UPSC Mains 2024 - Civil Services (Main) Examination

The Union Public Service Commission conducts recruitment exams for a variety of Group A and a few Group B posts in the Indian government every year. The most prestigious and most competitive exam conducted by the UPSC is the Civil Services Examination.

The pattern of the UPSC Civil Services Exam 2024 (Mains) is given below. Any changes in the exam pattern or syllabus of the upcoming UPSC Mains exam will be updated here after the release of the notification.

1. UPSC CSE (Preliminary) 2024 – May 26, 2024
2. UPSC CSE (Main) 2024 – September 20, 2024

This article covers, in-depth, the written stage of the Civil Services exam i.e. UPSC Mains for the year 2024.

Check the UPSC Calendar 2024 from the link.

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Latest Updates about UPSC 2024

The UPSC Mains 2023 results were declared on 8 Dec 2023. Candidates can check the UPSC Results 2023 Mains in the link.

The UPSC Notification 2024 will be released on February 14, 2024. The UPSC Prelims exam is scheduled to be conducted on May 26, 2024 and the Mains exam is scheduled to begin on September 20, 2024. The Civil Services (Preliminary) Exam 2023 was held on May 28, 2023. After the declaration of the Prelims exam, the eligible candidates who have cleared the Prelims have to fill DAF-I to appear in UPSC Mains. The UPSC CSE Mains exam was held from September 15, 2023. The IAS Interview 2023 dates are for January and February 2024.

All the updates related to UPSC 2024 exam, will be notified here for candidates’ reference.

• Detailed Application Form-II (DAF II) will be released post the Civil Services Mains Result. This UPSC DAF has to be filled by the candidates who qualify the personality test.

The dates of the UPSC Mains 2023 were:

To download UPSC Mains 2023 Question Papers PDF, visit the linked article.

The dates of the UPSC Mains 2022 were:

If you are looking for the UPSC syllabus for Prelims, Mains and Interview and information on the Civil Services Exam as a whole, refer to the link above.

UPSC Mains – IAS Exam 2024

Topics covered in this article:

1. What is the UPSC Mains Exam/CSE(Main)/IAS Mains?
2. How many candidates appeared for UPSC Mains 2023?
3. How to apply for the UPSC Mains 2024?
4. Preparation Strategy for the UPSC Mains 2024
5. UPSC Mains Exam Pattern for the IAS Exam 2024
6. Important information regarding the UPSC Mains and UPSC Mains Syllabus
7. UPSC Mains Syllabus – IAS exam 2024
   1. Qualifying Papers
   2. Essay
   3. General Studies
   4. Optional Subjects

What is the UPSC Mains Exam/CSE (Main)/IAS Mains?

The UPSC Mains exam is the second stage of the Civil Services Examination. IAS aspirants who clear the Prelims i.e. those who score above the cutoff in General Studies Paper I and more than 33% marks in General Studies Paper-II (CSAT) are eligible to appear for the UPSC Mains.

Candidates who aspire to become IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS officers have to give UPSC Mains before they are cleared for the IAS interview/UPSC Personality Test stage.

How many candidates appeared for the UPSC Mains 2023?

Out of the 11 lakh candidates who applied for the UPSC 2023 exam, the UPSC selected 14624 candidates to appear for the Main Examination. Out of around 14600 candidates, the commission selected 2916 candidates to appear for the UPSC interview.

How to apply for the UPSC Mains?

Once the Civil Services Exam (Preliminary) results are declared, successful candidates will have to fill out the online Detailed Application Form (DAF) for UPSC Mains on the official website (upsc.gov.in).

The DAF for UPSC Mains has six modules/sections:

1. Personal
2. Educational Information
3. Parental Information
4. Employment Information
5. Upload documents
6. Final Submission

Some fields like name, Date of birth, exam centre for UPSC Mains, etc., will be prepopulated in the UPSC Mains DAF from the information provided at the time of filling out the UPSC online application for CSE(Preliminary).

For UPSC Mains, you can check here which documents need to be uploaded with the DAF.

Note – Once the Final Submission is done no changes are allowed online, so candidates should be extra careful and cross-check all details when filling the DAF for UPSC Mains.

Also, this DAF forms the basis of a lot of questions in the IAS interview/UPSC Personality test stage so make sure that you keep a copy of it for your reference.

Preparation Strategy for the UPSC Mains 2024

• Current Affairs are an important part of the UPSC Exam (for Prelims and for UPSC Mains). Ideally, aspirants should prepare Current Affairs for at least 12-15 months i.e. UPSC Mains exam in 2024 will be held from September 20, 2024 onwards, so candidates should prepare Current Affairs from June 2024 onwards.

