To get an answer to this question, let first start with last year cut-off score and identify factors which will lead to reduced cut-off and the factors which will take it upwards.
1. Selection Ratio: Ratio has gone down from 1:50 to
1:12. This will drastically increase the cut-off.
2. Total Posts: Number of posts have come down
drastically ( 982 to 446) which will also increase the cutoff. Basing on the
above factors, the number of students who get promoted to mains is given below
Number of students selected for mains in previous
notification = 982 x 50 = 49,100
Number of students selected for mains in previous
notification = 446 x 12 = 5,352
3. Easy Paper: Latest paper is easy in Indian Polity and
Reasoning/ Data Interpretation. In Economy lot of facts and figures were asked
making it difficult to answer. AP Govt schemes were easy. Taking everything
into account we can say that it is relatively easy. Even the previous paper was
not very difficult. This factor may increase cut-off but to a very limited
extent (say 2 to 3 marks)
Factors that can reduce cut-off:
1. Negative marks: This will drastically reduce cut-off.
Let us say that a student has confidence on around 100 questions. He or she
would have attempted remaining 50 also if there is no negative mark for wrong
answer and based on probability would have got 13 correct from those questions.
Even this time the same student will try 20 from those questions in which he or
she has eliminated at least one wrong answer. Then they get a net of 3 to 4
marks from it. So, basically, this factor will reduce cut-off by around 10
marks.
2. Less competition: As executive posts have gone down
drastically, employees have shifted to Group 1 and dropped out from the competition.
So, the reduced competition will reduce the cut-off.
3. Reservation: Last time reservations was not taken into
account in prelims. This time if any category doesn't have adequate numbers then
they will get added to mains in 1:12 ratio and will be eligible for that category
posts only. This will reduce cut-off for those with reservations.
Based on the above factors, we expect the cut-off for
open candidates to fall between 70 to 85
