The Group-1 Services main examination of Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) commenced on Tuesday with the general essay paper-I. The examination was rescheduled twice following objections raised by students after the answer key for the preliminary paper was displayed on its website.
The over-all percentage of attendance was 72.70 across six cities and the attendance in Hyderabad was 73.80 per cent across the 14 centres. The commission had initially cleared 16,426 candidates in the preliminary examination, of which 845 candidates were rendered ineligible and 1,201 additional candidates included after reconsidering the objections to the preliminary examination key.
“Around 184 students of the 845 were allowed to appear for the examination following an order by the tribunal. Around 11,445 of the 15,581 candidates eligible under the first list and 805 out of 845 candidates eligible under the second list downloaded their hall-tickets,” assistant secretary R. Sumathi said.
A large number of students from the 845 who were deselected from the first list were unaware of the tribunal-route for being permitted to appear for the examination. “A show-cause notice was posted on APPSC website on September 2 asking of the deselected candidates as to why they should be allowed to appear for the examination. After the cut-off was raised from 88 to 91 marks for the preliminary test, my name was struck down and each student had to obtain permission from the tribunal to appear for the mains examination. As most were unaware of this, they lost out on a chance to write it,” D. Srivani who was among the 184 allowed to write the examination, said.
Some candidates were also worried about paper - II scheduled for Thursday as there was a likelihood of disqualified students seeking a stay. “The all-India bandh call might be a problem in attending the examination,” APPSC aspirant Y Shivaprasad said.
The examination was conducted without any glitches though most of the students found the question paper ‘conventional’. “The questions followed the traditional pattern and there were no surprise elements,” another APPSC aspirant Kavitha said. The observation was shared by Vamsidhar who added that the pattern of question paper saved time in selecting the appropriate essays to answer. Among three essay questions to be answered from three different sections, the fee-reimbursement scheme by the state government in promoting inclusive education as well as demand for smaller states based on sub-regionalism provided some food for thought to the candidates.