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Imkong Walling
Morung Express News
As if the fiasco of the NPSC’s 2011 preliminary examinations was not enough, the hallowed Nagaland Public Service Commission has once again embarrassed itself. This time, it is with regard to the mains examinations which were conducted between December 12 and 17, 2011. There were whispers from candidates about certain anomalies detected in some of the question papers during and after the conduct of the main examination. Now, with the hallowed commission making a declaration to conduct the examinations again for one of the optional papers, English Literature, murmurs of discontent from candidates who had opted for papers other than English have emerged.
The commission had issued a notification on January 10 informing of examinations to be held again for English Literature. The grounds for reexamination for the said paper were not explained in the brief notification.
Some of the candidates who had opted for History and Economics as their optional papers have alleged that the questions for the two papers were not set proportionately in accordance with the given syllabi. The latter had one question missing in the serial of 200 multiple choice questions (MCQ) carrying one mark each.
With regard to the History paper, the candidates said that its syllabus was divided into four portions – Ancient, Medieval and Modern Indian History, and World History. However, out of the set of 200 MCQs (of one mark each) for the said paper not a single query appeared from the World History portion.
In Economics, questions which were not mentioned in the syllabus appeared. A total of 23 questions related to ‘Statistics’, which was not part of the syllabus, were asked, the candidates said. The given topics as specified in the NPSC syllabus were micro and macro economics, economic growth and development, public finance, international trade and Indian economy. To top it off, there were only 199 questions as against the standard 200. “Serial number 27 was missing with the series of questions jumping from 26 to 28”. “Thus, only 176 questions came from the actual syllabus, the candidates argued.
The preliminary examinations was also not without anomalies, in fact many. Following the preliminaries, candidates had pointed out blatant spelling and grammar errors while the given choice of options to some of the questions did not match. Even the reevaluated answer keys published by the commission thereafter had so many wrong entries.
Around 800-plus candidates were said to have cleared the preliminaries in the results declared after the examinations. The number rose to more than a thousand after an estimated 200 plus candidates made it to the mains following reevaluation of the results first published.
