UPSC Prelims 2021 Question Topics: 100 Areas from which UPSC Framed Questions

Do you know the 100 areas from which UPSC framed Questions in 2021? Have you done research on the UPSC Prelims 2021 Question Topics?

If you are an aspirant who finds it difficult to crack UPSC CSE, you might have felt that you prepare in one direction while UPSC asks questions in another direction.

This is the case with most aspirants.

However, UPSC questions are of real quality and standard. It tests the knowledge, curiosity, and understanding of well-read youth.

Do you wish to narrow your gaps with the UPSC way of thinking?

This is possible only if you properly analyse the UPSC question papers of previous years.

Let’s now analyse the UPSC Prelims General Studies Questions Paper of 2021 (Version A).

It may help you get important insights into the priority areas of UPSC.

UPSC Prelims 2021 Question Topics: Subject-wise Break-Up

It’s my practice to break the previous year’s UPSC question papers subject-wise and topic-wise. I have done this in 2019 and 2020 as well.

In 2021, UPSC followed subject-wise order in questions throughout Version A. The Commission didn’t shuffle questions between subjects. This made my job easy.

The break-up of questions was as below:

• Economics and Indian Economy – 15 questions
• Environment – 15 questions
• Indian History and Culture – 20 questions
• Geography – 14 questions
• Science and Technology – 12 questions
• Indian Polity – 20 questions
• Current Affairs – 4 questions

Note: Questions that can be purely categorized as Events of National and International Importance (current affairs) were only four in number. However, some questions from subjects like Environment, Indian Economy, Science and Technology had connections with items in recent news (last 3-4 years).

Also read: UPSC Prelims 2022 Question Topics: What are the 100 Areas from which UPSC Framed Questions last year?

UPSC Prelims 2021 Question Topics: 100 Areas from which UPSC Framed Questions

Economics

1. RBI Act
2. Casual Workers
3. Economic Recession
4. Demand and Supply: Law of Demand, Inferior Goods, Complementary Goods
5. Urban Cooperative Banks
6. Indian Government Bond Yields
7. FDI: Types
8. Effect of devaluation of a currency
9. Effect of creation of black money
10. Inflation: Creation of new money
11. Money Multiplier
12. Demand-pull inflation
13. Government Securities Market
14. Water Credit
15. Reserve Bank of India: Lender of last resort

Environment

1. R2 Code of Practices: Electronics recycling industry
2. Copper smelting plants
3. Furnace Oil
4. Blue Carbon
5. Organisms: Surviving without soil
6. Natural Mosquito repelling plant
7. Primary food producers in oceans
8. Animals that roll up to protect themselves
9. New York Declaration on Forests
10. Magnetite particles
11. Filter feeder
12. Biogeochemical cycles: weathering of rocks
13. Detrivores
14. The Common Carbon Metric
15. Symbiotic Relationships

Indian History and Culture

1. Chausath Yogini Temple: Indian Parliament
2. Ancient Towns: Dams in Indus Valley
3. Factories of the English East India Company
4. Post-Gupta Political History
5. The women in Vijayanagar Empire
6. Madanapalle of Andhra Pradesh
7. Historical place: Well-known for
8. Medieval Indian History: Major events timeline
9. St.Francis Xavier
10. History of ancient India: Mitakshara system vs Dayabhaga system
11. History of ancient India: Playwrights
12. Acts enacted by British Parliament: Women’s rights
13. 8th August 1942 in Indian History: Quit India Movement
14. Songs from Prison: Mahatma Gandhi
15. Medieval India: Paragana-Sarkar-Suba
16. Secretary with Hindu Female School: Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
17. Officers of the Indian National Army: Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sehgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon
18. Indian History: Kingdoms – Hyderabad State, Vijayanagara Empire, Rohilkhand Kingdom
19. Heritage locations: Rivers
20. National languages

Geography

1. Permaculture farming vs conventional chemical farming
2. Palm Oil
3. Indus River system
4. Saline Lakes in India – Didwana, Kuchaman, Sargol and khatu
5. Rivers that rise from the Eastern Ghats
6. Seabed exploration and mining in international waters
7. Least water-efficient crop
8. Tropical Zone: Temperate Zone
9. Climate-smart Agriculture
10. Tropical rain forest – Description
11. Vegetation of savannah
12. Water on the planet Earth
13. Moringa and Tamarind
14. The black cotton soil of India

