Civil Services aspirants better brush up your English skills fast if you wish to taste success in the changed examination pattern coming into force from next year.

The sample questions released by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), experts say, indicate the requirement of a fairly high level of English competency. Though this is not the final indication on the quality of English skills to be tested it is surely a sign of the fact that English language skills might become crucial in separating the successful and the unsuccessful.

“Candidates from rural and semi-urban areas should take extra care in case they are weak in English or have studied throughout in the regional medium,” says V. Gopala Krishna, Director, Brain Tree, a popular Civils coaching centre. He says the sample questions released by the UPSC also indicate that the pattern of questions would not be a replica of the questions that appear in tests like banking recruitment tests or GRE.

As per the new pattern there will be no optional paper from next year and it will be replaced by an aptitude test. Aspirants expect that questions in the aptitude part may be on the lines of other popular examinations like Common Admission Test (CAT) or Graduate Record Examination (GRE). But Civil Services trainers say questions on comprehension, decision making and reasoning are expected from the arena of government and governance.

The preliminary examination would consist of two papers - Paper-I and Paper-II with 200 marks each. The paper-II will have seven segments including Comprehension, Interpersonal skills including communication skills, Logical reasoning and analytical ability, Decision making and problem solving, General mental ability, Basic numeracy and Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency.

Trainers like Mr. Gopala Krishna say that aspirants who have shifted to ‘Arts' subjects because of a dislike towards ‘Mathematics' in Class 10 should take extra care in preparing for Mathematics.

And the sample questions also reinforce the fact that analytical ability and logical reasoning will be given lot of importance in the preliminary test. “As the scenario is uncertain it is better to focus on building a strong foundation in new subjects so that any question can be tackled with ease,” Mr. Gopala Krishna advices.

“The comfort of non-maths questions in the prelims is totally taken off now,” says a trainer at R.C. Reddy Study Circle.

More and more engineers are getting drawn to civil services and new pattern will help them to a great extent. Candidates from humanities stream are likely to find the prelims tougher than previous years.

However, the new pattern offers several advantages for the aspirants. The changes in the pattern will have a multiplier effect. In the old pattern, an aspirant had to focus full time preparing for the Preliminary as the optional subject demanded ‘in-depth' study. Also, there was the lingering doubt whether the attempt would be a success or will the preparation help me in any other examinations?

“The new pattern is useful for almost all the competitive examinations. It will have the ‘popcorn 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,” Mr. Gopala Krishna feels. Majority of these candidates also appear for several exams for recruitment in Government sector like banks, defence and engineering services and this preparation will help them.

In the earlier system, where the candidate had to take a compulsory optional subject majority used to prefer the “scoring” subjects deviating from what they had studied at graduate or post-graduate level. Expertise in such subjects would not help candidates in other examinations except the Civil Services or Group-I exams conducted for the State cadre officers. But the optional subject carried an advantage with it for candidates who would succeed in prelims as they could have used that expertise in the Mains examination too.

Source : The Hindu