The Paper portrayed a departure from the trend of last 4 years. Even though 2015 saw a rise in current affairs questions, in 2016 UPSC has drastically shifted their focus on Current Affairs.

There were traditional questions from non-traditional sources, for instance, questions about Keshab Chandra Sen and Agrahattas.

Paper was more factual compared to papers of CSAT era.

In the current affairs section, instead of linking the current affairs questions to concepts it was more on factual side.

Proportion of unapproachable questions has increased than previous year.

Polity has moved towards traditional concepts compared to last year trend and is moving towards governance and public administration type questions, such as those concerning the Chief Secretary and Gram Nyayalayas. VISION IAS ™ ... Inspiring Innovationwww.visionias.inwww.visionias.wordpress.com2 www.visionias.in ©Vision IAS

Economy questions were largely drawn from Current Affairs, for example, topics like Ease of Doing Business, Amber Box, Blue Box Subsidies, MCLR, and so on.

Deceptive presentation is a common method to segregate deep knowledge with superficial knowledge or hunch. This technique was used in many questions. For example, some questions could be solved by removing one statement, like those about GIAHS or the National Ganga River Basin Authority.

Some questions were too easy (for example, Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, UDAY, and others). This does not mean that we should not have proper knowledge of topic, as certain questions, such as the one on Atal Pension Yojana, demanded a full understanding of the subject).

Pointers for most of the questions could be traced to The Hindu. However, as previously advised, in today's internet era, a thorough understanding of the subject is anticipated (for instance, Gram Nyayalayas, The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity).