.
Please pardon me for my naivety as I have not given any UPSC interview to date, but I wanted to ask why we need to prepare for a non-technical interview? Few basics are okay but not more than that I feel. That too when UPSC clearly mentions that interview is not a test of General or Specialised knowledge of candidates. A cursory reading of the interview syllabus and guidelines by UPSC makes me think that rather than looking for the answers, the folks are looking for the way we approach the questions.
For example- If I have to enter basketball as my hobby, why do I need to know the court measurements? In my school life, I was a district level player and neither I nor my teammates know the dimensions. On top of that, one of our buddies did the nationals camp and even then he did not know. So how does not knowing the dimensions or any other technical thing is bad?
Based on my limited knowledge, I believe such questions are asked to test your presence of mind. Obviously they dont expect you to remember such measurements like the back of your hand, but rather to prompt your response.
Please pardon me for my naivety as I have not given any UPSC interview to date, but I wanted to ask why we need to prepare for a non-technical interview? Few basics are okay but not more than that I feel. That too when UPSC clearly mentions that interview is not a test of General or Specialised knowledge of candidates. A cursory reading of the interview syllabus and guidelines by UPSC makes me think that rather than looking for the answers, the folks are looking for the way we approach the questions.
For example- If I have to enter basketball as my hobby, why do I need to know the court measurements? In my school life, I was a district level player and neither I nor my teammates know the dimensions. On top of that, one of our buddies did the nationals camp and even then he did not know. So how does not knowing the dimensions or any other technical thing is bad?
This is what I feel : Ideally if a person does any task with interest or if he has achieved anything in a particular domain ( sport here) , then it's natural to expect certain facts about his task/domain. And an IAS / IPS would one day run the entire country/ state virtually as a Chief secy or Cabinet Secy and s/he is expected to know the tasks/projects he performs in detail.Eg: let's take two persons A and B. A plays gully cricket and B after pursuing cricket as passion gets selected for national team. Don't you expect him to know the length of the pitch atleast? That too after him having fought through the tough National selection process.
Even if one is not an IAS, but an excellent team manager in any organisation, i feel s/he ought to be aware of the project his team is implementing in detail.
Agree with this. Inability to answer a somewhat basic question regarding something you claim to have done quite a bit reflects on your personality as well.
If, for example, as a lawyer, I don’t know the number of articles in the Constitution, my marks would be docked not because of lack of knowledge, but because I can’t answer something basic about a field I claim to have specialised knowledge in.
I would agree to your point regarding that being a lawyer, one should know the number of articles in the constitution and if not, it reflects poorly on you. But that isnt akin to players knowing dimensions of the pitch, rather it is curators job to know it. It is like you are expected to know the date on which such articles were discussed during constituent assembly debates(sorry for the poor comparison as I havent been able to think of one now). However if you are asked on tactics of the game, fielding placements(in cricket), role of each player - usually what players would know, then it makes sense to ask.
But there lies the problem : the panel do not usually possess such knowledge and hence tend to ask such trivial questions.
