Civil Services Examination (India)
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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[1]. 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 paper are counted followed by a personality test (interview).[1]
Contents
Process[edit]
The Civil Services Examination is based on the British Raj Era Imperial Civil Service tests, as well as the civil service tests conducted by old Indian empires such as in the Mauryan Empire and Mughal Empire. The Civil Services Examination is considered to be one of the most difficult competitive examination in India. On an average, 900,000 to 1,000,000 candidates apply every year and the number of candidates appearing to sit in the preliminary examination is approximately 500,000.[2] The examination consists of the following stage. Results are published in mid-August.
- Stage I: Main examination – Held in October every year.
- Stage II: Personality Test (interview) – held in March each year. Final results are usually announced in May .
The training program for the selected candidates usually commences the following September.
Eligibility[edit]
Eligibility for the examination is as follows:[1]
Nationality[edit]
- For the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service, the candidate must be a citizen of India.
- For other services, the candidate must be one of the following:
School 