Civil Services Preliminary Exam, or more appropriately the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT), is the first stage of the Civil Services Examination. It is a qualifying stage and consists of two objective type papers of 200 marks each.
The emergence of the CSAT is the significant change that has come in recent times in Civil Services Examination (CSE). The change came as a result of a report of the Civil Services Review Committee headed by Dr Y K Alagh.
Till 2010, there used to be two objective papers - a compulsory General Studies paper with 150 marks and an Optional Subject paper with 300 marks.
A candidate was free to choose his optional subject from a list of 25 subjects.
There was a feeling that candidates choosing different optional subjects were not given a level playing field.
It would be more equitable if all candidates were asked to face two common papers of general nature, not focusing on any specific academic subject. This led to the emergence of CSAT.
In CSAT, there are two objective type papers of 200 marks each - a General Studies paper and a General Aptitude Paper. The duration of each paper is two hours. The questions are set in English and Hindi. However, the passages for English Language Comprehension will have no hindi translation.
Also, there will be penalty in the form of negative marks for wrong answers. For each wrong answer, one-third of the marks assigned to the question will be deducted.

The objective of the CSAT is to ensure right selection of candidates for Main Examination.
It is only a screening test and the marks scored in this will not be counted for final ranking. However, a candidate failing in this test cannot appear in Mains Examination.