• Important sources for current affairs preparation for IAS exam 2024 are:
  • Yojana Magazine
  • Newspapers (The Hindu/The Indian Express)
  • Press Information Bureau (PIB)
  • Economic and Political Weekly (EPW)

• For the benefit of IAS aspirants, BYJU’S free IAS preparation provides:
  • Comprehensive daily news analysis
  • The gist of Yojana
  • The gist of EPW
  • Daily video analysis of The Hindu
  • List Of NCERT books for UPSC Mains preparation
  • NCERT notes for History (Modern, Medieval, Ancient), Art and Culture, and Geography for UPSC Mains

• Given that the syllabuses for the UPSC Prelims and UPSC Mains overlap, candidates should prepare for both exams at the same time.

• As per UPSC, marks in the Civil Services (Main) exam are not given for superficial answers, so candidates should do answer writing practice.

• An important part of IAS preparation is practising the UPSC previous year question papers. Applicants who are preparing for the upcoming Civil Services examination can download the UPSC Previous Year Question Papers from the linked page.

UPSC Mains Exam Pattern for the IAS 2024

The UPSC Mains or CSE (Main) pattern was revised in 2015. As per the revised pattern, the UPSC Mains 2024 will comprise nine theory papers (essay descriptive type). Out of the nine papers, only seven will be counted for merit ranking. Candidates also have to choose one optional subject for UPSC Mains. More on UPSC Mains optional later in the article.

The maximum marks for the UPSC Mains exam are 1750 (7 papers * 250 marks each). All papers are of three-hour duration.

The UPSC Mains pattern for Civil Services Exam 2024 is given below:

Important information regarding the UPSC Mains and UPSC Mains Syllabus

• An IAS aspirant’s marks in the UPSC Mains and IAS interview determine his/her final rank in the merit list

• The UPSC Mains intends to assess the depth of a candidate’s knowledge. Hence, marks will only be given for “relevant, meaningful, and succinct answers.”

• The questions in UPSC Mains test aspirant’s basic understanding, ability to analyse and “view on conflicting socio-economic goals, objectives and demands.”

• Although UPSC maintains that for General Studies papers (Paper II to Paper V), a “well-educated person will be able to answer them without any specialised study,” candidates are advised to go through previous year UPSC question papers to ascertain for themselves whether they need ‘specialised study.’

• Candidates are allowed to use Scientific (Non-Programmable) calculators in UPSC Mains if needed.

• The level of examination for the optional subjects in UPSC Mains will be equivalent to an honours degree (between bachelors’ and masters’ level). Only for engineering subjects, Law and Medical Science, the scope is limited to the bachelors’ degree level.

Candidates can download the pdf of the UPSC notification 2024 from the linked page. UPSC CSE 2024 notification will be released on February 14, 2024.

UPSC Mains Syllabus – IAS Exam 2024

The UPSC Mains syllabus can be divided into two parts:

1. Qualifying Papers
   1. Paper A
   2. Paper B
2. Papers which are counted for merit ranking
   1. Essay
   2. General Studies (Paper II to Paper V)
   3. Optional Subject (Two Papers)

Candidates can go through the UPSC Mains Syllabus from the linked page.

UPSC Mains Syllabus and Exam Pattern for Qualifying Papers

In UPSC Mains, candidates have to score a minimum of 25% marks in Paper A and Paper B otherwise their marks in other papers will not be taken into account. The pattern/syllabus for qualifying papers in UPSC Mains is given below:

Important information regarding UPSC Mains qualifying papers:

• Paper A and Paper B test the candidates’ ability to read and understand serious prose in the given language and to express her/her views correctly and clearly.

• The marks in Paper A and Paper B in UPSC Mains will not be counted for merit but if candidates score below 25% in either of these two papers, then their marks in the remaining papers will not even be declared.

• The level of Paper A and Paper B is of a Matriculation (or equivalent) level.

• Paper A (Indian Language) in UPSC Mains is not compulsory for candidates hailing from Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim.

UPSC Mains Syllabus for Essay Paper

As such the UPSC Mains syllabus doesn’t have a prescribed section for the Essay paper. In the essay paper in UPSC Mains, candidates have to write two essays out of a few given options for a total of 250 marks. As per the UPSC, “Candidates are expected to keep close to the subject of the essay to arrange their ideas in an orderly fashion and to write concisely. Credit will be given for effective and exact expression.”

Here, candidates can find topic-wise essay questions asked in UPSC Mains in the last 25 years.

UPSC Mains Syllabus for General Studies

The UPSC Mains syllabus for GS papers covers broadly the following subjects/areas:

For detailed UPSC Mains syllabus for General Studies Papers, refer to the link.

UPSC Mains Syllabus for Optional Subjects

Since the pattern change in UPSC Mains, candidates now have to choose only one optional subject. There are two papers based on the optional subject for a total of 500 marks (250 marks * 2 papers) which are counted for the merit ranking.

The list of optional subjects for the UPSC IAS exam 2024 and links to the detailed syllabi for each optional subject are given below:

Also, read – Important links for UPSC Mains 2024

Ten Best Optional Subjects for UPSC Mains

UPSC Mains: Important quotes for GS and Essay papers