The civil services prelims examination which was conducted at Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Tirupati in the State on Sunday passed off peacefully. However, authorities said many candidates skipped the exam and the attendance percentage was very low.
In Vijayawada, where the exam was conducted for the first time, recorded an average attendance of 32 per cent for both sessions. Similarly, Visakhapatnam and Tirupati also recorded average attendance of 36 per cent and 38 per cent respectively.
The examination was conducted in two sessions for Paper I (morning) and II (afternoon). The Krishna district authorities made elaborate arrangements for peaceful conduct of the exam at 31 centres in Vijayawada. As many as 31 supervisors and 40 assistant supervisors were deployed to monitor the arrangements.
Senior IAS officer R.R.Puri, who was specially deployed by the UPSC, inspected a few centres in the city.
“The exam passed off peacefully and there were no untoward incidents. However, there was low attendance of candidates,” said Krishna Collector M. Raghunandana Rao.
In all, 14,640 candidates were to appear for the test but only 4,805 of them showed up for Paper I and 4,755 appeared for Paper II, he informed. In Tirupati, 13 centres were established and 7,786 candidates registered for the examination. Of them, 3,000 candidates appeared for Paper I and 2984 for Paper II. In Visakhapatnam, 23 centres were set up and out of 11,710 candidates registered, 4,466 appeared for Paper I and 4,405 appeared for Paper II.
Senior instructors and candidates said the exam was tough and there was a considerable shift in question papers, compared to the last couple of examinations.
M. Deepika Reddy, instructor at Hyderabad Study Circle, said the questions were focused on environmental issues and factual information. The questions were set in a manner to test the candidates’ analytical skills and knowledge on different issues, she said.
“In Paper II, there were few questions pertaining to inter-personal skills and decision-making and most candidates said they could not complete the paper due to lengthy passages. Given the feedback from candidates, we expect the cut-off to come down considerably,” said Ms. Reddy.
