Tough time for Civil Service aspirants

HYDERBAD: The change in the syllabus of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC)’s Civil Service Preliminary examination, which was held on Sunday, left the candidates unhappy as they had a tough time with the new pattern of questions. The examination comprised two papers, Paper I and Paper II, for 200 marks each and was held in over 84 test centres in the twin cities.“The prelims were quite difficult for me. Though the paper-I was easy, Paper II was tough with in-depth questions and I was unable to understand many of them. I did not have a proper idea about the new pattern of the examination,” said P Bhaskar, who wrote the test at the Railway Degree College, Tarnaka.  Most of the candidates with an Arts and Humanities background said that the new pattern would give an advantage to the engineering and science students.  S Venkateswarlu, who appeared for the test at the Saint Paul High School, Hyderguda concurred with Bhaskar when he said, “The new pattern was totally confusing for the candidates. Both papers 1 and 2 had objective-type questions till last year. But this year, the questions were in-depth and analytical in nature. Students of engineering and science streams would find it easy to score more in it.”  As per the new syllabus for the examination, Paper 1 included subjects like Indian polity and governance, the Constitution, political system, panchayati raj, public policy, Economic and social development, demographics, social sector initiatives, environmental ecology, bio-diversity and climate change.  Paper 2 had questions on general science, interpersonal skills including communication skills, logical reasoning, analytical ability, decision making, problem solving, general mental ability and basic arithmetic.Meanwhile, superintendent of Civil service examination in Hyderabad, Subrahmanyam told Express that the exam saw around 50 per cent attendance in the twin cities. “The examination was held without any untoward incidents in the city,” he added. As many as 34,665 candidates had registered for the exam.