The contentious civil services preliminary examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has now created much heat inside Parliament as well as on the streets of Delhi, with several aspirants fearing that they stand to lose.
The protests have intensified with the UPSC issuing admit cards for the exam scheduled for August 24.
The government had earlier urged the UPSC, a Constitutional body that could ignore directives from the executive, to postpone the exam following protests.
A section of aspirants from north India believe that the new Civil Services Aptitude Test, introduced in 2011 as part of preliminary exams, is heavily loaded against them.
Until 2010, there were two papers for preliminary exam – one on general studies and a second one where the aspirant could choose an optional from an list of 23 subjects.
However, under the revised scheme, there is a common platform of testing the candidates and there are two papers each carrying 200 marks.
The Paper-I examines candidate's knowledge in current affairs, history, geography, polity, economics and general science, while Paper-II is more of an aptitude test, which analyses the aspirant's interpersonal skills, logical reasoning, analytical ability, mental ability, basic numeracy and Class X English language skills.
The aspirants, who have now taken to streets against the new scheme, allege that the aptitude test benefits students who are proficient in English and those who are from science stream.
Though authorities claim English proficiency test in the exam analyses Class X English language skills, protesters say it is way above that standard. They also alleged that the Hindi translations of questions on logical reasoning, analytical ability, mental ability and basic numeracy are faulty and they are at a disadvantage on this count.
“We will continue our protest until we get a written assurance that the examination date will be extended and the CSAT will be scrapped,” Anurag Chaturvedi, an aspirant, said.