Continuing with their spate of ‘faulty’ exam papers, The Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC), again introduced several errors in the question paper of the group four exam held last Sunday. The nodal agency, which conducts examinations for various State government jobs, even got options for the Indian Republic Day, wrong in the general knowledge section.
The GK section shows incorrect options for the Republic Day question (in circle)
Chennai:
The TNPSC Group 4 combined civil services exam 2019 was conducted in a single shift to fill a total of 6,491 vacancies in the State public services to various posts including Village Administrative Officer (VAO). Nearly 13.59 lakh candidates appeared for the examination, which was conducted at 5,575 centres on September 1. More than 90,000 candidates appeared for the exam in Chennai alone.
In ‘match the following’ (general knowledge section), surprisingly, the answers did not have January 26 as the Republic day option. Similarly, for the same question in English, instead of Republic Day, the question paper carried the dissolution date of Lok Sabha.
S Natraja Subramanian, a trainer of TNPSC exams, also pointed out that third answer for question number 139, on 0-degree longitude and 0-degree latitude, was wrong. “Instead of Western Africa, the answer carried West of Africa,” he added.
Likewise, all the answers to question “how many political parties participated in the 1951 first Indian General Elections” were also wrong. Instead of the option 53, the answers carried 54, 64, 74, and 84.
Natraja claimed that from January 2019 to August, TNPSC has conducted more than 25 exams and most question papers contained a minimum of five per cent of errors.
TNPSC, which conducted a group exam in March 2019, also admitted recently in the Madras High Court that 24 questions were printed incorrectly in that exam. Meanwhile, a senior official from TNPSC said that grace marks will be allocated if questions were found genuinely wrong.