UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 17 of 150

Correct — D, CUET, the Common University Entrance Test. From the 2022-23 session, undergraduate admission to India's central universities moved to a single national entrance test conducted by the National Testing Agency, and the first CUET-UG was held in July 2022 — a month after candidates sat this UPPSC paper, which is why the question is phrased in the future tense of that moment. The change replaced the old practice of each central university running its own cut-off list or its own entrance exam, with Class XII board marks doing much of the work of selection; under CUET a single score is used across participating universities, which is what the phrase 'single window admission' in the stem refers to. The reform was announced by the University Grants Commission in March 2022 for the coming session and belongs to the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020. Note the trap built into the option list: three of the four are near-misses on the same four letters, and one of them, CUCET, is a real name — which makes precise recall, not recognition, the thing being tested.

• (a)CUCET — The genuine older name, and therefore the sharpest distractor. The Central Universities Common Entrance Test ran from 2010 for a limited group of central universities; the National Testing Agency took it over in 2021, and the revamped, all-central-university test was rebranded CUET for 2022-23. CUCET is the predecessor, not the answer.
• (b)UAET — Not the name of any national undergraduate admission test for central universities — an invented acronym built from plausible words.
• (c)CUAT — Also invented. Rearranging the same letters produces something that looks familiar, which is exactly the effect the examiner wants; there is no test of this name.

CUET is a common entrance test: one examination, one score, many universities. Its purpose is to decouple university admission from Class XII board results, which vary sharply in marking standards between boards and had pushed cut-offs at some Delhi colleges to near-100 per cent. It is administered by the National Testing Agency, the autonomous body set up to conduct large national entrance examinations, and it belongs to the National Education Policy 2020's push towards a common, standardised entry route into higher education.

This is a current-affairs recall item anchored to the exam's own date: the announcement was fresh in March 2022, the exam was on 12 June 2022, and the first CUET-UG followed in July 2022. The way to hold it is by the phrase the acronym expands to — Common University ENTRANCE Test — and by remembering that the older name carried an extra C for 'Central'. As of 2026 the test continues under the same name, with the National Testing Agency conducting CUET-UG annually alongside CUET-PG for postgraduate admission.

• CUET stands for Common University Entrance Test and is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
• The first CUET-UG was held in July 2022, for admission to the 2022-23 undergraduate session.
• Its predecessor, CUCET — the Central Universities Common Entrance Test — had run from 2010 for a smaller set of central universities; the NTA took it over in 2021 before the 2022 rebranding.
• The move to a single common entrance test for central universities forms part of the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020.

• Choosing CUCET. It is a real name — the predecessor test — which is precisely why it is placed at option (a).
• Assuming the acronym includes 'Central'. The 2022 test is the Common University Entrance Test; the older CUCET was the Central Universities Common Entrance Test.
• Confusing CUET with NEET or JEE. Those are subject-specific professional entrance tests conducted by the same agency; CUET is for general undergraduate admission.

UPPSC tests education-sector current affairs by asking for the exact name, agency or year of a newly launched scheme or examination, with acronym look-alikes as distractors; UPSC is likelier to ask what a policy contains than what it is called.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Common University Entrance Test (CUET) is conducted by which of the following bodies?

  • (a)University Grants Commission
  • (b)National Testing Agency
  • (c)Central Board of Secondary Education
  • (d)All India Council for Technical Education

  Answer(b) National Testing Agency — the NTA conducts CUET-UG and CUET-PG; the UGC announced the shift to a common test but does not conduct it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The shift to a single common entrance test for undergraduate admission to central universities was intended primarily to reduce dependence on which of the following?

  • (a)Class XII board examination marks in determining admission
  • (b)Reservation policy in central universities
  • (c)State government funding of higher education
  • (d)Foreign university collaborations

  Answer(a) Class XII board examination marks in determining admission — board marking standards differ widely between boards, which had driven college cut-offs to extreme levels; a common test gives one comparable score.