Civil Services Exam Eligibility, Syllabus and Exam Pattern

UPSC conducts Civil Services exams nationwide for recruitment of various Civil Services of the Government of India including IAS, IFS, and IPS every year. It is conducted in two phases – Preliminary and Mains.

Preliminary Test has two exams – General Studies and Aptitude only

Mains Exam includes 9 descriptive exams and then an Interview.

Eligibility Criteria for civil services

1)Candidate must be an Indian Citizen, or

2)A citizen of India or subject of Bhutan, or

3)A degree from a Central, State or Deemed university , or

4)A degree received through correspondence or distance education, or

5)A degree from an open university, or

6)A qualification recognized by the Government of India as being equivalent to one of the above.

Age Limit

Candidate must be between 21 years and 32 years.

Exam dates are subject to change as per UPSC guidelines. Aspiring candidates are advised to visit UPSC official site to get the best of the information for the examination.

Syllabus Preparation

IAS syllabus is huge, but this can be broken down into topics you are good at and the topics you would need help in. 

Exam Pattern

For Mains 5 compulsory exams and 2 optional examination choices.

Paper – 1 

Section 1

Essay - 250 Marks

Section 2

English Comprehension up to 10th Standard - 100 Marks

Paper – 2 

•General Studies on Indian Culture and Heritage

•Geography and History of the World

Paper?III

General Studies –II - 250 Marks 

(Constitution, Governance, Politics, Social Justice and International relations)

Paper?IV

General Studies –III - 250 Marks 

(Technology, Economic Development, Bio?diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management)

Paper?V

General Studies –IV - 250Marks 

(Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude)

Paper?VI

Optional Subject – Paper 1 - 250Marks

Paper?VII

Optional Subject – Paper 2 - 250 Marks

Topics for the optional exam

•Agriculture

•Anthropology

•Geology

•Gujarati

•Kannada

•Konkani

•Law

•Manipuri

•Mathematics

•Medical Science

•Nepali

•Pali

•Physics

•Psychology

•Punjabi

•Sanskrit

•Sociology

•Tamil

•Urdu

•Zoology

•Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science

•Arabic

•Bengali

•Botany

•Assamese

•Chemistry

•Chinese

•Commerce and Accountancy

•Electrical Engineering

•Management

•Marathi

•Mechanical Engineering

•Oriya

•Persian

•Philosophy

•Political Science and International Relations

•Geography

•German

•Hindi

•History

•Kashmiri

•Malayalam

•Public Administration

•Russian

•Sindhi

•Statistics

•Telugu

•French Civil Engineering

•Economics

•English

Candidates interested to appear for the same exam are informed that there are maximum six attempts allowed for IAS exam, but this condition is not applicable for the scheduled caste. Candidates belonging to reserved category have 9 attempts. Also physically handicapped candidates belonging to general category have 9 attempts.