UPSC Prelims 2025 : Last Minute Tips & Strategy

The Union Public Service Commission will conduct the Civil Service Prelims (CSP) on May 25, 2025. The UPCS CSE(IAS) admit cards 2025 were released on May 13, 2025. The candidates were informed about their exam centre through the admit card only. The UPSC 2025 prelims will be conducted nationwide in all the major cities. The candidates can check here the last minute tips to score better in the UPSC prelims exam 2025.

UPSC Prelims 2025 Last Minute Tips

UPSC Prelims 2025 Last Minute Tips: The Union Public Service Commission will conduct the UPSC Civil Service Prelims (IAS Prelims) exam on May 25, 2025. The Commission already released the UPSC 2025 admit card on May 13, 2025, to inform the candidates about their UPSC exam centre. The candidates are suggested to bring one photo identity card with their UPSC IAS admit card so that they can establish their identity when asked for at the exam centre.

Also Read: UPSC 2025 Prelims Exam Analysis

The UPSC IAS prelims exam is an objective-type exam where the candidates get four options to select the correct answer. The candidates are required to mark their answer in the OMR sheet. The candidates must carefully mark the answer in the OMR sheet. To ensure this, the candidates are suggested to cross-check their answers after every four answers (when on page of the question paper is over). The Commission will conduct the UPSC 2025 on May 25, 2025.

Last Minute Tips for UPSC IAS Prelims 2025

The candidates should note that there is no substitute of hard work and the books in the UPSC exam preparation. Here we can suggest some important aspects of the exam which can help prevent the leakage of marks in the exam. Not much time is left and the candidates are anticipated to finish their various rounds of revisions for the UPSC General Studies and Aptitude (CSAT) syllabi. 

The candidates must be fully aware of the IAS exam pattern and the detailed syllabus of each section. The candidates need to know the topics and prepare them in their entirety. IAS exam pattern for prelims is simple, as there are 100 questions in General Studies Paper-I and 80 questions in General Studies Paper-II, which is popularly called CSAT. The time limit for both papers is two hours.

See here: UPSC CSE (IAS) Syllabus in Detail

UPSC IAS 2025: Reading the Question and Answer Options Carefully

UPSC IAS prelims is a high voltage pressure exam, and with the mercury rising, it would be very difficult to remain calm during the paper. The candidates must read the questions correctly. UPSC designs the question in such a manner that it is not easy to understand in one go. Each question requires the following steps.

• Reading the question correctly
• Reading the answer option correctly
• Deciding on the correct option
• Marking the answer correctly on the OMR sheet.

The marking is very important because the candidates need to mark the answer with a ball pen, and once marked, it is very difficult to change the answer. On marking more than one option, that answer will be counted as a wrong answer, even if one answer is the correct answer.

Also Read: UPSC CSE (IAS) Prelims Syllabus in detail

UPSC IAS Prelims 2025: Do not panic if you can’t answer initially

The candidates should attempt the paper in rounds. In the first round, read the question and mark the answer only when you know the correct answer.

In the second round, mark the answers where they can resort to intelligent guesses. Do not waste time on one question only and keep moving to keep a tab on the time.
Naturally, at least one or two questions will go wrong due to the unforced manual error of not reading the ‘not’ word in the IAS question or not analysing the answer marked.

Also Read: UPSC Toppers Marks

There is no need to panic in case the candidate cannot answer ten or more questions. It is natural. The IAS prelims questions are so designed that most of the candidates know the answers to only 25 per cent of the General Studies paper I.

The candidates who have extensively prepared for the IAS prelims can mark the answers to around 40 per cent of the questions correctly. But it is very difficult to mark the answer to more than 50 per cent of questions without any doubt coming to mind.

UPSC IAS Prelims 2025: Practising with Previous Year Papers

The candidates must practise with mock tests and previous years' IAS question papers to train their minds in reading and understanding the language of the UPSC questions in a better and more time-efficient way. It will help them during the actual examination.

IAS Prelims 2025: Role of Guessing

Firstly we would suggest avoiding guessing in the paper. But it is evident that to increase the number of attempts in the paper, all the candidates resort to guessing. The candidates should not wildly guess the answer if they do not know anything about the answer. But calculated and intelligent guessing plays a very important role in the IAS prelims exam. It only comes with extensive preparation and studying all the aspects of the topic.

Elimination Method

Elimination method is a part of intelligent guessing. The candidates should carefully read the question and eliminate the answer options which they feel are completely incorrect. They should only mark the answer if they can eliminate at least two answer options. This will make the probability of marking the right answer 50 per cent. The candidate can only eliminate the incorrect option if he or she has read extensively about the topic or any related topic where they can infer that the given option is incorrect.

Also Read: UPSC Toppers Strategy and Study Plans

Negative Marking in IAS Prelims

There is a negative marking of one by three in the IAS prelims exam. It means that for each incorrect answer there will be a deduction of 0.66 marks from the candidate marks because each of the questions is 2 marks. The number goes in the same ratio in the General Studies paper-II where each question is 2.5 marks.

Moreover, if the candidate marks three incorrect answers and one correct answer, their score does not change because the results of the above combination is zero. But in case the candidate marks two correct questions from four. It will result in positive. It will be beneficial because each number counts in the IAS prelims exam.

Also Read: How to Tackle Negative Marking In UPSC IAS

UPSC IAS Prelims 2025: Marking the Answer on OMR

This is a critical part of the IAS prelims exam. The candidates should mark the answers on the OMR sheet after each page of the paper. It implies that the candidates should mark the answers on the OMR sheet after every four questions. It will help them mark the answers correctly because some candidates mark the answer in bulk which make the answer marking more prone to mistakes.

The candidates should understand that 25 to 30 per cent will go wrong so the attempt count should be such that the final score remains above the IAS Cut off.

Also Read

Modern History Syllabus for UPSC IAS exam

Ancient History Syllabus for UPSC IAS exam

Current Affairs Syllabus 2025 for IAS prelims

Current Affairs 2025 Topics for UPSC IAS Prelims Exam

Most important topics for IAS 2025