I decided to do some research on DMCs of failed candidates of CSS 2010 written and 2011 written examinations to check whether the notion that 2011 candidates scored much higher was valid or not.

The pre-dominant belief of all stakeholders at the moment is that alot of qualifiers scored above 700 in written. I believe, after looking at the results of my data, that this isn't the case. While 2011 qualifiers did scored more than 2010 qualifiers, the difference isn't that huge as it appeared.

Average score of CSS 2010 Failed Candidates: 602 (Sample size 70)
Average score of CSS 2011 Failed Candidates: 622 (Sample size 73)

All DMC's were taken from respective threads on the forums. Unusual scores of below 500 were not accounted due to various reasons.

As we can see the difference is only of 20 marks. It is a big difference but not substantial one as I was fearing. Now lets take a look at another interesting aspect.

Number of candidates above 700 in CSS 2010: 2
Number of candidates above 700 in CSS 2011: 8

Now maybe those additional 6 candidates in 2011 (over 2010) got lucky. Maybe it was their 2nd or 3rd attempt or maybe they were the only cases; an anomaly from the trend (Yes I do tend to think of positives). Lets take them out of calculation for both 2010 and 2011

Average score of CSS 2010 Failed Candidates (excluding 700+): 598
Average score of CSS 2011 Failed Candidates (excluding 700+): 610

This shows that candidates scoring more than 700+ were not an anomaly from the trend. People indeed scored more this year by a margin of 20 points.

Next logical step would be to

1)Analyze subjects of those 8 people who scored more than 700 in CSS 2011 and find common subjects. If the subjects are same, we can safely assume an anomaly in the trend otherwise interview would be major deciding factor in allocation

2)Analyze DMCs of allocated 2010 aspirants to find out exact scores for specific groups (to extrapolate on 2011)