BJP Rajya Sabha MP Brij Lal said in Parliament on Thursday (April 2) that the Civil Service Aptitude Test (CSAT), one of the two qualifying preliminary papers for the Civil Service Examination (CSE), was the “biggest barrier to diversity” and should be abolished or rationalised.Lal stated that the paper has “skewed representation” among selected candidates. “Up to 65% of successful candidates are engineers, while humanities and arts graduates struggle with CSAT’s technical, mathematics-heavy and comprehension-based questions,” he said.The comments from Brij Lal, a retired IPS officer, are part of a larger debate that began when CSAT was first introduced. Banners during a protest by civil services aspirants opposing the CSAT at Mukherjee Nagar in New Delhi in 2014. (Express photo by Tashi Tobgyal)The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducts the CSE every year to recruit officials for various Group ‘A’ services, including the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS). The three-tier examination comprises the Prelims (objective, multiple-choice questions), the Mains (subjective questions) and the personality test or interview round.Until 2010, the Prelims comprised two papers. The first was General Studies, which carried 150 marks, and the second was a subject-specific paper, where candidates could choose from 23 options, carrying 300 marks. Here, the General Studies paper would have only a few questions of logical reasoning and mathematics.Also in Express | With enhanced CSAT difficulty and limited study material, tough road for non-English medium aspirantsUnder the revised pattern implemented with effect from 2011, Prelims comprises two papers, each carrying 200 marks and common to all candidates. These are General Studies (GS)-I and General Studies (GS)-II. The GS-I paper comprises current affairs and general knowledge questions, while GS-II or CSAT covers language aptitude, logical reasoning and basic mathematics. CSAT is a qualifying paper, meaning a candidate must score at least 33%, or 66 marks, to clear it. Failing that, their GS-II answer sheets are left unevaluated.Why the change?The changes were made during the Dr Manmohan Singh-led UPA government, following recommendations from several bodies set up to reform the exam.Story continues below this adThese included the Civil Service Review Committee, headed by former Union Minister and Vice-Chancellor YK Alagh (constituted during the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA government), the Second Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Congress leader M Veerappa Moily and recommendations from the UPSC itself.One of the concerns raised about the earlier structure was that it was weighted towards rote learning rather than testing analytical skills.The two-hour exam covers language comprehension, logical reasoning, analytical ability, decision-making and problem-solving, general mental ability, basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc.) and data interpretation (graphs, charts, tables, data sufficiency) at the Class 10 level.UPSC Expert Talk | Despite reforms, why is the interview stage still problematic?Each of the 80 questions carries 2.5 marks, and every wrong answer deducts 1/3rd (0.83) marks. The GS-I paper carries 200 marks with 100 questions and a negative marking of 0.66 per wrong answer.Story continues below this adOpponents of the CSAT say that over the years, its difficulty level has risen, and only candidates with a sound science, maths and engineering background can clear it, even though the CSE mainly concerns subjects such as polity, history and other domains of social science. Additionally, the CSAT can be attempted in Hindi or English, posing a disadvantage to candidates from rural or marginalised areas. Even Hindi speakers have criticised its technical nature, the quality of translations, and cited a lack of such study material in the language.Several representations have been received against the CSAT since its inception, which led to a compensatory/additional attempt being allowed to candidates who appeared for the CSE in 2011.Does data support Brij Lal’s claim?Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State in the Department of Personnel and Training, responded to a question raised by the then BJP MP from Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, on December 7, 2023, about the number of candidates clearing the exam.In 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, a total of 715, 528, 595, 566, and 497 candidates were finally selected in the CSE who studied science, medical science and engineering at the graduation stage. In humanities subjects, the figures were 106, 81, 77, 84, and 88, respectively.Story continues below this adThe fact that several graduates from the sciences later take humanities subjects in the Mains exam, which has optional papers, is also evident from the fact that the total number of candidates selected from the humanities stream in the exam was 230, 199, 223, 193, and 188, respectively, in these years.In 2011, a total of 800 candidates were selected from the English medium, and 89 from Hindi. The Indian Express found in a 2019 analysis that of the 370 new civil services recruits of CSE 2015 who were trained at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussoorie, only eight took the CSE in Hindi compared to 48 out of 202 in 2013. Five recruits studied at Hindi-medium universities, and 30 attended Hindi-medium schools.Data show that since 2013, there has been a sharp dip not only in students taking the CSE in Hindi — in services like the IAS, IPS and Indian Foreign Service — but also in recruits who studied in either Hindi-medium universities or schools. Data also show a steady increase in students preferring English.An analysis of the profiles of recruits who took the foundation course, which was available on the LBSNAA website, also shows the decrease: while students who took the CSE in Hindi accounted for nearly 17% in 2013, it stood at 2.11% in 2014, 4.28% in 2015, 3.45% in 2016, 4.06% in 2017. Of the 2018 recruits who finished the 15-week foundation course in 2019, 2.16% took the CSE in Hindi.Story continues below this adBefore the CSAT was introduced, the representation of Hindi-medium students was slightly higher. Profiles of LBSNAA recruits between 2005 and 2008 show that the share of students who took the CSE Mains in Hindi ranged between 12 and 15%. In 2008, for instance, 32 out of 239 students took the CSE in Hindi – over 14%. However, the batch profiles from the public domain have since been withdrawn from the LBSNAA website, so no credible data is available for later years.What was the government’s response?Jitendra Singh said in Parliament on July 24, 2014: “Data regarding the number of candidates having Indian languages and Arts background among the successful candidates is not maintained.”Again, on March 12, 2020, Singh said in Parliament, “The pattern of examination is designed to give an equal opportunity to all the candidates. While the Civil Services Preliminary Examination is by and large language neutral, as far as the Mains Examination is concerned, the general observation is that the majority of candidates voluntarily opt to write the examination in English.”