IMPHAL, June 3: The Manipur Public Service Commission has cancelled the Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive Examinations (Prelims) held on May 15, 2015 admitting that contradictory instructions in the test booklet could have caused confusion among the candidates on negative marking and holding fresh examination will maintain the fairness of the exam for all candidates.
Expressing its regrets for the inconveniences caused to the candidates, a notification from MPSC has announced that fresh examination will be held on July 3, 2016 and admit cards can be downloaded from www.empsc.gov,in from June 15, 2016 onwards.
Giving an explanation on its decision, the commission stated that instructions in Para 9 on the cover page of the test booklet were contradictory as initially it was mentioned that there will be no penalty for wrong answers. However, the ensuing lines in the same Para informed that … for each question for which a wrong answer has been given by the candidate, one-third (0.33) of the marks assigned to that question will be deducted as penalty.
“The commission issued instructions to all 24 exam centres through the inspection officers to inform that there will be no negative marking. These instructions were announced in all the centres. However, after the exam, complaints were received from some candidates stating that the instructions had not been clearly announced in their rooms or that they did not hear the instructions clearly,” the notification stated.
“On scrutiny of the OMR answer sheets, the commission found that some candidates had indeed left several questions unanswered, possibly because they were under the impression that there would be negative marking. In view of the above position, it is possible that there was a lack of clarity on negative marking in spite of the announcements made in all the
examination rooms. The commission has considered the matter carefully and decided to cancel the MCSCC (P) Exam.”
It may be recalled that a joint action committee was formed by disgruntled candidates of the MPSC (Prelims) exam soon after the examination contending that the instructions in Para 9 had created confusion to many candidates. However, the opinions of the candidates were divided on holding of fresh examination. Another group had argued that the mains exam previously scheduled on July 3, 2016 should be allowed to proceed as officials had made clear announcement at each centre prior to the beginning of the test that there will be no negative marking and at the same time to eliminate any confusion wrote the same on the blackboard.
A total of 10174 candidates had appeared in the MCSCC (P) Exam, 2016 which was held across 24 centres located in Imphal area on May 15, 2016.
will the exam be cancelling again, any idea. lost the enthusiasm to write the exam. Its really annoying, I read the news about the cancellation at http://www.jobthiminasi.com/ at the first instance thought it was spreading rumours, latter found to be true.