UPSC Exam Pattern: Prelims, Mains Exam & Interview

 UPSC Exam Pattern

To ace the UPSC exams also, knowing the UPSC exam pattern is of utmost importance.

Everything that you’ll ever learn and prepare for during your IAS preparations 

will have to ultimately be calibrated to the IAS exam pattern.That’s how important

the topic of the UPSC exam pattern is. 

So, to get to the real thing the UPSC exam is comprised of 3 stages. The first 

stage is the Prelims round, which is essentially an elimination round designed to

filter out a majority of unsuitable candidates.  

Then comes the second phase or the Mains round, which is basically the core of the

UPSC exams and the most important step of selection.  

Lastly, comes the third stage, or the Personal interview round which is designed 

to test your personality and your acumen as a bureaucrat. We’ll go through each 

stage in detail. 

IAS Exam Pattern for UPSC Prelims

The Prelims stage IAS exam pattern basically consists of 2 papers, both conducted

on the same day. The question type in both papers is objective with one right 

answer out of several multiple choices.

The prelims paper, as I have mentioned before is essentially a qualifying stage 

designed to filter out the unsuitable candidates from the exam process.  

The remaining candidates get to appear for the Mains exam. Also, important to

note down is that the marks secured in the prelims paper will not be counted when 

the final merit list of successful candidates is prepared. 

The IAS exam pattern for prelims in a tabular manner is given below:

Assuming that the table given above is able to sufficiently inform you about 

the total marks and time duration of the 2 papers of the Prelims exams, there are

some important points that I’d like to add: 

1. Paper 1 or the GS paper contains 100 questions with negative marking. Every right

answer will fetch you 2 marks and every wrong one will cost you 1/3rd of that or 

.66 marks. Questions that you choose to leave unanswered will not fetch you or 

cost you any mark.  

2. Paper 2 or the CSAT paper contains 80 questions, most of them with negative 

marking.  Every right answer will fetch you 2.5 marks, and wrongly answering a 

question with negative marking will cost you 1/3rd of that or .83 marks. Certain 

questions designed to test your decision-making skills will not cost you any marks

if answered wrongly. Also, questions left unanswered will not fetch or cost you 

any marks.             

UPSC Exam Pattern for UPSC Mains

The UPSC exam pattern for the Mains paper involves 9 papers that are conducted 

over a time period of 5-7 days.

The UPSC Mains exam will be available for you to appear, if and only if you are 

able to clear the Prelims exams.

This means scoring above the declared cut off marks for Paper 1 and scoring a 

minimum of 33% in paper 2 of the Prelims exam. 

Assuming that the table given above is able to sufficiently inform you about the total 

marks of all the papers of the Mains exams, there are some important points that I’d like 

to add: 

1. Out of the 9 papers of the UPSC Mains exam, 2 are qualifying language papers, one 

being English and the other, any other Indian language. Both the language papers 

hold a maximum mark of 300 each. The minimum qualifying marks in these 2 papers 

is 25%.

2. In both language papers there’d be 100 marks worth of essay questions, 60 marks 

worth of questions related to reading comprehension, 60 marks worth precis writing,

40 worth translation-based questions, and finally another 40, worth grammar-based 

questions. 

3. If for any reason you are unable to secure the minimum 25% of the total 300 marks 

in the 2 language papers, all the rest of your mains papers will be disbarred from 

further evaluation. 

4. In all the papers apart from the 2 language papers, you have the choice to write 

in the language of your wish provided that the language of your choice is listed 

in the 8th schedule of the Indian Constitution. 

5. Paper A is not compulsory for you if you belong to the state of Meghalaya,

 Nagaland , Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur, or Arunachal Pradesh. You are also exempt 

from attempting paper A if you are hearing impaired and can prove through valid 

documents from your board or university that you had been exempted from your 2nd 

and 3rd language papers before. 

UPSC Exam Pattern for UPSC Interview Round  

In this round, a panel of unbiased and competent individuals will take your interview in

order to test your personality. 

The questions that the panel asks is to extract suitable answers out of you. Your answers

will then be scrutinized meticulously, and you will be judged on your social and mental 

traits. 

Some of the qualities that the panel would be looking for in you are critical powers of 

assimilation, a balance of judgment, ability to lead and create social cohesion, mental 

alertness, clear and logical exposition, variety and depth of interest, and intellectual 

and moral integrity.  

The maximum marks allotted for the interview round for a candidate is 275, which brings 

the maximum marks of the final merit list to 2025 (1750 of the Mains exams + 275 of the 

interview round) 

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