UPSC: Panel may find it hard to scrap English test

NEW DELHI: Even as the Arvind Verma committee finalises its report on the revised Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination pattern, senior government officials have warned the panel may have no scientific way of assessing whether the controversial CSAT has put Hindi-medium students at a disadvantage. That's because an applicant's preferred medium is not spelt out at the prelims stage.

There are also apprehensions within UPSC and DoPT that any relaxation in English comprehension component of CSAT may spawn demands for a similar concession as regards the English paper relating to the Mains examination. The Mains English paper, which includes essay writing and questions on comprehension and precis, carries 300 marks.

"The prelims exam is objective and language neutral. All questions, except the 8-9 questions in Paper II-CSAT relating to English comprehension, carry a Hindi translation. So it is difficult to establish whether a candidate's lower marks are on account of his being from the non-Hindi background," a senior government official pointed out.

"Any comparison of success rates of Hindi/vernacular medium aspirants and English-medium applicants can be made only on the basis of the marks scored by them in the Mains examination," said the official. Incidentally, English comprehension carries no more than 22 marks in the 200-mark CSAT-II paper. "Given that the medium of the Prelims exam applicant is neither stated in the application nor apparent from the ORM (objective marking) sheet, the results of the prelims examination cannot be scientifically linked to the language preference of the candidate," argued an officer.

The application for the Mains examination is made separately, and it is only here that the candidate states his/her chosen medium for taking the exam.

Another concern of the authorities seized of the UPSC row is the impact of any revision in English comprehension component of CSAT on the compulsory English paper of the Civil Services (Mains) examination. "If CSAT is scrapped or diluted, it is but natural that a similar relaxation will be demanded in the Mains English paper, which carries subjective-type questions," said an official.