- Minimum Passing marks in English & Language papers
- Principle used to fix minimum passing marks in Mains?
- Candidates selected for Mains (Categorywise)
- Attendance in Mains-2013
- Tentative Result dates for Mains-2013
- Re-evaluation of Mains answersheet?
- Absence in one of the papers=Disqualification?
Had filled this RTI on 16th December 2013, received reply yesterday (20 January 2014)
Minimum Passing marks in English & Language papers
Q. Kindly provide me Minimum passing marks, and total number of candidates failed in Compulsory English paper and Indian language papers in the civil services (Mains) examinations of 2010, 2011, and 2012.
UPSC replies:
- It is informed that the disclosure of minimum qualifying standards of the English compulsory paper and the Indian Language compulsory papers to the particular RTI applicant would confer an unfair advantage to the applicant (Mrunal)/those close to him in terms of preparation for the Civil Services Examination.
- This would be unfair to, and is likely to harm the competitive position of the thousands of other candidates, especially those from rural/remote areas, in this competitive examination. Therefore, disclosure of this information is exempted u/s 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act, 2005, as it would unfairly impact on the competitive position of third parties.
- Further, if the qualifying marks of previous years) were to be disclosed, there is every possibility that candidates would not put in their best efforts but only enough to achieve the predicted qualifying standards.
- This would have implications in the quality of the paper (thus detracting from the prestige of the exam) and in setting the consequent year’s qualifying standards.
- This is not in the Commission’s interest and in its capacity thus as an affected third party, exemption u/s 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act, 2005 is again invoked.
- It is also informed that the number of candidates failed in compulsory English and Indian Language papers is not compiled. Hence, cannot be provided.
Mrunal comments: Waah Ustaad Waah. You say if passing marks are disclosed then “people will not put their best efforts and prestige of the exam will be lost” => in a way, it implies that passing marks are ridiculously low.
But many candidates have failed in the language papers in past. This leads to a new conspiracy theory:
- that Candidates were too dumb hence they fail even if minimum passing marks are too low OR
- that Professors who’re not qualified to check language papers, are involved in evaluation and /or setting the minimum passing marks. OR
- that UPSC lost some answersheets and randomly failed candidates.
Anyways, I’ll appeal all the way to CIC.
Principle used to fix minimum passing marks in Mains?
Q. What principle does UPSC apply to fix minimum passing marks/ qualifying marks for each of these compulsory English or Indian language paper? (e.g. fix 35-40% of maximum marks as in school and college exam OR fix a random number to fail bottom 1/6th of the candidates or some sort of percentile system?)
UPSC replies: Your query is interrogatory in nature and not for information as defined under Section 2(f) of the RTI Act, 2005. However it is informed that minimum qualifying standard is fixed by the Commission at their discretion as per rules of the Examination.
Mrunal comments: right, let this be a lesson (to myself) and any future RTI applicants- always ask question regarding to paper records. In this question, I should have asked “provide me a copy of official policy/guideline/minutes of the meeting pertaining to fixing of minimum passing marks in English and compulsory language papers of Mains examination.”
Candidates selected for Mains (Categorywise)
Q. Total number of candidates qualified for the mains examination. (i.e. cleared the preliminary exam of 2013), category wise (SC,ST,OBC,PH and General).
category | candidates selected for mains | % wise |
SC | 2714 | 18.143 |
ST | 1251 | 8.363 |
OBC | 4715 | 31.519 |
General | 6279 | 41.975 |
total | 14959 | 100.000 |
However, these figures are subject to change when complete scrutiny of their respective claims of community/category/PH status etc. is taken /complete.
Mrunal comments:
UPSC only told the absolutes numbers, I’ve made the percentage table. it won’t fit the traditional 15-7.5-27 reservation because of overlapping PH category. But I’ve filled a separate RTI on that regard, response still awaited.
Attendance in Mains-2013
Q. Total number of candidates who filled DAF forms for civil service Mains exam 2013.
UPSC replies: A total of 14800 candidates filled DAF for CS(Main) Exam 2013.
(I’m curious what happened to those 14959-14800=159 candidates? May be they were ‘solely’ dedicated to IFoS.)
Q. Total number of candidates that actually appeared in Mains examination.
Firmed up details are yet to be finalized.
Q. Total number of candidates remained absent in one or more papers of Mains examination.
Firmed up details are yet to be finalized.
Tentative Result dates for Mains-2013
Q. Tentative dates for declaration of the result of CSE-Mains-2013.
UPSC replies: CPIO is not expected to predict future couse of action of the Public Authority. However, the result of CS(Maiin) exam 2013 (written) may be declared In March/April 2014.
Re-evaluation of Mains answersheet?
Question: After 2012’s CSE examination, did UPSC receive any application/petition/request(s) from candidate(s), seeking re-evaluations of their answersheets, particularly the Compulsory English / Indian Language paper?
