Decision making questions describe a situation followed by four possible responses. You have to indicate most appropriate response. There is no penalty of wrong answers, so you must attempt all these questions. These questions are part of CSAT Paper 2.
CSAT 2011 had 8 such questions, CSAT 2012 had 7 such questions and CSAT 2013 had 6 such questions. The objective of decision making is to judge your character, mindset and personality.
1. You have differences of the opinion regarding the final report prepared by your subordinate that is to be submitted urgently. The subordinate is justifying the information given in the report. You would
2. You are competing with your batch-mate for the prestigious award to be decided based on an oral presentation. You have been asked by the committee to finish on time. Your friend however, is allowed more than the stipulated time period.
3. You are handling a time bound project. During the project review meeting, you find that project is likely to get delayed due to lack of cooperation of the team members. You would
4. You are a chairperson of a state sports committee. You have received a complaint and later it was found that an athlete in junior age category who has won a medal has crossed the age criteria by 5 days. You would
5. You are handling a priority project and have been meeting all the deadlines and planning your leave during the project. Your immediate boss does not grant leave citing the urgency of the project. You would
6. You are involved in setting up a water supply project in remote area. Full recovery of cost is impossible in any case. The income levels in the area are low and 25% of the population is below poverty line (BPL). When a decision has to be taken on pricing you would
7. As a citizen you have some work with a government department. The official calls you again and again; and without directly asking you, sends out feelers for a bribe. You want to get your work done. You would
8. You have been asked to give an explanation for not attending an important official meeting. Your immediate boss who has not informed you about the meeting is now putting pressure on you not to place an allegation against him/her. You would
9. A local thug (bad element) has started illegal construction on your vacant plot. He has refused your request to vacate and threatened you of dire consequences in case you do not sell the property at a cheap price to him. You would
10. You have to accomplish a very important task for your Headquarters within the next two days. Suddenly you meet with an accident. Your office insists that you complete the task. You would
11. You are an officer-in-charge for providing basic medical facilities to the survivors of an earthquake affected area. Despite your best possible effort, people put allegations against you for making money out of the funds given for relief. You would
12. You have been made responsible to hire boats at a short notice to be used for an area under flood. On seeing the price mentioned by the boat owners you found that the lowest price was approximately three times more than the approved rate of the Government. You would
13. You are the officer-in-charge of a village administering distribution of vaccine in an isolated epidemic hit village, and you are left with only one vaccine. There is a requirement of that vaccine from the Gram Pradhan and also a poor villager. You are being pressurized by the Gram Pradhan to issue the vaccine to him. You would
14. You have taken up a project to create night-shelters for homeless people during the winter season. Within a week of establishing the shelters, you have received complaints from the residents of the area about the increase in theft cases with a demand to remove the shelters. You would
15. You, as an administrative authority, have been approached, by the daughter-in-law of an influential person regarding harassment by her in-laws on account of insufficient dowry. Her parents are not able to approach you because of social pressures. You would
16. You are the head of your office. There are certain houses reserved for the allotment to the office staff and you have been given the discretion to do so. A set of rules for the allotment of the houses has been laid down by you and has been made public. Your personal secretary, who is very close to you, comes to you and pleads that as his father is seriously ill, he should be given priority in allotment of a house. The office secretariat that examined the request as per the rules turns down the request and recommends the procedure to be followed according to the rules. You do not want to annoy your personal secretary in such circumstances, what would you do?
17. While travelling in a Delhi-registered commercial taxi from Delhi to an adjacent city (another State), your taxi driver informs you that as he has no permit for running the taxi in that city, he will step at it Transport Office and pay the prescribed fee of Rs. forty for a day. While paying the fee at the counter you find that the transport clerk taking an extra fifty rupees for which no receipt is being given. You are in a hurry for your meeting. In such circumstances, what would you do?
18. A person lives in a far off village which is almost two hours by bus. The villager's neighbor is a very powerful landlord who is trying to occupy the poor villager's land by force. You are the District Magistrate and busy in a meeting called by a local Minister. The villager has in all the way, by bus and on foot, to see you and give an application seeking protection from the powerful landlord. The villager keeps on waiting outside the meeting hall for an hour. You come out of the meeting and are rushing to another meeting. The villager follows you to submit his application. What would you do?
19. There is a shortage of sugar in your District where you are the District Magistrate. The Government has ordered that only a maximum amount of 30 kg sugar is to be released for wedding celebrations. A son of your close friend is getting married and your friend requests you to release at least 50 kg sugar for his son's wedding. He expresses annoyance when you tell him about the Government's restrictions on this matter. He feels that since you are the District Magistrate you can release any amount. You do not want to spoil your friendship with him. In such circumstances, how would you deal with the situation?
20. You are in-charge of implementing the Family Planning programmes in an area where there is a strong opposition to the present policy. You want to convince the residents of the need for keeping small families. What would be the best way of communicating this message?
21. You are a teacher in a University and are setting a question paper on a particular subject. One of your colleagues, whose son is preparing for the examination on that subject, comes to you and informs you that it is his son's last chance to pass that examination and whether you could help him by indicating what questions are going to be in the examination. In the past, your colleague had helped you in another matter. Your colleague informs you that his son will suffer from depression if he fails in this examination. In such circumstances, what would you do?