The Civil Services Examination will consist of two successive stages :
- Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination (Objective Type) for the selection of candidates for Main Examination; and
- Civil Services (Main) Examination (Written and Interview) for the selection of candidates for the various Services and posts.
The Preliminary Examination will consist of two papers of Objective type (MCQ’s) i.e GS Paper 1 & CSAT and carry a maximum of 400 marks.
The Examination shall comprise of two compulsory Papers of 200 marks each. Note :
- Both the question papers will be of the objective type (multiple choice questions) and each will be of two hours duration.
- The General Studies Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination will be a qualifying paper with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%.
- The question papers will be set both in Hindi and English.
- Details of the syllabi are indicated in Part A of Section III.
The written examination will consist of the following papers :—
Qualifying Papers :
| Paper-A (One of the Indian Language to be selected by the candidate from the Languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution). | 300 Marks |
|---|---|
| Paper-B English | 300 Marks |
Papers to be counted for merit:
| Paper-I Essay | 250 Marks |
| Paper-II General Studies-I (Indian Heritage and Culture,History and Geography of the World and Society) | 250 Marks |
| Paper-III General Studies -II (Governance,Constitution,Polity,Social Justice and International relations) | 250 Marks |
|---|---|
| Paper-IV General Studies -III (Technology,Economic Development,Bio-diversity,Environment,Security and Disaster Management) | 250 Marks |
| Paper-V General Studies -IV (Ethics,Integrity and Aptitude) | 250 Marks |
| Paper-VI Optional Subject - Paper 1 | 250 Marks |
| Paper-VII Optional Subject - Paper 2 | 250 Marks |
| Sub Total (Written test) | 1750 Marks |
| Personality Test | 275 Marks |
| Grand Total | 2025 Marks |
Candidates may choose any one of the optional subjects from amongst the list of subjects given.
NOTE:
- The papers on Indian Languages and English will be of Matriculation or equivalent standard and will be of qualifying nature. The marks obtained in these papers will not be counted for ranking.
- Evaluation of the papers, namely, ‘Essay’, ‘General Studies’ and Optional Subject of all the candidates would be done simultaneously along with evaluation of their qualifying papers on ‘Indian Languages’ and ‘English’ but the papers on Essay, General Studies and Optional Subject of only such candidates will be taken cognizance who attain 25% marks in ‘Indian Language’ and 25% in English as minimum qualifying standards in these qualifying papers.
- The paper-A on Indian Languages will not, however, be compulsory for candidates hailing from the States of Arunachanl Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim.
- The paper A on Indian Language will not, however, be compulsory for Candidates belonging to Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (only Hearing Impairment sub-category) provided that they have been granted such exemption from 2nd or 3rd language courses by the concerned education Board/University. The candidate needs to provide an undertaking/self declaration in this regard in order to claim such an exemption to the Commission.
- Marks obtained by the candidates for the Paper I-VII only will be counted for merit ranking. However, the Commission will have the discretion to fix qualifying marks in any or all of these papers.
- For the Language medium/literature of language, the script to be used by the candidates will be as under:
| Language | Script |
|---|---|
| Assamese | Assamese |
| Bengali | Bengali |
| Gujarati | Gujarati |
| Hindi | Devanagari |
| Kannada | Kannada |
| Kashmiri | Persian |
| Konkani | Devanagari |
| Malayalam | Malayalam |
| Manipuri | Bengali |
| Marathi | Devanagari |
| Nepali | Devanagari |
| Odia | Odia |
| Punjabi | Gurmukhi |
| Sanskrit | Devanagari |
| Sindhi | Devanagari or Arabic |
| Tamil | Tamil |
| Telugu | Telugu |
| Urdu | Persian |
| Bodo | Devanagari |
| Dogri | Devanagari |
| Maithili | Devanagari |
| Santhali | Devanagari & Olchiki |
List of optional subjects for Main Examination
(i) Agriculture
(ii) Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science
(iii) Anthropology
(iv) Botany
(v) Chemistry
(vi) Civil Engineering
(vii) Commerce and Accountancy
(viii) Economics
(ix) Electrical Engineering
(x) Geography
(xi) Geology
(xii) History
(xiii) Law
(xiv) Management
(xv) Mathematics
(xvi) Mechanical Engineering
(xvii) Medical Science
(xviii) Philosophy
(xix) Physics
(xx) Political Science and International Relations
(xxi) Psychology
(xxii) Public Administration
(xxiii) Sociology
(xxiv) Statistics
(xxv) Zoology
(xxvi) Literature of one of the following languages :
Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.