Civil Services (Main) Examination 2012: Success rate of all Optional Subjects

Selecting suitable optional subject is one of the important decisions one has to make while preparing for Civil Services Examination. Optional subject selection is not that easy and requires a lot of analysis before you take the final decision. For majority of candidates, optional subject’s past performance and success-rate is the major factor that helps them take final decision. Based on this parameter, following table will help you in short-listing optional subjects and making strategies for preparation. [Source – 64th Annual Report, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC)].

With new pattern for Main Examination in place from 2013, every candidate need to pick ‘ONE’ optional subject from the list of available optional subjects. One of the factors on which candidates short-list optional subjects for final consideration is the past performance of the optional subject and success-rate that gives some conviction about the subject.

Top performing optional subjects

Comparable to last year, Medical Science continue to be the optional subject with highest success-rate. Still not very popular choices but, subjects like Economics, Law, Commerce and Accountancy and Management are some of the optional subjects that are creating waves with high success-rate.

Significance of performance of subjects like these is coming on fore as in current environment that requires only ‘ONE’ optional subject, most of the candidates would like to retain their own subject as optional subject so that major share of time and effort goes into other areas particularly General Studies preparation.

I would like to add a little about Law that has been attracting lots of non-Law background candidates and they have been producing wonderful results in recent years.

Most popular optional subjects and the performance

Continuing the trends, in CSE 2012 Public Administration remained the most preferred subject but, the performance of candidates with Public Administration has been depressing. With a success-rate of 5.1 per cent, Public Administration has figured at the bottom of the table.

Geography and Sociology are at 2nd and 3rd spot. No surprise in guessing History continues to be at 4^th spot.

Psychology is the 5^th most popular choice with narrow margin pushing Philosophy to 6^th place and Political Science & International Relations occupies the 7^th place.

Performance of the candidates with the optional subjects in Civil Services Examination 2012.

For your benefit, we have bifurcated Literature of languages optional subjects so that you can explore the performance of each optional subject. The reason is that if you look at the top 3 optional subjects having best success-rate are Literature of Languages – Assamese (8 candidates), Santhali (3 candidates) and Tamil (100 candidates) and based on such a small number of candidates witness some dramatic deviations in success-rate.

If we look at the Literature of languages, Literature of Hindi Language is the only one that attracts candidates (505 candidates) in large number. With a success-rate of 11.7 per cent, it has been able to enhance its popularity.

More attention is needed while analysing success-rate of literature of languages

As the trend is, the majority of candidates get influenced by the most popular optional subjects with whom candidates appear and similarly, get fascinated by those with the highest success-rate.

Some of the literature of languages have produced wonderful results and occupy the chart with high success-rate.

You can spot many Literature of Languages subjects on top of the list on Success-rate among all optional subjects. The high success-rate may attract you; but, you need to look at the number of candidates appearing with these subjects and the number of candidates recommended for selection.

A glance at the following table reveals the performance of the candidates with the optional subjects in Civil Services Examination 2012.

Distribution of Candidates who Appeared vis-à-vis Recommended by Optional Subjects Civil Services (Main) Examination, 2012

Take utmost care while taking into account the success-rate

Don’t get confused with number of candidates appearing with a particular optional subject as blend has a mixed luck for many optional subjects. So, you need to compare it with previous year’s data.

While one can take some clue about success-rate from the result of the most popular optional subjects; but, one needs to be careful in taking reference of the data for some not as much popular optional subjects for deciding your optional subjects.

The result and the success-rate of these subjects may vary year to year resulting in big surprises when data is compared year-on-year.

To illustrate this we take Agriculture result for example. In CSE 2008 it had a success-rate of 18.6 per cent which dropped down to 10.6 per cent in CSE 2009 and in CSE 2010; it has a success-rate of only 1.5 per cent. But, in CSE 2011, it has shown a success-rate of 12.1 per cent. Now, in CSE 2012, it has high success-rate of 16.4 per cent.

Such variation comes as the number of candidates appearing is low and any drop in result impacts the success-rate.

Final Conclusion

Every subject is good and you will find that with almost all subjects, candidates achieve success. Every subject has specific demands and as long as you can make justice to the choice, you may think of taking subject you prefer.

Also read:

Civil Services (Main) Examination 2011: Success rate of all Optional Subjects

Civil Services (Main) Examination 2010: Success rate of all Optional Subjects

Civil Services (Main) Examination 2009: Success rate of all Optional Subjects

Civil Services (Main) Examination 2008: Success rate of all Optional Subjects