Civil Servant (IAS/PCS) exams

The Union Public Service Commission released the UPSC CSE notification 2025 on January 22, 2025. In the official notification, the Commission notified 979 vacancies for the UPSC CSE 2025 exam. But this is a tentative number and the final number of vacancies will be mentioned in the final Result of UPSC CSE 2025.

The vacancies are generally increased in the final iteration.

The Union Public Service Commission will conduct the UPSC CSE (IAS) Main exam (written) from August 22 to 31, 2025. The Commission will conduct the UPSC IAS main exam in offline mode at the designated exam centres. The candidates are informed about their exam centre through their UPSC admit card. 

The candidates are required to download their admit card with their UPSC OTR/Roll Number and password.

Yes, the Union Public Service Commission mention the main exam (written) and main exam (interview) in the official notification. The candidates should note that the marks secured in the UPSC main exam is considered for the final result.

The face to face interview is the part of the main exam and hence we can say that the UPSC conduct the Civil Service Main exam is conducted in two parts.

The UPSC Civil Service Exam Notification mention that the Civil Service Prelims exam is qualifying only. The UPSC IAS prelims exam is a MCQ based exam conducted offline at the designated exam centre. The marks scored in the UPSC prelims exam is not considered for the final selected process.

The prelims exam was introduced to filtering of candidates and restricting the number of candidates for the main exam.

The Union Public Service Commission dropped 3 (three) questions from the UPSC Civil Service Prelims (CSP) exam 2024. The marks of the candidates were assigned marks from 97 questions only. The candidates should check their answers from the official answer key and compare them with the cutoff mentioned in the official UPSC CSP cutoff 2024.

In case their marks are more than their category cutoff. they should send representation against the prelims and final UPSC result 2024.

The candidates should note that the Union Public Service Commission conduct the Civil Service Exam every year. The Commission releases the official notification every year which mention all the eligibility criteria for all the categories separately. The number of attempts is also one such criteria which is defined based on the category of the candidate.

The Commission mention the pemissible number of attempts in the following manner:

"As per UPSC rules, candidates who are in the final year of their qualifying degree, such as MBBS, are eligible to apply for the IAS exam, provided they can furnish proof of degree completion before the declaration of the final results."

The UPSC IAS Prelims for 2025 is expected around May or June of that year. After the Prelims, the Mains will be in September 2025, followed by Interviews in early 2026. It's a good idea to start preparing early, ideally 12 to 15 months before the exam. This means beginning coaching between March and June 2024 would be perfect. If you start later, you should join coaching by August to October 2024. Starting your preparation early will give you enough time to study NCERT books, keep up with current events, and take practice tests, which can help you perform better.