So, I know I am too late, and there has been possibly no discussion on this question, but a doubt
The question "With reference to Indian judiciary..."
Statement 1 is:
Any retired judge of the
Supreme Court of India can
be called back to sit and act
as a Supreme Court judge by
the Chief Justice of India with
prior permission of the President of India.
I marked C initially, but went with B, because I remembered that the prior permission of the retired judge is also necessary. Every answer key has given the answer as C, and no one has discussed this here. Just a passing, inconsequential doubt, if anyone would help clarify it.
There are two kinds of difficult papers. Consider a simple example of National parks, which almost every serious candidate can memorize. Last, year, you had to also know that Godavari passes through Papikonda instead of Cauvery. Just knowing that it lies in Andhra Pradesh is not enough. This is an illustration of standard syllabi made conceptually difficult. A diligent candidate may be able to work it our based on basic understanding of geographical distribution of National Parks.
Then there is the difficulty level of which organism is "filter based feeder", or which one rolls up for protection etc.
If you know, you know types. This is absurd level of difficulty.
JEE is the first type. Everyone knows all the trigonometric formulas, par bhaisahab ek one line question rula sakta hai if you are unable to recognize which formula to use. Instead, imagine they start giving analytic continuation in JEE, no one is scoring that.
Last year, I cleared forest pre. This year, marks in 80s. numerous examples like me are floating around this blog. 4 or 5 people may be a small sample size, but it's the sample size of people who not only cleared pre but aced it.
The shock factor in last years paper started to wear off after 10 minutes or so once you got in the rhythm, because 80 odd questions were doable, and right up the traditional prelims syllabus alley. This year, the every time I turned the page, I was shocked. After 10 minutes, I was almost excited for the next set of questions on the new page to find out what new shocking thing I am going to discover.
Whenever you consider a situation like this prelims, leave out the outliers. Consider my hypothesis. What does a fresher do? Listen to the former candidates who got selected, enroll for a coaching and/or a test series and develop their understanding of the exam they are about to face based on these restrictions. In a sea of syllabus, islands of certainty are identified, and the knowledge about them fortified.
What does an old, repeating candidate do who succeeded? Fortify his/her old methods that did prove effective. For instance, they also memorize all the Tiger Reserves, all the Ramsar sites, wildlife sanctuaries in news along with the already memorized National Parks they did for the previous successful attempt.
What does a candidate who failed with a near miss do? Identify easy sitters that they should have scored. More often than not, they are from Modern history or repeated questions like parks, reports, indices (hypothesizing heavily here based on experience).
What was the paper this year? Are you telling me any candidate went out of his way to actually study from books that contain what was asked here? For example, everyone studies the Vijaynagara kingdom. Which commonly used book contains what Nunez says about women?
The thing is, there will always be someone who will get them right. But a very small section that will not substantially affect the fortunes of the majority.
Consider Counter Strike, dust 2. If there is a bomb on bombsite B, I have checked that A is clear, 2 terrorists remain, and I am alone. Experience says that you don't run like a headless chicken from the CT spawn, flash the site from the window, smoke the door, and then guess where to enter from. An educated guess, has a better probability of working, Extrapolated to 40 questions you get 25 right more often than not. Great ratio.
Then comes along a genius who prays and sprays on a pool day map. probability of you winning against him, absolutely 50-50.
Guesses did not work here not because the method is wrong, simply because the setting is absurd. Pool day is not a map you will find a pro playing for a million dollars.
