How to prepare for UPSC Civil Services Examination?

Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducts a number of exams for a variety of jobs. But the most well-known exam is Civil Services Examination, which is conducted to recruit candidates for a plethora of central government Group A (and some Group B) services, such as IAS, IPS, IFS, etc.

The aim of this article is to give you a broad idea of UPSC Civil Services Examination (UPSC CSE) – the various stages, subjects, preparation tips, etc.

Note

I appeared in UPSC Civil Services Examination Mains for 4 consecutive times – from 2010 to 2013. And appeared for the interview once.

I had left my job as software engineer and an engineering job in Air Force in 2009 to prepare for UPSC CSE. However, I was not able to achieve this aim of mine. And so, later on I joined Bank of Baroda in 2013, and then LIC in 2014.

Table of Contents

• Stages in UPSC Civil Services Examination
• Preliminary Stage
• Mains Stage
• Interview Round

Stages in UPSC Civil Services Examination

UPSC Civil Services Examination has three stages:

• Preliminary Round
• Mains Stage
• Interview Round

Let’s learn about them in more detail.

Preliminary Stage

It’s more in the nature of an elimination round, i.e. the aim of this round is to eliminate the non-serious candidates (though sometimes good students also get eliminated).

Why are we calling it just an elimination round?

Well, that’s because marks obtained in this round are not counted while making the final merit list. Merit list is made on the basis of the performance in Mains exam and Interview.

As lakhs of students apply for Civil Services Examination, the number of students writing the subjective mains paper have to be reduced somehow. Otherwise, it would not be possible to maintain standard in evaluation of the Mains answer sheets.

Preliminary Round has two objective papers:

• General Studies Paper, formally called GS paper I. It has 100 question and total marks of 200. Every question has 4 options, out of which exactly one option is correct.

• Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT), formally called GS paper II. It has 80 question and total marks of 200. Every question has 4 options, out of which exactly one option is correct.

Only the marks of GS paper (i.e. GS paper I) will determine whether you will get to write Mains exam, or not. That is, cut-off is decided only by this paper.

CSAT paper is of qualifying nature only. That is, you just need to get 33% marks in CSAT, which amounts to 66 marks out of a total of 200 marks. If you score less, you will get eliminated.

Warning

You need to appear in both the papers, to qualify for the Mains Exam stage. There’s a negative marking of 33.33% for every incorrect answer. No marks are deducted for unattempted questions.

Questions in GS paper are from the following subjects and areas:

• Geography (India and World) – Cover NCERTs (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th) and then maybe GC Leong for Physical Geography. Do some map work too.
• Indian Polity (i.e. mainly Indian Constitution) - M. Laxmikanth. He has a book on Public Administration too. So, don’t get confused. NCERTs are not that good when it comes to polity (or Civics as it is called in school).
• Economics (mostly Macro Economics) – Clear your concepts by reading a standard book, and then just follow the current news. As far as NCERT is concerned, just read the Macro Economy book. Just understand the various famous curves from Micro Economics (e.g. Phillips curve, etc.). Focus of UPSC CSE exam is on Macro Economics, and not on Micro Economics.
• History (India and World) – NCERTs, Bipin Chandra (or Summary of Bipin Chandra like that published by Spectrum). Bipin Chandra is nice to read, but difficult to revise.
• Science and Technology – Mostly Current affairs.
• Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) – NCERTs will be more than enough, along with current news, e.g. Noble prizes, new discoveries, etc. Focus on 9th and 10th class books. 11th, 12th Science NCERT books are too bulky. So, you may skip them – just too much effort for very little marks. If you have been a science student, then it won’t be that big a deal for you anyways. Just go through the previous year questions.
• Current Affairs, some GK etc.

Note

Unlike many state PSC examinations, UPSC CSE stresses more on your understanding of the concepts and your critical thinking, and not how much information you have mugged up.

Questions in CSAT paper are from the following subjects and areas:

Maths (mostly Arithmetic), Reasoning, English (mostly Reading Comprehension) – Just read the basic concepts of Maths and Reasoning from material of any coaching. In my experience, TIME coaching material is the best, followed by Career Launcher.

For, Reading Comprehension (RC) just give some mock tests and improve your reading habits. You are going to read some good newspapers and books on a regular basis while preparing for UPSC IAS exam, so that will improve your comprehension skills naturally.

Note

If you want to understand how to approach RC, then you may read the following articles in our websites, dedicated to Aptitude Examination preparation.

• Approach to RC (In English)

• Approach to RC (In Hindi)

For Geography, you may refer Geography for UPSC and State PSC.

To do good in these objective exams is not that big a deal. You just need to study extensively, and learn how to make use of the options in exam conditions. You can end up selecting the correct option, even if you do not remember the exact right answer.

