Decoding UPSC Civil Services Examination

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducts the Civil Services Examination (CSE) every year to recruit officers for India’s top administrative services such as the IAS (Indian Administrative Service), IPS (Indian Police Service), IFS (Indian Foreign Service), and several Central Services. It is considered one of the most prestigious and challenging examinations in India, aiming to select candidates with strong intellectual ability, integrity, and commitment to public service.

Before understanding the overall strategy to prepare for civil service examination, it is important to know the pattern of the civil service examination. Let us decode the pattern in a simplest way possible.

The UPSC CSE is conducted in three successive stages – Preliminary Examination, Main Examination (written stage), and Mains examination (Personality-Test stage). Each stage tests a different set of abilities, from general awareness and analytical thinking to in-depth understanding and personality traits.

So, what exactly does UPSC expect from its selected candidates? They should possess a sound understanding of India — its society, history, and governance. At the same time, they must be presentable personalities, combining a balanced mind and a compassionate heart. UPSC looks for individuals who can think clearly, communicate effectively, and negotiate thoughtfully in complex situations. The ideal candidate is someone eager to learn new things, flexible enough to question and unlearn inherited biases, and above all, a knowledgeable person with the right attitude — humble, rational, and committed to public service.

Hence, the exam pattern and curriculum is designed in a such a way that it could select such persons to their fold. UPSC generally do not worry about your caste, religion, social status etc. If you have the above knowledge and characteristics, UPSC would be very happy to take you in. That is the very reason why UPSC has a robust reservation system, so that such personalities from oppressed social category are not missed to be included in their fold.

So, how does one acquire this capability and qualities? Does it really require that you have to undergo pre-exam training and get knowledge about all these things? Actually, the answer to this straight forward question is both a yes and a no!

UPSC do not expect everyone to undergo training to get accustomed to the syllabus and other stuffs. If you see the question papers for the last ten years, you will understand that a person who have very good understanding of the surroundings, who have the habit of reading newspapers, magazines, general books etc at least for the past 10 years before they give the exam, would have a decent chance of clearing the exam without any coaching! It might sound ridiculous to some, but, to be honest this is the very thought process behind the exam pattern of UPSC-Civil service examination!

Now students, go and check the UPSC syllabus and previous year question papers. You will find that all the questions that were asked in prelims and mains examinations (except the optional paper) will be predominantly based on the above said logic. Then, you might be wondering, “why there is the optional paper then sir?”, isn’t it? As you would have seen above, our school and college education system unfortunately doesn’t make us a ‘curious George’, rather molds us as a personality who race behind marks and achievements. Hence, this mismatch between our education system and the UPSC pattern is bridged by keeping an optional subject, where, students who have read a particular subject in their graduation or have proficient knowledge in a particular knowledge in a particular subject because of personal interest, can use their knowledge to score good marks in the civils examination.

I believe, by now you would have understood why coaching institutes are not mandatory for clearing UPSC civil service examinations. But unfortunately, as I pointed out earlier, our education system is not aligned in a way that molds our personality that pertains to the expectations of UPSC. This is where coaching institutes like us enter and nullify the void.

So, dear students, please check yourself. Do you need coaching and guidance or you are well equipped to handle the exam yourselves? If you think you need guidance, then please read further. We have designed different strategies for different set of people and personalities.

As you know every individual is different. Each has different strengths, different weaknesses, different comfort zones etc. Hence, preparing a common strategy for all individuals is useless. Hence, this page instead of giving you a closed strategy, tries to give you numerous ideas to prepare your own strategy for preparation! Go ahead.

Starting Early: Parents' & Students' Guide

The first question you must ask yourself is when you are starting your preparation or what is the ideal age for starting preparation? If you would have read my previous paragraphs, you would have understood that starting your preparation at least 10 years before you give your first attempt makes your process of preparation easy and less strenuous. But, given the demands of our education system and market, it becomes an impractical approach. No one can start preparing from age 11, as we might lose our valuable childhood and teenage!

