Syllabus for UPSC Civil Service Preliminary Examination

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UPSC Civil Service Exam (or the competitive examination as in notification of UPSC) comprises two successive stages :
(i) Civil Services (Preliminary) Examinations (Objective Type) for the selection of candidates for Main Examination; and
(ii) Civil Services (Main) Examination (Written and Interview) for the selection of candidates for the various services and posts.

(i) Civil Services (Preliminary) Examinations (Objective Type) :

The Preliminary Examination will consist of two papers of Objective type (multiple choice questions) and carry a maximum of 400 marks.

This examination is meant to serve as a screening test only; the marks obtained in the Preliminary Examination by the candidates who are declared qualified for admission to the Main Examination will not be counted for determining their final order of merit. The number of candidates to be admitted to the Main Examination will be about twelve to thirteen times the total approximate number of vacancies to be filled in the year through this examination. Only those candidates who are

declared by the Commission to have qualified in the Preliminary Examination in the year will be eligible for admission to the Main Examination of that year provided they are otherwise eligible for admission to the Main Examination.

Note I: The Commission will draw a list of candidates to be qualified for Civil Service (Main) Examination based on the criterion of minimum qualifying marks of 33% in General Studies Paper-II of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination and total qualifying marks of General Studies Paper-I of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination as may be determined by the Commission.

Note II: There will be negative marking for incorrect answers (as detailed below) for all questions except some of the questions where the negative-marking will be inbuilt in the form of different marks being awarded to the most appropriate and not so appropriate answer for such questions.

(i) There are four alternatives for the answers to every question. For each question for which a wrong answer has been given by the candidate, one-third (0.33) of the marks assigned to that question

will be deducted as penalty. 

(ii) If a candidate gives more than one answer, it will be treated as a wrong answer even if one of the given answers happen to be correct and there will be same penalty as above for that question.

(iii) If a question is left blank, i.e. no answer is given by the candidate; there will be no penalty for that question.

Syllabus for Preliminary Examination

Paper I - (200 marks) Duration : Two hours

• Current events of national and international importance.
• History of India and Indian National Movement.
• Indian and World Geography - Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World.
• Indian Polity and Governance - Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.
• Economic and Social Development - Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector initiatives, etc.
• General issues on Environmental Ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change - that do not require subject specialization.
• General Science.

Paper II- (200 marks) Duration: Two hours

• Comprehension
• Interpersonal skills including communication skills;
• Logical reasoning and analytical ability
• Decision-making and problem solving
• General mental ability
• Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc.) (Class X level), Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. -Class X level)

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 (Prelim) 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 (Prelim) Examination.

For syllabus of UPSC Civil Services Main Examination, click here.