UPSC IAS Exam Pattern: Civil Services Prelims/ Mains Marking Scheme

August 19, 2019 AskMeBlogger

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) organizes the civil service examination every year for hiring the officers like IAS, IPS,IRS & IFS by the government of India. Every Candidate&his parents dream to his/her child to become an IAS officer. It is one of the hardest examinations in India. There are very tough competition & vast syllabus in IAS exam. This is the best career option due to high visibility & popularity of the Indian Administrative service (IAS).The Exam pattern of UPSC civil service examination is quite difficult to understand properly.

So, In this Article, We will give the information about UPSC IAS exam pattern in detail which has given below:

UPSC Exam Pattern 2019:

The exam pattern of UPSC civil service exam for IAS is divided into three stages called preliminary,mains examination& Interview.According to the IAS exam pattern, the candidates who will pass preliminary exam are qualified for the mains examination. After the mains exam,the final round will be personality Test or interview.

IAS Exam Pattern for UPSC Prelims :

The UPSC exam pattern for IAS prelims is also called Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT).

In prelims paper, it contains two papers both are objective type questions with multiple choice of answers.
There are 200 marks of each paper with the time duration for 2 hours each.
For every wrong answer ,there will be negative marking as per the UPSC norms

Paper	Type	No. of Questions	Marks	Duration
General Studies I	Objective	100	200	2 hours
General Studies II(CSAT)	Objective	80	200	2 hours

IAS Exam Pattern for UPSC Mains:
The UPSC exam pattern for IAS mains exam consists of 9 papers that will be continue till 5 days. Candidates who will secure cut off marks in General studies I & 33% marks in General studies II in prelims exam, they will only appear for the mains examination. In UPSC mains exam, the paper will consist descriptive answer type questions. The details of UPSC IAS mains exam are given below.

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Paper	Subject	Duration	Total marks
Qualifying Exam
Paper A	Compulsory Indian language	3 hours	300
Paper B	English	3 hours	300
Merit-based Exam
Paper I	Essay	3 hours	250
Paper II	General Studies I	3 hours	250
Paper III	General Studies II	3 hours	250
Paper IV	General Studies III	3 hours	250
Paper V	General Studies IV	3 hours	250
Paper VI	Optional Subject I	3 hours	250
Paper VII	Optional Subject II	3 hours	250
Total			1750

In IAS mains examination, paper A & B are the 2 qualifying papers & other 7 papers to be counted for merit basis. All the 9 papers of IAS mains exam will have essay type questions.

We have provided the details of all the 9 papers which have mentioned below.

Paper A: The paper A of the IAS mains exam will be of 300 marks. Candidates select the one of the Indian language that included in the 8th schedule of the constitution.However, Paper-A on Indian Language will not be compulsory for candidates coming from the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim.

Paper B: The paper B will be in English that are of 300 marks. You must be note that both the paper A & B will qualify in nature & marks will not be counted for ranking.

Paper 1: Paper 1 will be essay type of 250 marks. Time allotted for 3 hours for each paper.

Paper II: The Paper II of IAS mains exam will be General studies-I of 250 marks. In this paper, it covers the subjects such as Indian Heritage & culture, history & geography of the world & society.

Paper III: The third paper of IAS mains exam will be General studies-II. This paper covers the subjects such as Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations. This paper will be of 250 marks with the time duration of 3 hours.

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Paper IV: The fourth paper of IAS mains exam will be General studies-III. This paper covers the subjects such as Technology, Economic Development, Bio-diversity, Environment and Security& Disaster Management. This paper will also be of 250 marks with the time duration of 3 hours.

Paper V:The fifth paper of IAS mains exam will be General studies-IV. This paper covers the subjects such as Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude. This also have same 250 marks with the time duration of 3 hours.

Paper VI & VII: The Optional subjects for Paper VI and VII of the IAS mains examination have to be any one of the subjects from the following list:

Agriculture	Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science	Anthropology	Botany	Chemistry
Civil Engineering	Commerce and Accountancy	Economics	Electrical Engineering	Geography
Geology	History	Law	Management	Mathematics
Mechanical Engineering	Medical Science	Philosophy	Physics	Political Science and International Relations
Psychology	Public Administration	Sociology	Statistics	Zoology
Literature of any one of the following 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: All the papers except paper A & B can be answered in English. The optional papers can be answered in English even if none of the other papers has been answered by the aspirants in English.

Personality Test/Interview: This is the final round of IAS exam before the final results are declared. The maximum marks allotted for the Interview that is 275 marks.In the Personal Interview stage, the UPSC SSB board judge mental & social traits of the candidates by asking the questions of general Interest. The boards also check some qualities like intelligence, critical powers of accommodation, clear and logical discussion, a balance of judgment, decision making, variety and depth of interest, ability for social consistency and leadership, intellectual and moral reliability.