Govt to waive English language skills for civil services aptitude tests

English marks in Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT-II) will not be included for gradation or merit and 2011 candidates may get a second chance to appear for the test next year, the government announced today as it sought to defuse the UPSC row that has seen the aspirants on the warpath.

The CSAT-II paper carries questions on comprehension, inter-personal skills, including communication skills, logical reasoning and analytical ability, decision-making and problem-solving, general mental ability, basic numeracy besides English language comprehension skills (of Class X level).

IAS and IPS aspirants from the Hindi belt have been objecting to the questions to test aptitude levels and English language comprehension skills being asked in the examination, claiming they are much above the standard prescribed for the examination.

"Government is of the opinion that in the Civil Services Preliminary examination, Paper-II, the marks of the question section on 'English Language comprehension skills' should not be included for gradation or merit," minister of state for personal Jitendra Singh said.

"Candidates, who appeared in Civil Services Examination 2011, may be given one more attempt in 2015," Singh said in a brief statement.

The minister did not reply to a question by B Mahtab (BJD) and Dharmendra Yadav (SP) who demanded clarification whether Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) has been done away with.

The civil services examination is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in three stages--preliminary, main, and interview--to choose candidates for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.