“Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now.” -Mattie Stepanek

To crack competitive exams like the UPSE Civil Services Examination(CSE), along with a very good strategy we need dedication, patience, perverence, discipline, motivation among other things because this exam not like a sprint but it is like a marathon/ a long race. Here our intention would be to understand the exam in a holistic way and will see the strategy to clear this exam.

There are three stages of this exam- Prelims, Mains and Interview

Preliminary stage, you have to give two exams:

            Paper 1- General Studies(GS): It carries 100 questions of 2 marks each.

            Paper 2- Civil Services Aptitude Test(CSAT): It carries 80 Questions of 2.5 mark each. Only 1/3 marks required to clear this.

First of all It is of qualifying nature i.e. marks of the Preliminary stage is not going to affect our final merit list but still, it is the most important stage as only after clearing this stage you can move to next stage i.e. Mains stage.

Mains Stage-

Unlike preliminary stage which is objective in nature and rejects the aspirants, mains is a subjective stage. There would be nine papers

General study Paper 1- 250 Marks

General study Paper 2- 250 Marks

General study Paper 3- 250 Marks

General study Paper 4 – 250 Marks

Optional Subject Paper 1- 250 Marks

Optional Subject Paper 2  – 250 Marks

Essay Paper- 250 Marks

Language Paper 1 English Paper (compulsory)- 300 marks

Language Paper 2 ( Chosen from 22 languages of Schedule 8) – 300 Marks

Both the language papers are of the qualifying nature. You have to secure only 25% of the total marks.

Merit for the interview stage would be considered from 7 papers i.e. 1750 marks.

Interview Stage- Interview has a weightage of 275 marks

Hence final merit would be considered out of 2025 marks.