The AP Public Service Commission (APPSC) has decided to award 29 grace marks to all the candidates who appeared for the junior lecturers’ recruitment exam held in December 2011. This is to compensate for the ‘translation errors’ from English to Telugu in the question papers.
The errors cropped up in the exam for paper-I (general studies), which was for 150 marks. The exam for paper-II was for 300 marks. “The decision to award 29 grace marks was taken based on the report submitted by the expert committee comprising professors, which inquired into the complaints of goof-ups in the question papers. Since the grace marks are being awarded to all the candidates, it will ensure a level playing-field for all and no one will be adversely affected on account of this,” said Poonam Malakondaiah, secretary, APPSC.
The list of candidates selected for interviews will be released on June 3. The interviews will be conducted from June 18. Thousands of Telugu-medium students who had appeared for the exam got a rude shock when they found that 63 of the 150 questions were exclusively in English and there were no Telugu translations for the same. While a total of 1.40 lakh candidates had registered for the exam, about 84,000 had appeared for the test. Of them, around 67,000 candidates, or 80 per cent, were Telugu-medium students. The question paper consists of a booklet in which the APPSC was expected to provide questions in English on one side and their Telugu translations on the other side.