IAS – Main Exam

The candidates who qualify the Preliminary Examination are eligible to appear in the IAS Main Examination.     The Main Examination is intended to assess the overall intellectual traits and in-depth of understanding of candidates rather than merely the range of their information and memory.  Candidates who obtain minimum qualifying marks in the Main Examination as may be fixed by the Commission at their discretion, shall be eligible for an interview / for a Personality Test.

The number of candidates to be summoned for interview are usually about twice the number of vacancies to be filled.

The scope of the syllabus for the optional subject papers for the examination is broadly of the honours degree level i.e. a level higher than the bachelors degree and lower than the masters degree. In the case of Engineering and Law, the level corresponds to the bachelor’s degree.

The Main Examination will consist of 9 papers in total comprising of conventional essay type questions.  The written examination consists of following papers with a total marks of 1750 marks.

Paper I One of the Indian Lanaguages to be selected by the candidate from the 18 languages included in the 8th Schedule to the Constitution (Qualifying Paper) 300 Marks Paper II English (Qualifying Paper) 300 Marks Paper III Essay 250 Marks Paper IV, V, VI, VII General Studies  (250 Marks for each paper) 1000 Marks Paper VIII, IX Any one Optional subject (which contains 2 papers) to be selected from the prescribed OPTIONAL subjects (250 marks for each paper) 500 Marks Total Marks for Written Examination 1750 Marks Interview / Personality Test 275 Marks Grand Total 2025 Marks Some of the features of this Exam are : Blind candidates will, however, be allowed an extra time of thirty minutes at each paper. The papers on Indian Languages and English are of Matriculation or equivalent standard and will be of qualifying nature; the marks obtained in these papers will not be counted for ranking. The Paper-I on Indian Language will not, however, be compulsory for candidates hailing from the North-Eastern States of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and also for candidates hailing from the State of Sikkim. Evaluation of the papers, namely, Essay, General Studies and Optional Subject of all candidates would be done simultaneously along with the 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 of who attain such minimum standard as may be fixed by the Commission at their discretion for the qualifying papers on ‘Indian language’ and ‘English’ and, therefore, the marks in ‘Essay’ ‘General studies’ and ‘Optional subject’ will not be disclosed to those candidates who fail to obtain such minimum qualifying standard in ‘Indian language’ and ‘English’. Candidates should however note that, if they misuse the above rule, a deduction will be made on this account from the total marks otherwise accruing to them and in extreme cases, their script(s) will not be valued for being in an unauthorised medium. The question papers for the examination will be of conventional (essay) type. Each paper will be of three hours duration. Candidates will have the option to answer all the question papers, except the Qualifying language papers, (viz. Papers I and II of the Main Examination mentioned above), in any one of the languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution or in English. Candidates exercising the option to answer papers III to IX in any one of the languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution may, if they so desire, give English version within brackets of only the description of the technical terms, if any, in addition to the version in the language opted by them. The question papers other than the literature of language papers will be set both in Hindi and English Only.