CSAT (Civil Services Aptitude Test) New Format

With the Government of India approving a proposal in March this year to introduce an aptitude test in place of the existing optional paper in the Civils preliminary examination, aspirants for the civil services will face a different pattern of examination from next year (2011). The candidates will now have to , for the prelims exam, appear in two objective-type papers having special emphasis on testing their "aptitude for civil services" as well as on "ethical and moral dimension of decision-making" under a new moniker CSAT (Civil Services Aptitude Test ).

Both these papers — having equal weightage — will be common to all candidates in place of the one common paper (general awareness) and one optional paper (any particular subject of choice) under the existing system which lays greater emphasis on subject knowledge.

As of now, the change will be effective only for the first stage of the Civil Services Examination (CSE) from 2011 onwards. The second and third stages — Main Examination and interview respectively — may remain unchanged till a committee of experts submits its report after a thorough analysis. The CSAT will test the aptitude of the candidate rather than memory testing, according to officials. Each year 500000 applicants apply for Civil Services Examination (Preliminary). From 2011, the pattern of new civil services exam will be CSAT, main exam and interview.

The first question which would come to many people would be - why is this change made?
Committees like the second Administrative Reforms Commission, while suggesting key changes, gave importance to ‘aptitude’ of candidates rather than their knowledge of a particular subject. In their view, specialisation in specific subjects has no direct correlation with those people being good civil servants. This, along with the obscurity in disclosure of individual performances was the key aspects of change recommendations. Also, bringing the scores of individuals taking different optional papers onto a common comparable scale leaves many issues open to debate. Hence, UPSC has decided to do away with the optional paper and instead introduced General Aptitude paper in its place.

This is a major change in the exam pattern after the introduction of Negative marking system last year in the Civil Services Examination. Proposed changes/improvements lined up for the future are the change in the Mains pattern and Online Application system.

Posted in: CSAT