APPENDIX I
SECTION I: PLAN OF EXAMINATION
The Civil Services Examination comprises two successive stages:
- Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination (Objective Type) for the selection of candidates for Civil
Services (Main) Examination; and - Civil Services (Main) Examination (Written and Interview/Personality Test) for the selection of
candidates for the various Services and posts.
2. The Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination will consist of two papers of Objective type (multiple
choice questions) and carry a maximum of 400 marks in the subjects set out in sub-section (A) of Section
II. This examination is meant to serve as a screening test only; the marks obtained in the Civil Services
(Preliminary) Examination by the candidates who are declared qualified for admission to the Civil Services
(Main) Examination will not be counted for determining their final order of merit. The number of candidates
to be admitted to the Civil Services (Main) Examination will be about twelve to thirteen times the total
approximate number of vacancies to be filled in the year through this Examination. Only those candidates
who are declared by the Commission to have qualified in the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination in the
year will be eligible for admission to the Civil Services (Main) Examination of that year provided they are
otherwise eligible for admission to the Civil Services (Main) Examination.
Note I: The Commission will draw a list of candidates to be qualified for Civil Services (Main) Examination
based on the criterion of minimum qualifying marks of 33% in General Studies Paper-II of Civil Services
(Preliminary) Examination and total qualifying marks of General Studies Paper-I of Civil Services
(Preliminary) Examination as may be determined by the Commission.
Note II: There will be negative marking for incorrect answers as detailed below:
- There are four alternatives for the answers to every question. For each question for which a wrong
answer has been given by the candidate, one-third (0.33) of the marks assigned to that question will
be deducted as penalty. - If a candidate gives more than one answer, it will be treated as a wrong answer even if one of the
given answers happen to be correct and there will be same penalty as above for that question. - If a question is left blank i.e. no answer is given by the candidate, there will be no penalty for that
question.
3. The Civil Services (Main) Examination will consist of a Written Examination and an
Interview/Personality Test. The Written Examination will consist of 9 papers of conventional essay type in
the subjects set out in sub-section (B) of Section-II out of which two papers will be of qualifying in nature.
[Also see Note (ii) under Para-I of Section II-(B)]. Marks obtained for all the compulsory papers (Paper-I to
Paper-VII) and Marks obtained in Interview/Personality Test will be counted for ranking.
4.1 Candidates who obtain such minimum qualifying marks in the written part of the Civil Services (Main)
Examination as may be fixed by the Commission at their discretion, shall be summoned by them for an
Interview/Personality Test, vide sub-section (C) of Section-II. The number of candidates to be summoned
for Interview/Personality Test will be about twice of the number of vacancies to be filled. The
Interview/Personality Test will carry 275 marks (with no minimum qualifying marks).
4.2 Marks thus obtained by the candidates in the Civil Services (Main) Examination (Written part as well
as Interview/Personality Test) would determine their final ranking. Candidates will be allotted to the various
Services keeping in view their ranks in the examination and the preferences expressed by them for the
various Services and posts.
SECTION II: Scheme and Subjects for the Preliminary and Main Examination
A. PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION:
The Examination shall comprise of two compulsory Papers of 200 marks each.
Note:
- Both the question papers will be of the objective type (multiple choice questions) and each will be of
two hours duration. - The General Studies Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination will be a qualifying paper
with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%. - The question papers will be set both in Hindi and English.
- Details of the syllabi are indicated in Part A of Section III.
B. MAIN EXAMINATION:
The Written Examination will consist of the following papers:—
Qualifying Papers:
Paper-A
(One of the Indian Language to be selected by the candidate from the Languages included in the
Eighth Schedule to the Constitution).
