Previous Year Question of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2018

The Civil Services Examination (CSE) is a nationwide competitive examination in India conducted by the Union Public Service Commission for recruitment to various Civil Services of the Government of India, including the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS) among others. Also simply referred as UPSC examination, it is conducted in three phases – a preliminary examination consisting of two objective-type papers (General Studies Paper I and General Studies Paper II also popularly known as Civil Service Aptitude Test or CSAT), and a main examination consisting of nine papers of conventional (essay) type, in which two papers are qualifying and only marks of seven are counted followed by a personality test (interview).

Eligibility Conditions:
(I) Nationality
(1) For the Indian Administrative Service, the Indian Foreign Service and the Indian Police Service,
a candidate must be a citizen of India.
(2) For other services, a candidate must be either:—
(a) a citizen of India, or
(b) a subject of Nepal, or
(c) a subject of Bhutan, or
(d) a Tibetan refugee who came over to India before 1st January, 1962 with the intention of permanently settling in India, or
(e) a person of Indian origin who has migrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zaire, Ethiopia and Vietnam with the intention of permanently settling in India.
Provided that a candidate belonging to categories (b), (c), (d) and (e) shall be a person in whose favour a certificate of eligibility has been issued by the Government of India.
A candidate in whose case a certificate of eligibility is necessary, may be admitted to the examination but the offer of appointment may be given only after the necessary eligibility certificate has been issued to him/her by the Government of India.

(II) Age Limits:
(a) A candidate must have attained the age of 21 years and must not have attained the age of 32 years on the 1st of August of the year in which the exam would be held.

(III) Minimum Educational Qualifications :
The candidate must hold a degree of any of Universities incorporated by an Act of the Central or State Legislature in India or other educational institutions established by an Act of Parliament or declared to be deemed as a University Under Section-3 of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, or possess an equivalent qualification.

(IV) Number of attempts:
General — 6
OBC — 9
SC/ST — No restriction
Physically Handicapped (General) — 9
Physically Handicapped (OBC) — 9
Physically Handicapped (SC/ST) — No restriction

Preliminary Examination:
Preliminary Examination is the first stage of the Civil Services Examination process. It is a screening test to select the students for the further selection process. Prelims exam comprises of two objective type papers of 200 marks each. Only those who manage to score more than the cut off declared by the UPSC for that particular year will be summoned for the next level of examination. However, the marks scored in Prelims will not be counted for arriving at the final merit list.

Following is a set of Previous year question of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2018:

General Studies Paper – I: Click here

General Studies Paper – II: Click here

Candidates are suggested to check the official website for more details: https://upsc.gov.in