UPSC Syllabus 2021

 

UPSC Prelims Syllabus

Starting off with the UPSC Prelims syllabus, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you if I say that the syllabus is pretty vast in its own right.

However, the UPSC Prelims examination is basically conducted for the purpose of screening only. Thus if you clear the Prelims exam, you will be eligible for the Mains exam.

Also, your Prelims marks will not be considered in your final order of merit, provided you manage to make it through to the interview round.

The UPSC prelims examination comprises 2 papers, namely the General studies paper and the CSAT paper or the Civil Services Aptitude Test.

We will start with the syllabus for Paper 1 i.e., General Studies (GS) paper.

Prelims Syllabus Highlights

UPSC Prelims Syllabus for Paper 1: General Studies (GS)

This GS paper or paper 1 is designed to test your overall knowledge about your surroundings and the world, and also to test how observant you are as a person, by asking questions related to current affairs.

The paper contains 100 objective-type questions. Each right answer would fetch you 2 marks, whereas selecting the wrong answer will cost you 1/3 of those 2 marks, or in other words, 0.66 marks will be deducted for every wrong answer.

Leaving out a question will not cost you any marks.

The UPSC prelims syllabus for the GS paper consists of topics from a wide range of subjects making it extremely difficult to pinpoint the kind of questions that might be asked in the upcoming paper.

Getting back, I have written down the list of major topics from the UPSC Prelims syllabus that you’d need to broadly cover for GS Paper (Paper 1) below:

• Current events of national and international importance
• History of India and Indian National Movement
• Indian & World Geography – Social, Physical, Economic Geography of the World and India.
• Governance and Polity in India –Rights Issues, Constitution, Public Policy, Political System, Panchayati Raj, etc.
• Social & Economic Development –Social Sector initiatives, Demographics, Sustainable Development, Inclusion, Poverty, etc.
• General issues on Biodiversity, Environmental Ecology, & Climate Change – these topics do not require subject specialization.
• General Science

UPSC Prelims Syllabus for Paper 2: Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT)

The CSAT or Paper 2 is conducted with the intention to test your reasoning, comprehension, and analytical abilities.

This is because, as a Civil Servant it is of paramount importance that you are able to perceive the world and the problems therein with utmost precision and rationality.

The CSAT paper includes questions from the subjects of Reasoning & Analysis and Reading Comprehension. It also occasionally tests your decision-making skills by asking you questions pertaining to the same.

Rest assured, the decision-making-based questions do not carry negative marking.

Given below is the list of major topics of the syllabus from which questions are asked in the UPSC CSAT Paper:

• Comprehension
• Communication and Interpersonal Skills
• Analytical ability and Logical Thinking
• Problem Solving and Decision Making
• General Mental ability
• Basic Numeracy, i.e. orders of magnitudes, numbers & their relations, etc (class 10 level)
• Interpretation of Data (charts, tables, graphs, data sufficiency, etc. – Also class 10 level )

That pretty much sums up the IAS/IPS syllabus for the Prelims exam. Now it’s time to get down to the big daddy of all exam syllabi, The UPSC Mains syllabus.

UPSC Mains Syllabus

Remember what I wrote about the Himalayan valley reminding me about the syllabus of UPSC, it was actually the Mains syllabus that came to my mind then.

The vastness of the IAS/IPS syllabus for the Mains is quite capable of stirring up anxiety-ridden shivers in even the most seasoned aspirants.

The key highlights from the UPSC syllabus for IAS/IPS are provided in the image below:

Mains Syllabus Highlights

This is because only the candidates that are able to successfully clear Phase 1, or the Prelims, are allowed to appear for the Phase 2 or Mains exam. In other words, only the candidates that are able to score above the UPSC cut offs for the Prelims are then allowed to take the Mains exam.

Moreover, the UPSC Mains exam consists of 9 subjective type papers out of which 2 are qualifying language papers, one English, and any other Indian language of 300 marks each.

The rest of the 7 papers have a maximum mark of 250. Also, it should be noted that not qualifying in the 2 language papers will cause the rest of your 7 papers to be disbarred from further evaluation. The minimum qualifying mark in the language papers is 25%.

Okay, now that we have already talked about the 2 language papers it’s time to look at the 7 main papers of the UPSC Mains exams. To help you better understand, I have provided a table listing all the subjects of the 7 papers comprising the Mains syllabus along with their weightage:

List of Papers in UPSC Mains Exam

Papers	Subjects	Marks
Paper A	Any Indian Language (compulsory) - qualifying paper	300
Paper B	English - qualifying paper	300
Paper 1	Essay (you can choose to write it in a medium of your choice)	250
Paper 2	General Studies 1 (Indian and World History, Culture, Heritage, & Geography)	250
Paper 3	General Studies 2 (Polity, Constitution, Governance, International Relations & Social Justice)	250
Paper 4	General Studies 3 (Economic Development, Technology, Disaster Management & Security, Biodiversity)	250
Paper 5	General Studies 4 (Aptitude, Ethics, & Integrity)	250
Paper 6	Optional Subject: Paper 1	250
Paper 7	Optional Subject: Paper 2	250

UPSC Syllabus for Language Papers: (Any Indian Language & English)

In these papers there’d be:

• An essay question of 100 marks where you’d have to select one out of a few given topics.
• 5-6 questions related to reading comprehension: of a maximum of 60 marks.
• Precis writing questions worth 60 marks which you’d have to attempt on special answer sheets with grid lines.
• Translation-based questions: English to the chosen Indian language & vice versa for 20 marks each, totaling 40 marks.
• Questions based on grammar, synonyms, sentence corrections, and basic language usage, of a total of 40 marks.

UPSC Mains Syllabus for Optional subject (2 papers – Paper 1 and paper 2)

For the optional subject papers, you need to choose a subject of which you have an in-depth understanding.

The UPSC allows you to choose one from out of a total of 48 different subjects. There’ll be 2 papers, Paper 1 and Paper 2 of 250 marks each pertaining to the subject that you choose.

Having said that, I have shared a table listing all the optional subjects for UPSC, below:

Subjects
Agriculture	Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science	Anthropology	Botany
Chemistry	Civil Engineering	Commerce and Accountancy	Economics
Electrical Engineering	Geography	Geology	History
Philosophy	Political Science and International Relations	Psychology	Public Administration
Physics	Sociology	Law	Mathematics
Management	Medical Science	Statistics	Mechanical Engineering
Zoology

Literature of the following languages are likewise a part of the UPSC optional subjects, for the Mains Exam, from which you can pick your most appropriate optional subject:

Languages
Manipuri	Marathi	Nepali	Oriya
Punjabi	Sanskrit	Santhali	Sindhi
Assamese	Bengali	Tamil	Bodo
Hindi	Konkani	Telugu	Dogri
Kannada	Maithili	Urdu	Gujarati
Kashmiri	Malayalam	English	-

With this, I guess we are done with the segment of optional subjects. My advice is that you should choose the optional subject after very careful consideration.

If you have stayed with me till here, I believe you’re a determined soul and have the fire to crack this prestigious exam. So, I would like to provide you the latest detailed and official UPSC Syllabus PDF as per the notification.

Click Here to Read About: upsc mains management coaching
Source by: https://www.anujjindal.in/upsc-syllabus-for-ias-exam/