UPSC exam: Aspirants find first paper of civil service exam tough

INDORE: Revising the notes all over again, discussing with friends and acquaintances, 14,000 aspirants appeared for Civil Service Examination (

CSE

) conducted by Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in 28 centres across the city on Sunday.

While the first timers seemed nervous, those who have attempted it before tried to boost their morale with tips and tricks to follow during the exam. Most of the aspirants termed the first

paper

of the exam difficult.

“I had been preparing for the MPPSC exams and I had decided to attempt this exam as well. This turned out to be more difficult than I had thought it to be,” said Sudhir Toppo, who is certain that there will be a lot of negative marking in the first paper even though he found the qualifying test moderate.

Speaking about the preparations, Yogesh Sahu who had come from Chindwada for CSE said, “It is my first attempt. I work at a private firm, but, I managed to take out time to prepare for the exam. I hope I will be able to crack this exam with all the hard work that I have done for several months.”

The first slot started at 9:30 am and got over at 11:30 am, whereas the second slot begun at 2:30pm and got over by 4:30 pm. The first paper was of general studies, while the second paper was qualifying test of aptitude. The candidates are expected to score at least 33% correct answers in the qualifying test.

Both the papers were of 200 marks each. While general studies had 100 questions with a negative marking of 1/3 marks, the qualifying aptitude test had 80 questions.

“Both the papers were set as per the standard of the UPSC. Most of my friends, who had been preparing for CSE found it

tough

, but, I think it was good,” said Vivek Tirkey.

Three lakh aspirants across the country have appeared for this exam.