Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) has announced the new exam dates for APPSC group 1 2020 mains exam. As per the latest notification, the exam will now be held from February 4 to 16, 2020. Previously, the exam dates were supposed to be December 12 to 23, 2019.
APPSC will conduct the mains examination of group 1 recruitment in 7 sessions. The exam dates are February 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, and 16, 2020. On these dates respectively, the papers to be held are paper in Telugu, paper in English, paper-I, paper-II, paper-III, paper-IV, paper-V. All the exams will be in forenoon, that is morning session.
The commission will next issue the admit card for this exam through psc.ap.gov.in. Only the candidates who have qualified for mains can download the same. There is no fixed date yet for the event. However going by the usual APPSC timelines, the group 1 mains admit card is likely to be available at least 10 days prior to the exam.
All the papers in group 1 mains exam shall be descriptive type. Each paper shall be 3 hours long, and of 150 marks each. The first two will be qualifying in nature.
Paper-I will be general essay on contemporary themes and issues of regional, national and international importance. Then paper-II will be history and cultural and geography of india and andhra pradesh. Paper-III in turn shall be polity, constitution, governance, law and ethics. Then paper-IV will be the economy and development of india and andhra pradesh. Paper-V, the last paper will be science, technology, and environmental issues.
Candidates are required to score at least 40% in telugu, english papers, if they belong to OC category. Or 35% if they belong to BC category. SC, ST, PH candidates need to score 30%.
Further, APPSC says “All papers except Telugu & English may be answered in English or Telugu or Urdu chosen by the candidates at the time of filling the online option of medium of writing main examination along with post preferences and zonal preferences (Please see Para 1.6). The candidates are not permitted to write part of the paper in one language and another part of it other language. Once medium is chosen, the candidate has to write his answer in the medium chosen by him/her only. If there is a any deviation from paper to paper or part of the paper the candidature would become invalid. All 05 (Five) papers have to be written in the medium chosen only. And also different papers cannot be written in different languages.”
Barring the first two exams which will be qualifying, mains exam will be of 750 marks. Candidates will be shortlisted on the basis of their performance in mains, for in interview of 75 marks. Thus the final merit will be compiled on the basis of marks scored by candidates out of 825.
This may well be the last interviews for APPSC group 1. Until now this was the norm, to have interviews as the last round in the highest level recruitments. However the government has reportedly decided not to hold any more interviews from 2020 onwards. Though this exam is falling in 2020, the recruitment itself is of 2019 session and thus new rules are not expected to apply on it.
In this month or the next, APPSC is also looked forward to release the 2020 recruitment calendar. With it, new rules if any, are expected to be announced.
