Civils Prelims tougher than last year

Questions from unconventional area

The Civil Services Preliminary exam tested the conceptual learning of the candidates as well as their knowledge, moving away from the traditional questions and topics which used to be a regular practice in the earlier years.

The exam, which was conducted on Sunday, is said to be tougher than last year and the cut-off mark is likely to be between 95 and 105, going by the feedback from various training academies and aspirants.

“There were 17 questions from economic and social development, 16 from geography, 15 from history, 14 from general science, 13 from Indian polity and governance, 13 from environment and ecology and about 12 questions from general knowledge and current affairs,” said V. Gopalakrishna, director of Brain Tree.

“Questions were more from science and technology and this is an increase as compared to the previous years,” said Deepika Reddy, director of Shikara IAS Academy. She opined that the questions were unconventional and a lot of focus was on legislature in polity. “The paper was tougher than last year.” “There were questions on biodiversity issues, forest rights and tribal rights. Some questions were so deep that minor rules in waste management Acts were also given,” said Rambabu of La Excellence. “In history, questions were more on medieval India than modern India unlike the earlier practice. There was a fall in the questions from traditional polity and geography.” “The paper was a mix of core areas and dynamic aspects of the syllabus. This ensures that irrespective of domain expertise, no candidate has an undue advantage,” said Mr. Gopala Krishna. Trainers, however, differed with the cut-off marks, but maintained that 100 to 105 could be the average cut-off mark for the general category candidates. For economically-weaker sections, it may hover around 98-100, for OBC 99 to 103, and for SCs and STs between 80 and 85.

Ms. Deepika Reddy feels that those who score more than 90 based on the key to be released should start their Mains preparation. The results of the examination can be expected around July 10.

As many as 79,697 aspirants from the Telugu-speaking States had applied for the Civil Services examination with Hyderabad having the highest number of applicants (49,033), followed by Vijayawada (9,872), Visakhapatnam (9,112), Warangal (4,962), Tirupati (4,639) and Ananthapur (2,079).