Match List I with List II and select the correct answer using the code given below the Lists: List I (Commission/Committee) A. Kothari Commission B. Satish Chandra Committee C. P. C. Hota Committee D. Prof. Y. K. Alagh Committee List II (Suggested Reform in Civil Services Examination) 1. Inclusion of Medical and Engineering subjects 2. Entrance Examination for Civil Service after Class XII 3. Objective methodology for personality assessment 4. Civil Services Mains examination (Written and Interview) Code:

Correct — A, 4 1 2 3. Take the pairs one at a time. The Kothari Committee of 1976, chaired by D. S. Kothari, designed the scheme still recognisable today — a screening Preliminary examination followed by a Main examination consisting of the written papers and the personality test — so A pairs with 4. The Satish Chandra Committee of 1989 reviewed the scheme and, besides recommending the compulsory essay paper introduced from 1993, proposed adding subjects to the optional list, among them Medical Science and Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering; Medical Science was added from the 1994 examination. That is B with 1. The remaining two pairings are settled by the printed code itself: every option that gives Kothari the Mains structure also gives Prof. Y. K. Alagh the objective methodology for personality assessment, so D goes to 3, and the entrance examination after Class XII is left for the P. C. Hota Committee of 2004, giving C-2.

• (b)4 2 1 3 — It agrees on Kothari and on Alagh and then swaps the middle two. It credits the Hota Committee with adding Medical and Engineering subjects, but that widening of the optional list belongs to the 1989 review, after which Medical Science entered the list from 1994.
• (c)3 1 2 4 — It gives the Kothari Committee an interview-assessment recommendation and hands the design of the Main examination to a committee sitting twenty-five years later. The three-stage scheme dates from Kothari's 1976 report and was in force from 1979.
• (d)3 2 1 4 — It makes the same mistake about Kothari as (c) and adds the Satish Chandra swap from (b), so both anchors of the grid are lost.

The Civil Services Examination has been reviewed by a named committee roughly once a decade, and each review is remembered for one structural change. Kothari, 1976, gave the three-stage design. Satish Chandra, 1989, gave the essay paper, recalibrated the interview and widened the optional list. Alagh, 2001, pushed towards a common aptitude test in place of an optional subject at the preliminary stage and towards a more objective personality assessment. Hota, 2004, looked at the age and manner of entry and at aptitude and leadership testing.

A code grid is often easier than the underlying facts, because the four printed codes constrain each other. Here only two of the four codes give Kothari the Mains structure, and both of those give Alagh the personality-assessment item, so two of the four pairings are fixed the moment the Kothari pairing is known. The whole question then reduces to a single decision between the Satish Chandra and Hota rows. That is worth practising as a technique: fix the pairing you are surest of, strike out the codes that contradict it, and see how much of the grid the survivors agree on.

• The Kothari Committee reported in 1976 and its scheme took effect from the 1979 examination.
• The Satish Chandra Committee, 1989, led to the compulsory essay paper from 1993 and to Medical Science entering the optional list from 1994.
• The Civil Services Examination Review Committee under Prof. Y. K. Alagh reported in 2001.
• The Committee on Civil Service Reforms chaired by P. C. Hota reported in 2004.
• The Preliminary examination's optional subject was replaced by the aptitude paper only in 2011.

• Attributing the essay paper or the optional-list change to Kothari rather than to the 1989 review.
• Assuming the aptitude paper arrived with the committee that recommended it; the recommendation is from 2001 and the paper from 2011.
• Working a match-list from the lists alone when the printed code grid already fixes half the pairings.

A four-by-four code grid where two pairings are common to the surviving codes, so the item reduces to one genuine decision.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The three-stage scheme of the Civil Services Examination — a Preliminary, a Main and an interview — was recommended by the committee chaired by

  • (a)D. S. Kothari
  • (b)Satish Chandra
  • (c)Y. K. Alagh
  • (d)P. C. Hota

  Answer(a) D. S. Kothari — his 1976 report produced the scheme in force from 1979.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The compulsory essay paper in the Civil Services Main Examination was introduced following the recommendations of the committee chaired by

  • (a)D. S. Kothari
  • (b)Satish Chandra
  • (c)Y. K. Alagh
  • (d)B. S. Baswan

  Answer(b) Satish Chandra — the essay paper was introduced from the 1993 Main examination.