300 Marks
Paper-B
English
300 Marks
Paper-B
English
300 Marks
Papers to be counted for merit:
Paper-I
Essay
Paper-II
General Studies-I
(Indian Heritage and Culture, History and Geography of the World and Society)
250 Marks
Paper-III
General Studies -II
(Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations)
250 Marks
Paper-IV
General Studies -III
(Technology, Economic Development, Bio-diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management)
250 Marks
Paper-V
General Studies -IV
(Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude)
250 Marks
Paper-VI
Optional Subject - Paper 1
(Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude)
250 Marks
Optional Subject - Paper 2
Sub Total (Written test)
Personality Test
Grand Total
Grand Total
(Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude)
250 Marks
1750 Marks
275 Marks
2025 Marks
Candidates may choose any one of the optional subjects from amongst the list of subjects given in
para 2 below:—
Note:
- The papers on Indian languages and English (Paper A and paper B) will be of Matriculation or equivalent
standard and will be of qualifying nature. The marks obtained in these papers will not be counted for
ranking. - Evaluation of the papers, namely, ‘Essay’, ‘General Studies’ and Optional Subject of all the candidates
would be done simultaneously along with evaluation of their qualifying papers on ‘Indian Languages’ and
‘English’ but the papers on Éssay’, General Studies and Optional Subject of only such candidates will be
taken cognizance who attain 25% marks in ‘Indian Language’ and 25% in English as minimum qualifying
standards in these qualifying papers. - The paper A on Indian Language will not, however, be compulsory for candidates hailing from the States
of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim. - The paper A on Indian Language will not, however, be compulsory for Candidates belonging to Persons
with Benchmark Disability (only Hearing Impairment sub-category) provided that they have been granted
such exemption from 2nd or 3rd language courses by the concerned education Board/University. The
candidate needs to provide an undertaking/self declaration in this regard in order to claim such an
exemption to the Commission. - Marks obtained by the candidates for the Paper I-VII only will be counted for merit ranking. However,
the Commission will have the discretion to fix qualifying marks in any or all of these papers. - For the Language medium/literature of languages, the scripts to be used by the candidates will be as
under:—
Paper-I
Assamese
Bengali
Gujarati
Hindi
Kannada
Kashmiri
Konkani
Malayalam
Manipuri
Marathi
Nepali
Odia
Punjabi
Sanskrit
Sindhi
Tamil
Telugu
Urdu
Bodo
Dogri
Maithilli
Santhali
Script
Assamese
Bengali
Gujarati
Devanagari
Kannada
Persian
Devanagari
Malayalam
Bengali or Meitei Mayek
Devanagari
Devanagari
Odia
Gurumukhi
Devanagari
Devanagari or Arabic
Tamil
Telugu
Persian
Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari or Olchiki
Note 1: For Santhali language, question paper will be printed in Devanagari script; but candidates will be
free to answer either in Devanagari script or in Olchiki.
Note 2: For Manipuri Language, question paper will be printed in Bengali Script; but candidates will be
free to answer either in Bengali Script or in Meitei Mayek Script.
List of optional subjects for Main Examination:
- Agriculture
- Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science
- Anthropology
- Botany
- Chemistry
- Civil Engineering
- Commerce and Accountancy
- Economics
- Electrical Engineering
- Geography
- Geology
- History
- Law
- Management
- Mathematics
- Mechanical Engineering
- Medical Science
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Political Science and International Relations
- Psychology
- Public Administration
- Sociology
- Statistics
- Zoology
- Literature of any one of the following languages:
Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam,
Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.
Note:
- 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, Paper-A and Paper-B, in any one of the languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the
Constitution of India or in English. Notwithstanding this, the Candidate will have the choice to write
the Optional Papers in English also if candidates opt to write Paper I-V except the Qualifying
Language Papers, Paper-A and Paper-B, in any one of the language included in the Eighth Schedule
to the Constitution of India. - Candidates exercising the option to answer Papers in any one of the languages included in the Eight
Schedule to the Constitution of India mentioned above 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. 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 unauthorized medium. - Candidates should note that if any irrelevant matter/signages/marks etc. are found written in the
answer script(s), which would not be related to any question/answer and/or would be having the
potential to disclose the candidate’s identity, the Commission will impose a penalty of deduction of
marks from the total marks otherwise accruing to the candidate or will not evaluate the said script(s)
on this account. - The question papers (other than the literature of language papers) will be set in Hindi and English
only. - The details of the syllabi are set out in Part B of Section III.
Government strives to have a workforce which reflects gender balance and women candidates are encouraged to apply.