- If yes, did UPSC re-evaluate paper(s) of any of such candidates?
- If yes to above question, did UPSC change were any candidate’s marks/result accordingly?
UPSC replies: A number of candidates, who were not satisfied with their result had requested to the Commission for re-checking or re-valuation of their answer books of Civil Services (Main) exam 2012. However, as there was no provision in CSE Rules for re-valuation of answer books, no such re-valuation was undertaken. Nevertheless, the answer books of all such candidates were re-checked/re-scrutinized to rule out any technical/human error, which could have affected the result.
Absence in one of the papers=Disqualification?
Q. For the Forest Service and Civil Service Mains exam of 2013, If a candidate had remained absent in one or more papers (except language paper) due to any unforeseen events such as road-accident, Will he be still be considered for the next round (i.e. Interview) if he scores sufficient marks in remaining papers? Of course CPIO cannot speculate answer for hypothetical questions, but since UPSC official notification is silent on this issue, I seek to know the gist of official policy /procedure / past decisions / exemptions granted to any candidate(s) in the earlier exams.
UPSC replies: The CPIO is not expected to comment on hypothetical situations nor he is required to study and explain the provisions of rules/notifications to satisfy the queries of an FM applicant.
Mrunal comments: but I told you in the question itself- notification is silent on this issue! Anyways another learning experience on how *not to frame* RTI questions. will talk with the RTI & legal experts and frame the appeal to FAA and CIC.
Ref:
Scanned copy of UPSC’s RTI reply: https://files.secureserver.net/0szPCxMFQbKWqK
For more RTI misadventures, visit Mrunal.org/RTI.
Hi, Ive been hearinf two rumours , one from a friend in MEA telling me that therre is a possible reduction of attempts to 3 and age limit to 2 for general. This is what he said
26 for ur
28 for obc
29 for sc/st
3 chance for ur
4 chance for obc
5 for sc/st Could this be true ?
Secondly, another friend says he knew a person who corrected GS3 and only 9600 GS papers were corrected, Does that mean only 3/5 of total 15k ppl cleared the language barrier? plus he said top marks in each paper were scrutinised again by chairman , about 140 papers of GS3 with more than 170 marks were sent to him it seems
I have a small doubt as i hope u r a candidate who wrote mains.am confused over this new scheme.how much qns u wrote for gs papers and did u got time for all questions to answer?and how much minimum qns one should attempt in this mininmum3hrs to assure an interview call.170marks means more than 17qns correct.actually is it possible to write 200words for all these.i heard time management s very critical n xam.i dnt knw much plz clarify my doubts
26 and 3 chances for ur -> may happen [since the govt isn’t worried about this category or their votes] but the others are not going to happen as this would strike catastrophe for the govt. Even if UPSC it will be reverted like the language paper last time due to popular pressure.
any news about upsc mains result date, cut off ?
i inquired by collecting data from many candidates …a person with 76 in english qualified while a person with 72 couldn’t.In Hindi a person with 88 failed while a person qualified with 92 qualified
Can anyone plz tell me around how much questions a person should attempt to clear generalstudies paper,how much average marks to be got to get an interview call?
thank you lot sir,,,,
waiting for march/april..
@novice .. completely agree with u.. somebody will have to raise voice against this unjustice. y do we have to score more than these IIT passed reserve category students, who do coaching in mukherjee nagar ,have all possible means and still claim reservation…have some guts dude to compete in general category
i have some quistion very first -1 how many candidate passed upsc prelims 2013 gradiation subject wise means B A ,B Com ,Bsc Be Mbbs .question 2 how many hindi and other meadium candidate appered in prelims and passed pre and passed mains and finaly selected.pls answer it with explanation
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Upsc’s stand on not disclosing language cutoff’s seems logical to me. Suppose people know that the cutoff is 80/300 and thus they deliberately attempt only ~150/300. This way more and more candidates attempt lesser, and consequently it may be possible that in order to select at least 12-13000 candidates, UPSC are forced to lower the cutoff all the way down to 50-60 marks. It may result in a vicious cycle and next time, the score may fall even low. Thus, UPSC may actually need to protect this information to maintain salience of compulsory papers. If no one is performing as per their potential, how is UPSC supposed to judge them. I think they are a little bit justified.
UPSE Exam has clarified regarding it,hence please remove the above post .PFA the correct link and if possible post it in your blog.Information regarding language paper is mentioned in left side of 4th page in bold letter.
http://upsc.gov.in/exams/notifications/2014/csp/CSP%202014%20English.pdf
Respected Sir,
Any of the files/scanned copies on secureserver in your pages could not be retrieved as the links have become invalid. Kindly provide the access to all copies of the RTI application by you and it’s reply by UPSC to the same.
Kindly provide your contact number, it will be helpful to take inputs from you for further process to bring in reforms in the system.
Scanned copy of UPSC’s RTI reply: https://files.secureserver.net/0szPCxMFQbKWqK
With Regards