Civils: Many issues worry aspirants

• Deferment should have been by 2-3 months, say students
• UPSC ducks 'key' issue

BH Ramakrishna Union Public Service Commission, without specifying exact reasons, has postponed the Civil Services Main Examination, scheduled to be held in the first week of November, by a month. Without much ado, the UPSC has placed the postponement in the time-table rather silently and the Mains will now be conducted from December 1 onwards. Several aspirants, though a bit relieved with the postponement, however, sought more time to prepare themselves for preparation of the all important national exam. "They should have postponed it by at least three months so that we can comfortably on course of our prep," Vineel Kumar, an aspirant said. "Earlier the syllabus was rather hidden in nature and now it's elaborate. Weightage is also being given now which was less in the earlier pattern. But the new pattern definitely requires more time, preferably three more months," Venugopal Reddy, another aspirant felt. "The changes that are effected should have been gradual in a span of three years. But they are being implemented suddenly which deals a blow and with lesser time, it will be difficult for us to prepare," Jyothi of Khammam said. Citing reasons of the deferment, Gopala Krishna, Director of Brain Tree, said the exhaustive nature of the syllabus could be one of the reasons. "The syllabus was notified after much delay. The issue of language papers has delayed the process further and the students of several states were in a state of confusion for few weeks. Now, they need a little more time to prepare themselves for mains," he felt. Although the postponement is a bit relief for students, holding mains exams continuously will be rather intractable for students, Gopala Krishna opines. "In the earlier pattern, it used to take nearly 21 days to finish off all the mains papers as the optional subjects were more. Now, in the revised pattern, aspirants shall choose one optional and there are four General Studies papers. So, aspirants have to write all the papers in just under five days. That means, mains exams are reduced from 21-5 days. So, practically there is no gap between the papers which will be rather stressful" he explained. But there are other issues which cause a great deal of worry to the candidates. The bias towards candidates from Hindi heartland continues in the prelims. In the second paper of prelims, i.e. CSAT, held in the afternoon, the question on "reading comprehension" will be advantageous for the Hindi students as the question would be both in English and Hindi. Since Hindi is their mother tongue, they can easily understand and score over English-elective candidates. In a way, there is no level playing field, south Indian students complained. Another aspect is availability of Key. The UPSC authorities do not have the practice of releasing the key after prelims. The Commission does not correct itself by awarding additional marks if there are any mistakes in the paper. "We brought this issue to the notice of CPIO (Chief Public Information Officer) of UPSC and sought the key but he rejected our plea. We then approached CIC (Chief Information Commissioner) and he directed the UPSC to release the key," Akula Ramana, an aspirant and also a crusader of reforms, told The Hans India. "UPSC has stated clearly in the notification that it will not share any information with regard to question papers and answer-sheets, stating that it cannot do so as a constitutional body. We wonder when many Constitutional bodies can do the same, why not UPSC?" Venkat, another seeker asked. UPSC's valuation procedure has also been drawing criticism. "In some subjects, especially in paper II, the number of marks huge number of aspirants are getting are same. We noticed it in Public Administration, where hundreds of students get 74 marks in paper II. How is it possible, we don't know," Venkat said with a bit of surprise.