The Civil services examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Government of India, New Delhi has to be one of the most exacting type of examination so that the best of talents are picked and involved into the challenging task of national administration. Needless to say civil services examination has to be an elaborate exercise with successive hurdle stages so that to proceed to next stage, pass in the previous stage is the pre condition. The three stages are Preliminary examination, Main (written) examination and the Personality text.
The first hurdle stage is the Preliminary examination. Now the format of preliminary examination has been changed to Civil Service Aptitude Text (or CSAT for short) Since, these papers are common to all, candidates who are appearing from diverse fields have equal opportunities for success.
Previously, the Civil Services Preliminary Examination consisted of two papers : The first on general studies carrying 150 marks which was common to all ; The Second was an optional paper carried 300 marks for which the candidate had to choose from a list of twenty four odd subjects.
From time to time, changes have been made in the structure to meet the emerging challenges. Many experts and panels had advocated laying greater emphasis on the ‘aptitude ‘ of candidates than on their knowledge of a subject. Accordingly, the format of preliminary examination has been changed to CSAT.
The new Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) would consist of two papers. Paper I and paper II carrying 200 marks each of 2 hours duration. Paper I consists of current events of national and international importance, History, Geography, Economics and Social development, Indian polity, environmental studies and general science. The newly introduced paper II consist of the following.
v Comprehension,
v Interpersonal skills including communication skills,
v Logical reasoning and analytical ability,
v Decision-making and problem solving,
v General mental ability,
v Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc. (Class X level), Data interpretation-charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency, etc. (Class X level)
v English language comprehension skills (Class X level)
The above change will be effective only for the first stage of the Civil Services Examinations from 2011 onwards. The Main Written Examination and the personality test remain the same for now.
Major Implications of CSAT :
Now, the proposed system of CSAT provides equal opportunities for all candidates because there is no subject bias as in the previous system due to different optional papers.
Now, the cognitive and application skills of the aspirants are tested rather than their ability to memorise their subjects theoretically.
Now the weightage for general studies has been increased from 33.3% (150 in 450 marks earlier) to 50% (200 in 400 marks)
In the present system, much importance is given to English language comprehension skills,. The experts opined that the sample questions released by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) indicate the requirements of a fairly high level of English competency
Aspirants expect that questions in the Aptitude part may resemble the pattern of popular examinations like Common Admission Test (CAT) or Graduate Record Examination (GRE). But Civil services trainers opine that the questions on comprehension, decision making and reasoning are expected from the area of government and governance .
Since Analytical ability and logical reasoning are given lot of importance, aspirants must develop their Mathematical ability and knowledge. A civil servant should be conversant with numbers, financial and quantitative data, budgets etc.
Also, in the new system there is a special emphasis on decision making skills. The ability of decision making involves taking a right decisions with moral and ethical values instead of taking facts-based decision. The decision making ability plays a vital role since a civil servant has to face and decide the real life situations.
Advantages:
The new pattern offers several advantages for the aspirants.
In the old patten, an aspirant has to spend more time on optional subject since it needs in-depth study and it is not very much useful in other competition examinations. But, the new pattern is useful for almost all the Competitive examination. The Director of ‘Brain Tree,’ a popular civil services coaching centre, Mr.Gopala Krishna says, “The changes in the pattern will have a multiplier effect. It will take time before it yields results But once you are successful in one exam similar results will follow in other competitive examinations”.
This preparation is very much useful to several exams in the government sector like banks, defence and engineering services. So once the candidate prepares well with strenuous effort, it will be a knowledge assert to him/her even though he/she meets failure in some attempts.
More professional course students, particularly, engineering graduates are getting drawn to civil services and the new pattern will be an advantage to a great extent.
Suggestions for Civil Services Career aspirants :
· Aspirants must develop special reading habits such as regular reading of newspaper, journals and magazine. Extensive reading of multiple newspapers and magazines is to be cultivated.
· Aspirants must take interest in general studies and current affairs right from school-college studies, so that general knowledge is gained as a routine.
· Aspirants must develop their lingual ability to do well in the CSAT and also in the main (written) examination and the personality test.
· Engineering graduates in large number can come forward to take up the civil services examination as their success rate is higher than that of other students.
· Candidates must capitalize on educational achievements of their family members.
· Candidates must develop their numerical ability and problem solving skills.
· Candidates must practice to solve many puzzles in mathematics. By writing model tests under simulated environment, this skill can be developed.
· Candidates must make complete and thorough Coverage of syllabus, with additional stress on important topics.
· At the examination, judicious allocation of time over the number of questions to be answered is a must.
· Candidates should not leave hope, even if the success does not turn up in the first one or two attempts. Experience gained from the earlier attempts be used to one’s advantage in the next attempts.
· Besides, one should choose quality coaching institute.
· Hard work, methodical preparation, perseverance, etc, are needed. Above all, great degree of commitment and achievement motivation is a pre requisite for success in the civil services examination.
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