Science and Technology

1. Recombinant Vector Vaccines
2. Hereditary diseases
3. Bollgard I and Bollgard II technologies
4. Pressure cooker mechanism
5. Microorganisms: artificial/ synthetic medium
6. Adenovirus vs Retrovirus
7. Solubility of water: Dipole
8. Street lighting: Sodium Lamps vs LED Lamps
9. ACE2: Spread of Viral Diseases
10. Bisphenol A (BPA): Polycarbonate Plastics
11. Triclosan: Toiletries
12. Astronomical distance: Light years

Indian Polity

1. Parliamentary democracy: India vs Britain
2. Union Government: Administrative Reforms
3. Right to Privacy: Article
4. Election: candidates contesting from multiple constituencies
5. Right to the City
6. Judicial custody
7. Parole Rules
8. Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006
9. Uncontrolled discretionary power: Article
10. Federal Character
11. Defenition of the State
12. Indian Judiciary
13. Citizenship
14. Best safeguard of liberty in a liberal democracy
15. Indian constitution – concentration of wealth: DPSP
16. Position of the Right to Property in India
17. The exact constitutional status of India on 26th January 1950
18. Constitutional government
19. Tribal languages: halbi, Ho and Kui
20. Bharat Ratna and Padma Awards

Current Affairs: Events of National and International Importance

1. Hyderabad: Tree City of the World
2. Laureus World Sports Award
3. 32nd Summer Olympics
4. ICC World Test Championship

Also read: UPSC Prelims 2019 Question Topics – 100 Areas from which UPSC Framed Questions This Year

Analysis of the UPSC Questions Paper 2021

The priority of UPSC will not remain stagnant.

UPSC in one year gives priority to a few subjects or topics. The weightage can vary in the next year.

What UPSC gives priority in the Civil Services Examination (CSE) has changed a lot in the last 3-4 years.

However, there are certain key points to be remembered.

(1) You should be conceptually strong in static subjects: There are static areas and there are dynamic areas (current affairs). Current affairs are not separate from static areas.  They are highly connected. However, priority should be given to static areas. Only if you know static areas, you can properly connect them with items in news (Economy related news, Polity related news, Technology related news etc).

(2) UPSC has increased the sources from which questions are prepared: In earlier days, UPSC used to prepare 100 questions by referring to only a few sources. But now, in the online age, there is no dearth of sources for the Commission. The Commission does not stick to just the popular textbooks most aspirants limit their preparation with.

(3) Don’t limit your preparation just to traditional sources: Most of the questions asked in UPSC CSE 2021 cannot be answered by just referring to NCERT text-books or standard reference textbooks. I am not saying textbooks are unimportant. But you may get only 30-40% of questions nowadays from traditional textbooks. You need wide reading (Eg: Newspapers, Online Sources, New Textbooks etc) and the application of Intelligent Elimination Techniques (IETs) to ensure that you cross the cut-off score.

(4) Focus on the new topics along with evergreen question areas: There are certain favourite areas for UPSC. For example, FDI, Inflation, Monetary Policy etc are evergreen topics with respect to the Indian Economy. However, aspirants cannot limit their preparation just to these repeated areas. UPSC nowadays includes questions from a lot of new areas which is of interest to a serious aspirant.

(5) First things first: It’s impossible to go behind all possible sources. You should focus your attention on those resources which give maximum results in minimum time. From that perspective, I recommend the 3 items – ClearIAS Online Classes, ClearIAS Online Mock Exams, and UPSC CSE Re-Take Exams – to be part of the Core Resources.

(6) There is no alternative to newspapers: The monthly compilations of coaching websites may help. But they should be clubbed with at least 30 minutes of daily newspaper reading. I recommend TheHindu and TheHindu Business Line. Questions like The Tree City of the World in 2021 and The Bud Chip Settling of Sugar Cane in 2020 could have been answered from the Hindu Business Line. You can use the discount code CLEARIAS to get an extra Rs.100 discount on TH and BL e-papers. More details are here.

100-Topics Break Up of UPSC Previous Year Question Papers

• 100 Areas from which UPSC prepared Prelims questions in 2020.
• 100 Areas from which UPSC prepared Prelims questions in 2019.

More insights on UPSC Previous Year Question Papers

This is not the end of the discussion. I have many more insights to share on the previous year’s UPSC CSE Question Papers.

A detailed analysis of the paper will be conducted live in the coming days as part of the ClearIAS 50-Days Prelims Marks Booster Program.

Let me know what you think of the break-up of the 100 topics in this article. You can use the comment section.

I shall also guide you on how to prepare for the upcoming prelims based on the trends and patterns noticed in the previous year’s question papers.

Catch you in the live interactive class!

Regards, Alex.