Many a times the right answer will click in your mind after seeing it in one of the options. While in some other cases, you may end up eliminating 2 or 3 of the incorrect options, and thus will be left with the correct option (called the process of elimination).

Approach to Guess Work!

If you have eliminated 2 options, then you must attempt that question and select one out of the rest of the two options. If you are really confident that the correct answer must be in one of the two remaining options, then it gives us a healthy probability of 0.5, i.e. 50% chance of getting the right answer.

Given that negative marking is only 25%, it’s a risk we must take to maximize our score. If our number of attempts are very less, then it gets really hard to clear the cut-off. This strategy is valid even for other objective exams, such as CAT, XAT, GMAT, GRE, SSC, Bank PO, etc.

At least that’s what I used to do, and I cracked a lot of exams and jobs. You may apply this strategy in some mock tests though, before you do it in real exam. When competition is very tough, even our guess work needs practice, isn’t it?

Mains Stage

Once you give your prelims, you should not wait for its result. Rather just start preparing for the Mains exam. Unlike the preliminary round, here you will encounter subjective papers.

However, just like the preliminary round, there are two types of papers here – papers whose marks are accounted for in making the merit list, and papers that are only qualifying in nature.

The various papers that your will encounter in this round, and their respective weightage have been listed below.

• Qualifying Papers – One paper on some Indian Language, and other on English language. You will choose the Indian language yourself. Students just need to get 25% in these exams, i.e. 75 out of 300 marks. Marks secured in these exams are not used for making the cut-off for the Interview stage. For each of the two papers – Total Marks: 300
• Essay – Its marks are used in construction of merit list. Total Marks: 250
• General Studies Papers – There are 4 papers of General Studies, and their marks are used in construction of merit list. For each of the four papers – Total Marks: 250
• Optional Papers – There are 2 Optional papers, and their marks are used in construction of merit list. Paper I focuses more on the basic concepts, and Paper II more on their application part. For each of the two papers – Total Marks: 250

Note

Duration of each of the exam in Mains Stage is 3 hours. And total marks of all the papers that are utilized in construction of merit list are 1750.

While, Essay and General Studies Papers are common for all candidates, each candidate chooses his or her own Optional paper. Some famous options are:

• Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology – These are pretty famous choices among UPSC CSE aspirants. They don’t have a very big syllabus, especially syllabus of Philosophy and Anthropology is pretty manageable. Also, a lot of good material, books and coaching are available for these subjects.
• Geography, Maths, Physics, Chemistry – These subjects are a hit among science background students. But syllabus is pretty long.
• History, Public Administration, Psychology – They are also chosen by many. Their syllabus is relatively larger than that of optionals like Philosophy and Anthropology.
• Language Options – Some students from humanities background also choose a language paper as their optional paper, e.g. English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi, etc.

Choose the optional subject as per your temperament and knack of scoring marks in that subject. Read some NCERTs and previous year papers to get a better idea. That will help you in your decision-making.

Writing Practice - The key to Success!

The key to clear the Mains round is extensive writing practice. Though you will always have a lot to read and revise, do take out some time to write too. Write a few short answers, and a long answer every day. Do attempt some mock tests too, and work on the feedback you get. It will improve your writing skills immensely.

As far as we know, Vision IAS coaching has the best test series programme for English medium students, whether it’s for preliminary exams (GS and CSAT), or for Mains exams. For Hindi medium students, Drishti IAS coaching is considered the leading player.

Interview Round

Once you clear the Mains round, you will come across the last hurdle in the form of the Interview round. Just prepare your resume, and any questions that can be asked based on that, e.g. your hobbies, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Questions may also be asked on your educational background, current affairs, etc.

In short, anything can be asked. But focus will be more on judging your soft skills, e.g. how flexible/rigid your opinions are, can you handle tough questions diplomatically, how you behave if you don’t know the answer, how you manage tough situations, along with your communication skills, personality, decision-making skills, etc.

The interview panel knows that you must be a knowledgeable person to have qualified the Mains round. So, unlike popular perception, their focus will more be on judging your other skills and facets of personality.

However, be ready for surprises. Do some research on the various Interview panels, the people in them, their educational background and the kind of questions they ask. It will help you immensely when you will face them eventually.

And yes, give a lot of mock interviews. Nothing will prepare you better than that. Many coaching institutes will even offer you free mock interviews, just in return of your picture and enrolment number. But do appear in some good quality mock drills too, even if you have to pay. Some of the good coaching institutes for this purpose are Vajiram and Ravi, Vision IAS, etc.

We hope that the information provided in this article will prove helpful for you. As in any other entrance exam, whether you clear UPSC CSE exam or not will depend a lot on your self-study, rather than on what coaching you have joined. Even if you join some coaching, focus more on who is teaching you, rather than the name of the institute.

Have a look at the content provided by any given coaching. The better the content, probably the better will be its management. That will give you some idea, how serious that institute is to help you out in your endeavour.