UPSC CSE 2023 Exam Pattern

 

UPSC Civil Services examination exam pattern

UPSC Civil services examination is considered to be one of the toughest exam in the world. Pattern and diverse nature of the exam are some the reasons which make this as so. Hence, knowing the pattern of the exam is one of the most crucial things before beginning the exam preparation.

UPSC IAS exam is a 3 stage examination. The entire process of exam from application filing to declaration of final results and cutoffs usually takes a complete year.

The 3 stages of the exam are as follows:

A) Preliminary Stage

The Preliminary Stage usually called ‘Prelims’ exam in UPSC fraternity is the first stage of UPSC IAS Exam. It consists 2 papers- General studies (GS) Paper and Civil services aptitude test (CSAT) paper. Both papers are objective in nature. This stage of exam is usually conducted by UPSC around end of May or beginning of June every year. This year, the Prelims exam is scheduled to take place on 28^th May, 2023.

GS Paper has 100 questions carrying 2 marks each. There is 33% negative marking also for each wrong answer. The paper consist of questions related to General subjects like History, geography, polity etc and Current affairs.

The paper is merit deciding paper to enter in next stage of the examination. It is also the paper whose level of Cut-off are highly debated after the exam is conducted.

The second paper is CSAT Paper which has 80 question and each question carries 2.5 marks. There is 33% negative also for each wrong answer. The paper consist of questions related to general mathematics, quantitative aptitude and English comprehension.

The scores obtained in these two papers are considered while calculating the final result.

B) Mains stage

This stage is the most crucial stage of the IAS exam. The score obtained in this stage is accounted while deciding the final rankings of the candidate.

The exams of this stage are conducted usually around mid of September every year. There are 9 papers in total in mains stage. All the Mains papers are subjective in nature.

The pattern of the exam is mentioned below.

C) Interview stage

The interview stage is the last stage of the UPSC IAS Exam.

In this stage, you have to face a 5 member UPSC Board at the UPSC Dholpur House in New Delhi.

The interview stage is more about testing the overall personality of the candidates than their knowledge. The interviews usually begin at the end of month of January and goes up to the month of May.

Declaration of final results

The declaration of final result is made by UPSC usually 3-5 days after the last day of the interview. Also, the marks of selected candidates, marks of unsuccessful candidates, cut-offs and answer keys of Prelims papers are also released.

Must Check: Best IAS Coaching In Delhi