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How do I apply for the Civil Services Exam?

The Application Procedure for the Civil Services Examination is pretty simple. The Application

Form and Information Brochure can be obtained from the Head Post Offices or Post Officesthroughout the country.

The filled Application Form should be sent to:Secretary,

Union Public Service Commission,

Dholpur House,New Delhi - 110011.

Just to give you an idea,here is a sample application form. Note: This is just a sample form to give

you an idea. You cannot use this form for application. You will have to take an actual form fromthe Post Office/Head Post Office in your town!

Here is the information brochure you will get along with the application form. You shoulddownload it and read it properly. It tells you about the filling of the form, the exam and some other

details.

Can anyone apply, what is the eligibility criteria?

I. Academic Eligibility

The candidate must possess a degree from an Indian University or an educational institutiondeemed as a University or possess an equivalent qualification. Those in the final year of a degree

course can also appear in the Preliminary Examination.

II. Other Eligibility Conditions

1. For the IAS and the IPS, the candidate must be a citizen of India.2. For the other services, a candidate must be either:

a citizen of India, or

a subject of Nepal, or

a subject of Bhutan, or

a Tibetan refugee who came over to India before January 1, 1962, with the intention of

permanently settling in India, or

a person of Indian origin who has migrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, East Africancountries of Kenya, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zaire,

Ethiopia and Vietnam with the intention of permanently settling in India.

iii. The candidate must have attained 21 years of age on August 1st of the year of examination andmust not have attained 30 years of age on that date. The upper age limit will be relaxed by 3 years

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for OBC candidates and 5 years for SC/ST candidates. The upper age limit is also relaxed in favor

of certain categories of civil servants working under the Government of India and Defense

Services Personnel.

These are the Govt. stated eligibility criteria. If you come under these, you can give the exam.

When is the examination usually conducted?

The notification for the examination (giving the rules and syllabus for all the subjects in theexamination) is published in the month of December every year in the 'Employment News' /

'Rozgar Samachar' and 'Gazette of India', as well as, in some leading Newspapers.

You should try to get a copy of this notification. The Preliminary Examination is usually held in

May / June and the Main Examination in October / November of the same calendar year.

If you are wondering what the Main Examination and the Preliminary Examination is, dontworry! We will be explaining all this in the next page.

People give the exam many times!? How many times are you

allowed to give the exam?

If you belong to the Open Category you can give the exam 4 times maximum!

If you belong to the OBC you can give the exam 7 times.

If you belong to the SC/ST you can give the exam as many times as you want. There isno restriction on the number of times!

Where is the exam conducted? Is there a exam center in my

city?

The following cities have exam centers:

Agartala Gangtok

Panaji ( Goa )

Ahmedabad

Hyderabad

Patna

Aizawl

Imphal

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Pondicherry

Aligarh

Itanagar

Port Blair

Allahabad

Jaipur Raipur

Aurangabad

Jammu

Ranchi

Bangalore

Jodhpur

Sambalpur Bareilly

Jorhat

Shillong

Bhopal Kochi

Shimla

Chandigarh

Kohima

Srinagar

Chennai

Kolkata

Thiruvananthapuram

Cuttack

Lucknow

Tirupati

Dehradun

Madurai

Udaipur

Delhi

Mumbai

Vishakhapatnam

Dharwar

Nagpur

Dispur.

The Civil Service Examination has a complicated format! The complete exam stretches over a

period of one year! So, before you go ahead, let us first try to understand the format of the exam.

First of all, in the month of May or June there are the Preliminary examinations. Now, in thisexamination, there are two papers. The papers are on:

1. General Studies (150 marks)

2. Some optional subject (300 marks)

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This exam is just to get you to the next round of the main exam. This is just to short list

candidates. The score you get here is NOT added to your final score.

Now, you are probably wondering what general studies and some optional subject means, solet us clear that up!

General Studies Paper.

General Studies paper consists of questions on:

1. Indian Polity & Economy2. History of India including Indian National Movement

3. Indian and World Geography

4. Current Affairs of National and International Importance

5. General and day-to-day Science6. Mental Ability and Basics of Statistics etc.

Questions on planning, budgeting, developmental programs, latest issues of political and

constitutional importance, panchayati raj, electoral reforms, natural resources, culture, growth ofnationalism, Committees, Commission etc can be expected every year.

