for several reasons in India. Lets discuss some of them in brief.

1. Piracy

It is the one of the common reasons cited by the government to block many file sharing sites. Until now, more than 100 file sharing sites have been blocked in India due to Piracy.

2. National Security

Cyber terrorism is becoming more harmful threat for national security. Now,Terrorists are using Sophisticated technology in terror attacks. What actually is Cyber terrorism? It is not well defined but the broader definition of them deals with usage of Information and Technology for disturbing the National Integrity and Sovereignty. Why cyber terrorism is a threat to national security?In the modern Era, Everything from your personal computer to military network is connected to Internet or outside world. Any one can use them for achieving their personal or political objectives. They can also spread hatred message or rumors that can disturb the communal balance in India through internet. They can instill fear in our mind though cyber attacks. We can discuss about cyber terrorism in Separate article soon(because we are diverting fro our topic).

3. Hate speech

Here comes the soul of our topic. This is the most controversial part of the Internet censorship. Many youngsters are arrested in recent year due to hatred speech in social media. Government not only removes their message but also arrests them under 66A of Information Technology Act. What does this act deals with? What 66A of this act deals with? Information technology act was enacted in 2000 to deal with cyber crimes(Cyber crimes are crimes that are done with the help of any device or technology). As Information technology act,2000 covers only little cyber crimes. They are amended in 2008 to cover more cyber crimes. One of the provisions that included in the amended was 66A which deals with sending or posting Hatred, Defamatory, Derogatory, False,Annoying , Inconvenient, Misleading and Grossly offensive messages with the use of computing device or communication devices.Anyone does the above thing are liable to prosecution and may get imprisonment  up to 3 years with fine. Why this provision is controversial? Many internet rights activists see 66A of IT act as unconstitutional and they claim 66A brags their freedom of speech. Following is the screenshot of this provision.

SC rulings on 66A: Many PIL has been filed with supreme court and they plead to declare 66A as arbitrary and Unconstitutional since there are many vague terms in this provision such as Grossly offensive or menacing character. In march 2014, SC has ruled no person can be arrested under 66A without the permission of a officer who is not under the rank of inspector general of police. It ruled to prevent the misuse of the act. Few months after this rulings, another bench of SC also favored internet activists by ruling that the person cannot be arrested under 66A for the sole reason of message causing Inconvenience or message is annoying.

According to Facebook transparency report,4960 contents have be restricted in Facebook from January 2014 to June 2014 due to the request of the Indian government. That makes the India rank number one in Facebook censorship.

4. Pornography

Recently, A PIL has been filed on the supreme court to block porn sites. The case is pending, It seems that the government is serious about blocking porn sites. Someone consider this as an active move as it will decrease the rape rates as the can claim more sex offence are due to watching porn. Some other people may see this as negative move. According to some experts, Government has double standards on this issue because government is considering for legalization and regulation of prostitution on the other hand it plans to block porn sites. Still now, no site has been banned due to pornography.In India watching adult pornography is legal while distributing it is illegal and watching and distributing child pornography is illegal. So they don’t have legal sanction to block porn sites.

Summary:

Is 66A justified?

Of course, it is justified. But, In order to prevent misuse of the act, precise definition of the act is needed. interpret ion of this provision should be done based on the Court’s guidelines. Till now court has not framed any guidelines, so it would be better, if court has framed guidelines. Freedom of speech like any other right has some restrictions. Our freedom of speech should not contempt court’s order, disturb the communal balance, disturb India’s international relations,defame anyone, incite any offence, disturb the integrity and sovereignty of India and it should be decent and derogate any one’s character. Critical analysis of some one cannot be taken as hatred speech. As we are living in democratic country, we do have rights to tell our opinion without infringing other’s rights.

Thanks for your patience. Share this article if you find this as useful.