Knowing about one’s own country comes first before the ability to serve the country, the CSAT has captured this idea well and is expected to reform the civil service cadre jobs with ethical and moral values!
The government of India was constantly receiving complaints regarding the earlier pattern, i.e. preliminary examination pattern, because of the unfair treatment for one subject, or the other and many more… Hence, the government and UPSC has decided to accomplish one common entrance exam for all the candidates in order to avoid any rumors of unfair treatment. According to my perception, this concept of CSAT is praiseworthy, because in the earlier pattern, i.e. in the preliminary examination pattern, the objective type question papers were based on the general studies and the optional subjects (the optional subjects are chosen by the candidates), hence the students weren’t brought to light regarding the ethical values and moral attributes. Many candidates weren’t aware of the Indian history, but would in turn score high marks in the preliminary examination, but without knowledge about the country, there is no use of getting appointed as the officers in the civil services cadres. And it is also said that both the papers in the CSAT would be bearing same weightage, when it is coming to marks allotment segment and also would be the same to all the aspiring candidates of the civil services examination.
CSAT Pattern
The pattern of CSAT comprises of two objective papers, much similar to the preliminary examination structure, but differs from the preliminary examination pattern in its syllabus category. The CSAT syllabus structure comprises of objective type questions that in turn give special emphasize on the aptitude skills and decision making skills of the participating candidates. Hence, the existing system would be no longer practiced, i.e. the existing civil service examination comprises of general studies and optional subjects, but the CSAT would be consisting of two objective type questions papers, but would be focused to measure the ethical and moral aptitude of the candidates. Thus, the CSAT examination would possess a question pattern that would be common to all the candidates, and it doesn’t vary from one candidate to another.
CSAT Opinions
And if we look at the CSAT and compare it with the existing preliminary examination, then anyone could say easily that CSAT is the better option, especially for one of its major significant features that focuses on the ethical and moral dimension of the services. This is in turn is really important in particular to the civil services examinations, because it is prominent for a person who is in the civil services position to act ethically, besides being a mandatory knowledgeable person. But, there are mixed opinions, regarding the same, as some students have expressed their regrets on the new scheme of the civil services examination, majorly for the reason that it would not be having any options to choose from, i.e. all the candidates would be asked to attend one common aptitude test and it would not bestow the candidates with options, like ‘optional subjects.’ This is because, some candidates would be strong in ‘general studies’ paper and some other candidates would be strong in the ‘optional subjects’, thus the students had a mentality of mixing and matching their focus on these two options. But, this would not be possible any more, hence some candidates are feeling that they have lost the freedom of choosing from their strength!