Now-a-days, there is a lot of emphasis on current affairs in the general studies paper!

Basically, the syllabus is HUGE and vague. But, dont worry we shall try to help you with what

you need to do. How to prepare for these papers is given later on in the How to prepare

section

Some optional subject paper

Here you have to give a paper on a subject of your choice. You can choose from the following

subjects:

Agriculture

Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science Botany

Chemistry

Civil Engineering

Commerce

Economics

Electrical Engineering

Geography

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Geology

Indian History

Law

Mathematics

Mechanical Engineering

Medical Science Philosophy

Physics

Political Science

Psychology

Public Administration

Sociology

Statistics

Zoology

As, you know, to give the exam you need to be a graduate in some field. People generally

choose their optional subject as the same subject that they graduated in. However, there is no such

compulsion. You can choose any subject and give your "optional subject paper" for that subject.

To get the syllabus for the optional subject you pick, you cancheck out this link!

Okay, now after you have given the prelims, you have to wait for the result and see if you gotselected for the Main Examination! The results generally come out by July or August!

Once the results are out, you will know whether you are going to be appearing for the Main

Examination or not!

Now, in the main examination, there are 9 papers that you have to give! These papers include:

1 Essay type Indian Language Qualifying Paper (300 marks)

1 English Qualifying Paper (300 marks)

1 General Essay type paper (200 marks)

2 General Studies papers (300 marks each)

4 Optional subjects papers (300 marks each)

You can find the syllabus for these papershere. Then finally, if you qualify after the mainexamination stage, you have to go for an interview. In the interview, you are tested on basis of

your personality, mental ability etc. It is seen how suitable the job will be for you. And, if the

interviewers like you, you are selected.

This complete process takes about one year. The preparation for this starts 4-5 yeas in advance.

And out of the 2 lakh people that apply, only 400 to 500 are selected! To add to all this, if you are

selected and only if you have a good enough score, you are free to choose what you want, whether

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IAS, IPS etc IAS and IPS get filled out fastest. If you want to become an IAS officer, you will

need a great score!

Its hard, but we will try to guide you.Next, let us see how you should prepare for theprelims..

Preliminary Examination Syllabus 2011

Scheme of CS (Preliminary) Examination

The Preliminary Examination consists of two papers of objective type (multiple-choice questions) carrying amaximum of 400 marks. The Question Papers (Test Booklets) are set in English & Hindi

Civil Services Aptitude Test.

The new Recruitment Process of Civil Services Exam is called the CSAT or the Civil Services AptitudeTest. The CSAT is coming into effect from the Civil Services Examination, 2011. CSAT will not only enableus to choose civil servants with right aptitudes but also end the use of scaling system for varying subjectsthat has been a matter of concern for many. No changes are being introduced at this stage in the CivilServices (Main) Examination and Personality Test in the scheme of Civil Services Examination (CSE).

From Civil Service Examination 2011, Preliminary Examination would consist of two papers- Paper I andPaper II. The syllabus and pattern of the Preliminary Examination would be as under :

(Paper 1) (200 marks) - Duration : Two hrs.

Current events of national and international importance History of India and Indian national movement

Indian and World Geography- physical, social, economic geography of India and the world

Indian Polity and governance constitution, political system, panchayati raj, public policy, Rightsissues, etc.

Economic and social development sustainable development, poverty, inclusion, demographics,social sector initiatives etc.

General issues on environmental ecology, bio-diversity and climate change-that donot requiresubject specialization

General science.

(Paper II) (200 marks) Duration : Two hrs

Comprehension Interpersonal skills including communication skills

Logical reasoning and analytical ability

Decision making and problem solving

General mental ability

Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude etc. (Class X level), Datainterpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. Class X level)

English language comprehension skills (Class X level)

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Questions relating to English Language Comprehension skills of Class X level (last item in theSyllabus of Paper-II) will be tested through passages from English language only without providingHindi translation thereof in the question paper.

The questions will be of multiple choice, objective type.

A set ofsample questionsfor both Papers has been put on the UPSC website for reference of prospective

candidates.

http://upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/csp2011/sampleQns/Final_Qs_for_Website1.pdfhttp://upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/csp2011/sampleQns/Final_Qs_for_Website1.pdfhttp://upsc.gov.in/questionpaper/csp2011/sampleQns/Final_Qs_for_Website1.pdf