To The Secretary, UPSC, Dholpur House, New Delhi - 110069 Respected Sir, Sub: - Injustice to the aspirants in Civil

Services (Main) Examination with Maths as optional subject With reference to our earlier communication (under the same heading) we again intend to bring to your kind notice the following observations regarding evaluation of Mathematics papers in Civil Services (Main) Examination. We are doing this after analyzing the marks obtained by students for the past few years. We welcome the changes Mains paper pattern this year and the decision of UPSC to do away with optional subject at prelims level from 2011 onwards. We hope that UPSC will take the reform process to its logical conclusion of having common papers at the Mains level. However, please dont wait for taking some action on what we intend to bring to your notice. We dont know how exactly scaling of marks is done, but Mathematics students are at a great disadvantage. We only hope that there is some scientific/ rational basis for following such a procedure and nothing is being done like mechanical application some statistical formula year after year without taking any note of the level of papers and efforts that go into preparing and attempting them. How right it is to punish the entire group of aspirants with one particular optional subject just because one or two able individuals score very high in that subject? Any scale down of marks should take into account average scores and thereby the difficulty level of papers In Mathematics, barring few isolated exceptions, rest all are scoring less than 250/600 marks even after doing reasonably well in the exam. It is not uncommon to find double digit scores in science optionals. Kindly take a note of this: Out of 238 Mathematics students who had appeared in CSE(M),2008 and failed to qualify for interview, 155 or over 65% scored less than 180/600 marks where as the figures for most of the other popular subjects are less than 10%.

Any comparative study of relative performance of optional subjects should involve the study of subject wise average marks as it is the only readily calculable measure. Note that less number of students appearing in science optionals mean variations from the already low average score are quite high Optional Subject Public Adm. History Geography Psychology Sociology Anthropology Lit. of Hindi Lit. of Tamil Lit. of Urdu Medical Sci. Zoology Botany MechanicalEng Mathematics No. of Students appeared in Mains but nonqualified for interview (CSE 2009) 2583 2362 2716 752 1054 229 546 111 25 68 80 197 75 194 Average Score (out of 600) 232.8 241.8 220.4 208.6 232.8 218.2 225.9 256.8 251.4 250.6 213.0 227.7 185.5 155.8

Optional Subject Public Adm. History Geography Psychology Sociology Anthropology Lit. of Hindi Lit. of Tamil Lit. of Urdu Medical Sci. Zoology Botany MechanicalEng Mathematics

No. of Students appeared in Mains but nonqualified for interview (CSE 2008) 2133 2460 3063 760 1176 238 593 138 15 64 406 265 82 238

Average Score (out of 600) 264 258 229 230 222 233 254 255 307 251 182 194 219 145

It seems marks are not being awarded unless the student arrives at the final answer even though approach and intermediate steps are right. This is not the case with other optional subjects. All evaluators from Science/Engineering stream must be following strict procedure of evaluating the papers as they do in their respective institutions but without much idea of how students are faring vis--vis other optionals. Earlier we pointed out that Mathematics students have to attempt around 21/22 questions in both papers within the stipulated time of three hours. Some effort has gone in to putting all subjects at one level this year but still it is highly improbable for an above average student to even attempt 70-80% of the paper. Even the syllabus of Mathematics optional is vast. Nothing much can be complained about this as the syllabus was announced prior to the exam (unlike the method of scaling down the marks about which no one has any idea). But vast syllabus has to be factored in.

Hence, it can be concluded that Mathematics Optional is not on a level playing field with many other optional subjects. There are quite a large number of examples of students with good academic record in the subject moving over to other optionals and securing much better scores. UPSC surely doesnt want the aspirants to play some sort of gamble to get in to civil services or else there is no need for such a laborious exercise of conducting the exam. To correct everything said above, care should be taken to award partial marks for procedure (steps) at the time of evaluation. Scaling of marks has to be done in a fair and transparent manner such that no optional will be at disadvantage. Kindly, take our observations in to consideration and do the needful without any further delay. This is our humble request and we surely dont want to live in and complain about the past.

Thanking you, Yours Faithfully, Students with Mathematics as optional