Hyderabad: Only half the applicants turn up for UPSC prelims

Hyderabad: The Union Public Service Commission conducted a preliminary examination for civil service aspirants on Sunday to screen the candidates for the mains exam which is scheduled to be conducted in September to fill up 896 vacancies after the personality test. Around 10 lakh students registered for the examination natio-nwide. Of the 49,033 candidates registered in the city, only 25,161 appeared for the test.

There were two papers, one each in the morning and afternoon sessions. Candidates and experts felt that the exams were of moderate difficulty and there was focus on current affairs rather than book knowledge.

Experts said the questions focused on ‘governmental sense’. “The paper was a mix of core areas and the dynamic aspects of the syllabus, covering almost all the areas. This ensures that irrespective of domain expertise, no candidate gets undue advantage,” said Mr Gopala Krishna, director, Brain Tree.

According to the experts, the qualifying marks based on the data of the previous years are: 100-105 for general category, 98-100 for economically weaker sections (EWS), 99-103 for Other Backward Classes (OBC), 80-85 for Scheduled Castes (SC), 80-85 for Scheduled Tribes (ST).

The UPSC conducts annual examination for the civil services aspirants, in which preliminary examination is the first stage of the of two-step recruitment process, and the other one is mains examination, which is descriptive followed by an interview or the personality test. The test screens aspirants for the posts in Indian Administrative Serv-ice, Indian Foreign Service, Indian Police Service, Indian Reven-ue Service and others.
    
The results for the preliminary exam can be expected around July 10. The mains exam is scheduled on September 20.