Yes, CE-2019 was my first ever attempt. It was the first year I qualified age wise so I decided to give it a go. I was also concerned about the so called targeting of subjects by the checkers but I noticed that it changed every year. Then I came across a post by a senior member which debunked this trend theory and established a more solid explanation for the scoring differences.

I'll try to find the actual post but the main crux of it was simple; CSS exams are relational rather than standardized. What that means simply is that your paper doesn't need to be THE best it just needs to be better than the ones going before it. So if in a certain year there are only a handful of students who selected a specific subject, then the odds that any of them were extraordinary is minimal so in average most of them pass respectfully. But on the other hand if there are a lot of students opting for a subject then the odds of someone who has a near perfect mastery in the subject or overall just did a near-perfect paper is high and if that person's paper is one of the first to be checked, everyone else's paper shall be compared to that brilliant paper and marked accordingly. In such a scenerio, someone who could've passed if the papers checked before his were a little above average would fail simply because in comparison to that perfect paper, he doesn't measure up.

This has been often called out and FPSC has been asked to check the papers in a panel style format (which is followed by many board exams) where all checkers only get one or two questions to check so that this unfair comparison does not affect the entire lot as a whole.

So if you keep this in mind, the scoring "trends" make a lot of sense. For example, languages are often said to be very high scoring because not many people opt (or can opt for that matter) for them and those that do rarely if ever have a masters degree in it. They are just probably native speakers. So their papers are average but pass because in comparison to each other they all are pretty good, not great, but good enough. It's all about what the examiner is expecting of you and hence it becomes a game of chance and a good deal of luck.

This is no means meant to discourage anyone. In fact it makes it easier to adjust and prepare oneself. The only logical solution; try to be better than the rest. Have good presentation. Make sense when writing. If you write disjointed sentences, no one is going to give you any marks. Be logical. Don't panic. And do the absolute best that you can. There are no shortcuts here.

Also on the CSS website, there are examiners remarks of different subjects from several years. Look through what the checkers are saying about your subject and try to keep those points in mind when preparing. Here is the link: