Were the KAS examination's questions lifted straight out of a coaching guide?

Three days after the Kerala Administrative Service's preliminary examination, an examinee has come up with an allegation that the questions were copied from a guide, published by a private coaching centre. Hariprasad K Kottarathil has revealed the photographs of the questions that were asked during the examination and of the ones in the guide, through a series of tweets.

Hariprasad also points out that an error in the guide published by the coaching centre Brilliance College was repeated in the question paper as well. "The guide has misprinted 'unity' as 'utility' in a question. The same erroneous question is printed in the question paper too," he says.

Preparing to write the upcoming UPSC examination, Hariprasad says that he got to know about the issue after a friend had sent a photograph about this to him. "Upon hearing this, I wanted to verify the same. I rushed to a bookstore to buy the guide, which proved our doubts to be true," he says. He also shared a video with Edexlive, which shows the same question printed in the guide and the question paper.

@CMOKerala @vijayanpinarayi Sir, Bringing this matter to your attention with utmost despair and dejection. It is disheartening to see that many of the questions that appeared in KAS prelims which was held on 22/02/2020 are directly taken from the rank file of a..(contd.) pic.twitter.com/SUJaMTxkvi

— Hariprasad K Kotarathil (@vrikodaran) February 24, 2020

"It is quite disheartening to see that the question papers for such a prestigious examination were prepared in a haphazard manner," he says. "Usually UPSC question papers are prepared carefully, making sure that the questions are not there in any guides. I expected the same here. Recently an MLA had alleged that the questions were copied from the Pakistan Civil services examination's question paper. There are chances that both parties have copied from the same paper," he says. Hariprasad is yet to lodge a formal complaint on the same.

On the other hand, Brilliance College says that the repetition of questions was a sheer coincidence. "We've been training students to write competitive examinations for years now. We make them practice the probable questions," says Pramod Prasad, the college's Kerala coordinator. "However, this repetition is merely a coincidence," he adds.

We have reached out to the Kerala Public Service Commission that conducts the examination for a response. This copy will be updated once they respond.