UPSC Civil Services - Preliminary Syllabus

The preliminary UPSC Civil Services Examination has two papers. They are General Studies Paper-I and General Studies Paper-II.

General Studies Paper-I Syllabus

• 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, Rights Issues, 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 do not require subject specialization.
• General Science.

General Studies Paper-II Syllabus

• 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), Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. – Class X level).

Notes:

• General Studies Paper-II: It is a qualifying paper with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%.
• Negative Marks: Each wrong answer will be penalized with 1/3rd of the marks prescribed for the question.
• Duration for each paper is 120 minutes or 2 hours.