The proportion of
engineers applying and passing UPSC exams has increased to almost 60% this year,
much to the dissatisfaction of those from the humanities background. The ongoing
debate of whether the exam pattern is fair or unfair to a certain class of
students took a prominent turn in May 2015, when the government announced that
from this year onwards only 33% qualifying marks will be required for CSAT in prelims.
This announcement came in escalation to last year’s protests by some UPSC
candidates at Jantar Mantar demanding the scrapping of CSAT. As a result, the
government decided to alter the pattern of paper 2 in the prelims instead of doing
away with it completely. PaGaLGuY finds out how this new rule affects different
factions of UPSC aspirants and their preparations.

As per the previous
pattern of prelims, cumulative marks for GS 1 and GS 2 would be considered in
deciding the qualifying cut-off for the main exam. Several students complained
that this gave an undue advantage to candidates especially from urban engineering
background who would score well in paper 2 due to strong grasp over Maths and English.
But with the new rule, candidates have to only score 66 out of 200 in paper 2
to qualify, which now enables them to concentrate only on their strong points
and spare less time on English and Maths sections. Aamil Syed, a candidate with
an engineering degree says, “The earlier format was skewed in favour of
students like us, but with the new rule, no one stands at an undue advantage.”

“It all boils down to
the strategy of the candidates in solving the section that they think is their
strongest bet,” says Shraddha Kakade, a candidate with a Political Science
degree. Earlier engineers had a strategy to score most marks in CSAT, which
gave them a leeway in GS 1 and raised their cumulative marks.

But this year such
tricks may not work. Vaishnav Mudbhatkal, who is giving his 2nd
attempt this year, says, “While the Centre has reduced the qualifying marks,
there are chances that the difficulty of the paper will be high enough to make
it tough to pass.”  

Although, the reason
for last year’s protest was the language barrier for those from rural areas;
what about engineers coming from small towns? Being an engineer does not imply
that one is fluent in English. So it is not fair to say that the previous
pattern was beneficial to all engineers. Sarang Vilhekar who has appeared for
the exam 7 times thinks, “Exam pattern should be based on the requirement of
the government post not on the convenience of applicants. Maths and English
section in CSAT is of 10th STD level. If candidates are not able to crack
questions of basic education, they may not make good officers.”

Onkar Dichwalkar,
another non-engineering candidate thinks, “Candidates from vernacular mediums cannot
use language as an excuse to pass these exams. The new system now puts all on
an equal footing, even engineers.”

However, there are some
engineers who have questioned the purpose of this change and think that the
protesters’ demand to scrap out CSAT was more viable than the government’s move.
Advait Chawde, an engineer from Mumbai who is giving his 3rd attempt
this year says, “GS 1 is now the only parameter to judge a candidate’s
credibility. I see no benefit in conducting the CSAT at all, since qualifying
is not that tough for most candidates, and it does not test you on your weak points.
As an engineer, the earlier CSAT was at least a small milestone, but now it’s
the simplest of all papers in UPSC.”

On the other hand,
Manisha Patekar, an ex-student of IIT-Madras feels that the new system is
infact unfair to non-engineers since now they have no incentive to work on
their weaknesses. The earlier pattern compelled applicants to strive towards
improving their language and quantitative aptitude which is a must for an
IAS/IFS/IPS.

While candidates have mixed
reviews about the government’s decision, there have been some complaints on the
delayed announcement. Candidates who have been preparing for UPSC for several
months now have only 3 months before the exam to alter their strategy to suit
the changed pattern. “One of the reasons why I am not appearing for this year’s
attempt is because I feel it’s still in the experimental stage and there are
chances of several glitches coming to light during and post the exam,” says
Omkar Dichwalkar.

In all, candidates have
mixed feelings about the government’s move, while engineers feel that the new
pattern will enable them to concentrate more on GS 1 which is a tougher paper
than CSAT.