Note:

• Provided that a candidate belonging to categories (b), (c), (d) and (e) above shall be a person in whose favour a certificate of eligibility has been issued by the Government of India.
• A candidate in whose case a certificate of eligibility is necessary may be admitted to the examination but the offer of appointment may be given only after the necessary eligibility certificate has been issued to him/her by the Government of India.

Educational Qualification:

A candidate must hold a graduation degree of any of the Universities incorporated by an Act of the central or State Legislature in India or other educational institutions established by an Act of Parliament or declared to be deemed as a University under Section 3 of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 or possess an equivalent qualification

Number of attempts:

Every candidate appearing at the examination who is otherwise eligible, shall be permitted six (6) attempts (For General Category students) at the CSE. However, relaxation in the number of attempts will be available to the SC/ST/OBC and PwBD category candidates who are otherwise eligible. The number of attempts available to such candidates as per relaxation is as under:

Note:

The terms – GL for General, EWS for Economically Weaker Sections, SC for Scheduled Castes, ST for Scheduled Tribes, OBC for Other Backward Classes and PwBD for Persons with Benchmark Disability – are used for denoting the categories of candidates taking an attempt at the Examination

Age Limit:

• A candidate must older than age of 21 years and younger than the age of 32 years on the 1st day of August, of respective year of appearing for the exam.
• The upper age-limit prescribed above will be relaxable:-
  • Up to a maximum of five years if a candidate belongs to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe.
  • Up to a maximum of three years in the case of candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes who are eligible to avail of reservation applicable to such candidates.
  • Up to a maximum of three years in the case of Defence Services Personnel, disabled in operations during hostilities with any foreign country or in a disturbed area and released as a consequence thereof;
  • Up to a maximum of five years in the case of ex-servicemen including Commissioned Officers and Emergency Commissioned Officers (ECOs)/ Short Service Commissioned Officers (SSCOs) who have rendered at least five years Military Service as on 1st August, 2021 and have been released: (i) on completion of assignment (including those whose assignment is due to be completed within one year from 1st August, 2021, otherwise than by way of dismissal or discharge on account of misconduct or inefficiency); or (ii) on account of physical disability attributable to Military Service; or (iii) on invalidment.
  • Up to a maximum of five years in the case of ECOs/SSCOs who have completed an initial period of assignment of five years of Military Service as on 1st August, 2021 and whose assignment has been extended beyond five years and in whose case the Ministry of Defence issues a certificate that they can apply for civil employment and that they will be released on three months notice on selection from the date of receipt of offer of appointment
  • Up to a maximum of 10 years in the case of candidates belonging to Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBD) categories viz. (i) blindness and low vision; (ii) deaf and hard of hearing; (iii) locomotor disability including cerebral palsy, leprosy cured, dwarfism, acid attack victims and muscular dystrophy; (iv) autism, intellectual disability, specific learning disability and mental illness; (v) multiple disability from amongst person under clauses (i) to (iv) including deaf-blindness.

PLAN OF EXAMINATION-

The IAS & IFS/IFoS will consist of:

TIER-1 Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination

Since this is a qualifying exam, the marks obtained in this test are not counted for determining the final order of merit of a candidate if he qualifies for the main exam as well.

The medium of the question paper would be both English and Hindi. However, Language Comprehension skills of Class X level will be tested through passages from English Language only without any Hindi translation.

Since there may be common candidates for Civil Services Examination and the Indian Forest Service Examination, after the common Screening Test done through Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, separate lists will be prepared for the candidates eligible to appear in the Civil Service (Main) Examination and Indian Forest Service (Main) Examination, based on the number of vacancies to be filled through the Civil Services Examination and Indian Forest Service Examination.

TIER-2 - IAS Exam Pattern for UPSC Mains

The UPSC exam pattern for the Mains stage consists of 9 papers conducted over 5-7 days. Only those candidates who secure at least the declared cut off in General Studies I and 33% in General Studies II in Prelims will be allowed to appear for the Mains Examination. As per the exam pattern of UPSC Mains, all of the papers consist of descriptive answer type questions. The details of UPSC Mains Exam are given below:

**All of the mains papers except for the language papers A and B are of a merit ranking nature. Paper A and B are of qualifying nature and candidates must score at least 25% in each for the marks from their Paper I – Paper VII to be given weightage. Paper A is not compulsory for candidates from the States of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim as well as candidates with hearing impairment, provided they can prove that they have been exempted from such 2nd or 3rd language courses by their concerned board or university. The Indian Language paper covers any of the languages included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.

The Optional subjects for Paper VI and VII of the mains examination have to be any one of the subjects from the following list:

The literature of any one of the following languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.

TIER-2 - IFS/IFoS Exam Pattern for UPSC Mains

• The Indian Forest Service (Main) Examination is for 1400 marks.
• The question paper would be set only in English and the exam has to be answered in English only.
• Each of the six papers would be 3 hours long.
• The written exam has 6 papers of the conventional essay type for a total of 1400 marks. An extra 30 minutes per paper would be allowed for blind candidates.

LIST OF OPTIONAL SUBJECTS

Please note that the candidates can't take the following combination of subjects:

• Agriculture and Agricultural Engineering
• Agriculture and Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science
• Agriculture and Forestry.
• Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
• Mathematics and Statistics
• Of the Engineering subjects viz. Agricultural Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering - not more than one subject.

UPSC Interview / Personality Test

This is the final stage of the IAS or IFS/IFoS Exam before the final results are declared. Officially it is called the Interview/Personality Test and counted as a part of the Mains Examination for merit ranking purposes. From a preparation standpoint, it is considered the third stage as preparation strategies for the written and interview stages are different. As per the IAS or IFS/IFoS exam pattern, this consists of an interview by the UPSC board to assess the candidates’ suitability for a civil services career and associated responsibilities. The board consists of competent and unbiased observers who have a record of the candidates’ career. The board would judge the candidates mental and social traits by asking questions of general interest. Some of the qualities that the board looks for are mental alertness, critical powers of assimilation, clear and logical exposition, a balance of judgement, variety and depth of interest, ability for social cohesion and leadership, intellectual and moral integrity.

The maximum marks allotted for the interview stage is 275 for IAS and 300 for IFS/IFoS, thus bringing the total marks for the merit list consideration to 2025 for IAS and 1700 for IFS/IFoS.

The whole exam pattern of the UPSC IAS or IFS/IFoS examination is comprehensive, and the competition is intense. One should start preparing in-depth as the examination process lasts for almost a year and not making the cut means starting from scratch the following year.