What is the UPSC CSE Syllabus for Prelims, Mains & Interview?
The UPSC CSE exam is divided into three stages — the Preliminary (CSAT), Mains, and the Interview. Each candidate is allowed a maximum of six Attempts at the CSE exam. There is some relaxation for minorities.
I get down to writing about the UPSC syllabus in detail, I would like to mention in brief the exam pattern.
Basically, the UPSC exam is a 3-phase affair:
Phase 1 is the UPSC Preliminary Examination, also called UPSC Prelims. This exam contains questions of the objective type.
Phase 2 is the UPSC Mains Examination, also called UPSC Mains. This exam contains descriptive type questions.
Phase 3 is the Personal Interview round conducted to test the Personality of the Candidate.
Preliminary Exam
This GS paper or paper 1 is designed to test your overall knowledge about your surroundings and the world, and also to test how observant you are as a person, by asking questions related to current affairs.
The paper contains 100 objective-type questions. Each right answer would fetch you 2 marks, whereas selecting the wrong answer will cost you 1/3 of those 2 marks, or in other words, 0.66 marks will be deducted for every wrong answer.
Prelim Paper I is counted towards merit while Paper II is qualifying (Min. 33%). They cover General Studies: Current Topics, History, Geography, Politics, etc and Paper II tests for Comprehension and Analytical Ability.
Mains Examination
This is because only the candidates that are able to successfully clear the Phase 1 or the UPSC Prelims, are allowed to appear for the Phase 2 or UPSC Mains exam. In other words, only the candidates that are able to score above the UPSC cut offs for the Prelims are then allowed to take the UPSC Mains papers.
The UPSC Mains exam consists of 9 subjective type papers out of which 2 are qualifying language papers, one English, and any other Indian language of 300 marks each.
The rest of the 7 papers have a maximum mark of 250. Also, it should be noted that not qualifying in the 2 language papers will cause the rest of your 7 papers to be disbarred from further evaluation. The minimum qualifying mark in the language papers is 25%.
The optional subject exam (Papers VI and VII) requires a specialized understanding, however only as much as somewhat more than an undergraduate level, ie at an Honor’s level. In the case of Engineering, Medicine, and Law, an undergraduate understanding is sufficient.
Interview
The interview, conducted by a board, is directed on matters of general interest, with the intention of evaluating the candidate’s social awareness, interest in current affairs, mental alertness, critical powers of assimilation, logic, judgement, variety and depth of interest, leadership, communication, and finally intellectual and ethical standards.
The syllabus, for each section, is detailed on the UPSC website. The exam pattern has also been covered in an earlier article on How to become an IAS Officer in India.
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Source By: https://www.anujjindal.in/upsc-syllabus-for-ias-exam/
