The Civil Services Examination is conducted by UPSC for graduates who wish to become officers in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS), and various other Group 'A' and Group 'B' central services. CSE is one of the most prestigious and competitive exams in India, and proper guidance plays a very important role in success.
A candidate must be either :-
Provided that a candidate belonging to categories (b), (c), (d) and (e) shall be a person in whose favour a certificate of eligibility has been issued by the Government of India. A candidate in whose case a certificate of eligibility is necessary, may be admitted to the examination but the offer of appointment may be given only after the necessary eligibility certificate has been issued to him/her by the Government of India.
(a) A candidate must have attained the age of 21 years and must not have attained the age of 32 years on 1st August, 2026, i.e. he must have been born not earlier than 2nd August, 1994 and not later than 1st August, 2005.
(b) The upper age limit prescribed above will be relaxable:-
Preliminary Examination of the Civil Services Examination for recruitment to the Services and Posts mentioned below will be held by the Union Public Service Commission.
| Category | Number of Attempts |
|---|---|
| SC/ST | Unlimited |
| OBC | 9 |
| PwBD | 9 |
| General (GL) | 9 |
| EWS | 9 |
Note: The terms – GL for General, EWS for Economically Weaker Sections, SC for Scheduled Castes, ST for Scheduled Tribes, OBC for Other Backward Classes and PwBD for Persons with Benchmark Disability
The competitive examination comprises two successive stages :
The Examination shall comprise of two compulsory Papers of 200 marks each.
Note: (i) Both the question papers will be of the objective type (multiple choice questions) and each will be of two hours duration.
The General Studies Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination will be a qualifying paper with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%.
The question papers will be set both in Hindi and English.
The Written Examination will consist of the following papers:—
Sub Total (Written test): 1750 Marks
Personality Test: 275 Marks
Grand Total: 2025 Marks
Languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.
Note 1: Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination will be a qualifying paper with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%.
Note 2: The questions will be of multiple choice, objective type.
Note 3: It is mandatory for the candidate to appear in both the Papers of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination for the purpose of evaluation. Therefore a candidate will be disqualified in case he/she does not appear in both the papers of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination.
The main Examination is intended to assess the overall intellectual traits and depth of understanding of candidates rather than merely the range of their information and memory.
The nature and standard of questions in the General Studies papers (Paper II to Paper V) will be such that a well-educated person will be able to answer them without any specialized study.
The questions will be such as to test a candidate's general awareness of a variety of subjects, which will have relevance for a career in Civil Services.
The questions are likely to test the candidate's basic understanding of all relevant issues, and ability to analyze, and take a view on conflicting socio-economic goals, objectives and demands.
The candidates must give relevant, meaningful and succinct answers.
The scope of the syllabus for optional subject papers (Paper VI and Paper VII) for the examination is broadly of the honours degree level i.e. a level higher than the bachelors' degree and lower than the masters' degree. In the case of Engineering, Medical Science and law, the level corresponds to the bachelors' degree.
The aim of the paper is to test the candidates' ability to read and understand serious discursive prose, and to express ideas clearly and correctly, in English and Indian language concerned.
The pattern of questions would be broadly as follows:
English:
Indian Languages:
Note 1: The papers on Indian Languages and English will be of Matriculation or equivalent standard and will be of qualifying nature only. The marks obtained in these papers will not be counted for ranking.
Note 2: The candidates will have to answer the English and Indian Languages papers in English and the respective Indian language (except where translation is involved).
Candidates may be required to write essays on multiple topics. They will be expected to keep closely to the subject of the essay to arrange their ideas in orderly fashion, and to write concisely. Credit will be given for effective and exact expression.
This paper will include questions to test the candidates' attitude and approach to issues relating to integrity, probity in public life and his problem solving approach to various issues and conflicts faced by him in dealing with society.
Questions may utilise the case study approach to determine these aspects. The following broad areas will be covered:
Candidate may choose any optional subject from amongst the List of Optional Subjects given above.
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