Decoding UPSC Civil Services Examination: The Myths and realities - All you need to know

The Civil Services Examination (CSE), as conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), is one of the most coveted examinations in the country. As for the last three years, 1154769, 1056835, and 1112318 candidates had applied for this exam in the years 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively. Out of them, only 812, 922 and 833 candidates were selected or recommended for service, respectively.

Looking at these figures, anyone would get goosebumps. Out of such a huge number of applicants, merely a handful secures their selection. No wonder this examination is considered one of the country's toughest. But, is the UPSC Civil Services Examination really that tough?

India, essentially being a developing society and despite its large economy (5th largest), is still suffering from resource crunch given the large size of its population. In such a scenario, the executives in the country, often referred to as Civil Servants, holds certain discretionary powers in terms of the distribution of resources, in whichever form it may be. Resultant, the executives or the Civil Servants, as they are called, enjoy high prestige, as any society respects the hands that distribute the resources. Now, Civil Servants, not only play a significant role in distributing resources but also in the decision-making on behalf of people at large.

This combined with the responsibility of distributing resources along with the ability of decision making, creates a different aura and glamour for this coveted service.

Now, before we go any further, let's make it clear that by Civil Servants, whom do we mention here?

By the word Civil Servant, we are looking at the All-India Services mentioned in the Constitution of India, like Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Forest Service (IFoS), along with the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and 21 other Group A and Group B services.

From the above discussion, it must have already become clear, that the candidates, ultimately selected by UPSC, through this examination become part of the highest level of decision making authority in the country.

The examination has been devised keeping in mind certain requirements. Some of the must needed skills of an Indian Administrative Service officer or an Indian Police Service officer are (i) ability to observe the situation very fast and anticipate the direction of the incidents, (ii) ability to take prompt decision, based on first hand assessment, (iii) ability to communicate, verbally and non-verbally, in clearer terms, without any ambiguity, (iv) having an attitude of problem solving, often with limited resources, (v) number of these officers are generalists, who are expected to work in different capacities in a wide range of departments, starting from defence to telecommunications, to finance and so on, naturally they are expected to have basic understanding of these wide range of operations.

Keeping in mind, these diverse requirements, UPSC has divided this examination in three separate phases, namely (a) Preliminary Examination, (b) Main Examination and (c) Personality Test.

Preliminary Examination, which is conducted, at first, as a screener, is essentially is a test of sincerity. The examination consists of two papers, namely General Studies Prelims Paper 1 & General Studies Prelims Paper 2, often fondly called Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT). The General Studies Prelims Paper 1 consists of the below given seven topics, such as:

(1) Current events of national and international importance.

(2) History of India and Indian National Movement.

(3) Indian and World Geography-Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World.

(4) Indian Polity and Governance – Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.

(5) Economic and Social Development – Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector initiatives, etc.

(6) General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change – that do not require subject specialisation

(7) General Science

Whereas the General Studies Prelims Paper 2 or CSAT paper consists of (A) Comprehension, (B) English Language Comprehension Skill, (C) Interpersonal Skills, including Communication Skills, (D) Decision Making and Problem Solving, (E) Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency, (F) Logical Reasoning, (G) General Mental Ability, etc. This paper is of qualifying in nature, where a candidate has to score sufficiently in General Studies Prelims Paper 1 to qualify, to appear in Civil Services Main Examination.

At this stage, the syllabus is intentionally kept vast, so that a candidate who is not sincere enough or have not understood the philosophy of the examination clearly, makes an error of judgement. Additionally, often we see an arbitrary emphasis on the events of national and international importance, happening around us, which are ordinarily referred to as Current Affairs. This is done to understand, how alert a candidate is or to judge the ability of observation of a candidate.

Here, it is noteworthy that UPSC's intention is never to disturb a candidate unnecessarily. They only try to understand the sincerity level of a candidate here. If a candidate is sincere enough, he/she would know that Preliminary Examination is not the final test and hence they would focus more on the Main Examination, as the marks obtained in CS (Main) would decide the final rank of a candidate. Hence, if we carefully survey last 15 years of General Studies Prelims Paper 1, we would find that majority of the questions have been asked from those part of the syllabus, which are common between syllabus of Preliminary Examination and Main Examination.

Civil Services Main Examination, is the second and most crucial phase of the whole process. Conducted ordinarily in the month of September every year, this examination intends to judge multiple skill sets of a candidate, starting from the ability of effective non-verbal communication, the ability to convey the intended message in easy and simple words for better understanding of common people, knowledge on a wide range of topics related with the functioning of the government and the society.

While a Civil Servant is expected to deal with the common people and provide them with the necessary services, they are also expected to do liaison with the subject matter experts like scientists, defence personnel, etc. who are habituated in dealing with technical issues. To create this all-round ability, the Civil Services Main Examination has been designed accordingly. The examination consists of nine papers, which include, one essay paper where a candidate is supposed to write two essays of 1250 words each, one qualifying paper each on English Language and an Indian Language, four papers on General Studies of 250 marks each, and two papers belonging to an optional subject, from a list of 48 subjects.

During Personality Test, UPSC intends to judge the ability of verbal communication of a candidate along with how much grounded they are in terms of thinking and decision making. During this process number of ability of a candidate, starting from their ability to handle psychological pressure, ability to tactfully handle a tricky situation, humility, their awareness about their surroundings etc. are judged by the interview board.

To conclude, we may say, that this examination is very professionally structured while keeping in mind the requirements of the job that a selected candidate would have to perform. Each of the levels of this examination has been duly crafted to judge multiple of these skill sets. This unique design makes this examination so different from other examinations that majority of job seekers in India, face, and often finds this examination to be so difficult.

Amit Kumar Bose is an eminent faculty, teaching Civil Services Aspirants in Delhi and Hyderabad. Mr Bose also runs a philanthropic initiative by the name of Cognitate, to teach the aspirants of Civil Services in West Bengal, jointly with Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Centenary College, Rahara, West Bengal.