So, any parent who are reading this article can start their child’s preparation for IAS exams during the start of their child’s under graduation. That will be ideal, as you get 3 to 4 years of non-strenuous, strategized preparation time to give a first shot at the exam. Starting before that might become counter productive as the child might lose interest when they actually approach the age to attend the exam! But the parents can definitely encourage the habit of reading newspapers, magazines, general books (both fiction and non-fiction) in English and in their mother tongue from their childhood. In fact, your agenda will be better served if you encourage your children to read comics than see cartoon channels in their childhood! The parents can discuss about history, Indian politics, culture in an unbiased way during their dinner time or so. Cultivating such healthy habits from the child’s early age is more effective than pressurizing the child to prepare UPSC syllabus from 8th std or 9th std.

But some parents become proactive and choose humanities in CBSE curriculum during their child’s higher secondary. They also advice the child to choose their bachelor degree akin with their UPSC preparation and strategy! I would say that there is nothing wrong with approach as long as the parents understands that proper schooling with college mode education is essential for the child’s personality development. Joining their children in coaching institutes and asking them to do under-graduation through distance mode is a very bad idea as it might cripple the students creative ability and expression.

So, we used to say, “for preliminary examination read miles wider (from the syllabus) and inch deeper and for mains examination read inch wider and miles deeper”! Deep understanding of the syllabus is the key to clear mains examination whereas understanding many things around us is the key to crack the prelims!

How to Prepare? (Age & Time Factors)

As I said earlier, the style of preparation varies with various factors. For example, if you have just started your under graduation and is of 18 years of age, and you have decided to prepare for IAS examination from now on, then the preparation style cannot be same as that of a 21-year graduate who is starting his preparation. You must first understand that you are just 18 and have just started your preparation and you still have 3 to 4 years preparation time. Hence, it is not required to rush or push ourselves harder now.

You can leisurely start your preparation with NCERT books. Read science and social science text books from 6th std to 10th std and all text books of 11th and 12th std except language, mathematics, Accounts, business studies and psychology (because these books will not be useful for your preliminary examination and GS papers of mains examination).

Since you have few years left, you can afford to use the first one or two years of graduation to master NCERTs. Along with this also read a English newspaper (preferrable choose one from the Hindu or The Indian Express), and a English Magazine (if you read Indian express daily, then choose the frontline magazine and if you read the Hindu daily, then choose one among the week, outlook and India today magazine), yojana magazine and Kurukshetra magazines (both are published by GOI) regularly. Apart from the above you must also read a monthly current affairs digest from any reputed institution (preferably from PSIR ONLINE for related topics).

After NCERTs start reading India year book published by GOI. Along with that start visiting press information bureau official website and RBI official website. Also, download economic survey from India’s budget website and start glancing it. Definitely you will not understand most of those things in the website and government reports. But getting accustomed to these essential UPSC materials before joining an institute will condition your mind towards proper preparation.

Also, do not forget to start reading general books, both fiction and non-fiction (preferably in English language), if you have not started that earlier. Reading self help books, general philosophies, travel books, world famous novels, award winning literatures etc., not only enhances your knowledge spectrum but also equips you with immense confidence to tackle any hard path ahead.

So, once you are done with all the above things, you are ready to join any institute, probably in the final year of your under graduation. Please don’t join any institute before that because it might affect your overall personality development!

Now, as said earlier you are ready to join an IAS academy to hone your skills. As you know PSIR ONLINE is a specialized IAS portal and academy for Political science and international relations optional subject, GS mains paper 2, and GS mains paper 4 (ethics). Hence, students who wish to take coaching for preliminary examination cannot join our academy. Hence, please choose another reputed academy with great teaching credentials.

Which Subject to Start First?

I would say it depends on the time available. For example, if you have enough time and are ready to spend two years of dedicated preparation before giving your first preliminary examination (as in our case now), then I would suggest the students to prepare their optional subject after mastering their NCERTS. Even if you have not done the first stage of preparation as I said above and you have just come to prepare for civil service examination after completing your graduation, I would still suggest two things: 1. Give minimum two years of preparation time before you give your first preliminary examination, 2. Start your optional subject preparation first.

Choose PSIR as your default optional, as it is the only optional with extreme overlap of syllabus with both your general studies preliminary and general studies mains examination syllabuses. For almost all kind of students, PSIR is the best and the most easiest optional subject available.

Daily Routine & Discipline

The ideal time that could be allocated on daily basis for preparation is 14 hours. In those 14 hours, 1 hour must be allocated for physical exercise and meditation. Remember, only if there was a canvas, you can draw a painting over it. Hence, maintaining a good health throughout the preparation years is as important as preparation itself.

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THE 13-STEP PREPARATION ROADMAP