The complete schedule and exhaustive paper pattern for UPSC Mains Examination

The Civil Services Examination is considered to be the most prestigious examination in the country. It is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission for recruiting Group A and some Group B posts in a variety of offices in the Government of India. 

This exam is conducted in three phases, Preliminary Exam, Main Exam, and Personal Interview. The Preliminary Exam for CSE 2020 was conducted on 4 October 2020. You can check the UPSC Exam Prelims Schedule here. CSE Prelim examination is qualifying in nature which means that the score you obtain in this phase will not add up in the final merit. However, only the candidates who score marks equal to the cutoff will be eligible to appear in the next phase of the examination – The CSE Mains Exam. The Mains is set to be conducted from 8 January till 17 January in two-time slots of the morning (9 AM – 12 PM) and afternoon (2 PM – 5 PM). 

The students sitting in the exam must be aware of the complete schedule of the examination.  The UPSC Mains Exam Dates are given below:

UPSC Mains Exam Schedule

UPSC Mains Exam Dates	Time Slot (9 AM – 12 PM)	Time Slot (2 PM – 5 PM)
8 January 2021	Essay Paper	–
9 January 2021	General Studies-I	General Studies-II
10 January 2021	General Studies-III	General Studies-IV
16 January 2021	Indian Language Paper	English Language Paper
17 January 2021	Optional Paper-I	Optional Paper-II

While preparing for the exam, it is crucial that the students know about the pattern of each subject in the mains exam.  There are a total of 9 papers in the CSE Mains Examination. Two out of the nine papers are qualifying in nature while the score of the rest is counted in the merit. The complete UPSC Exam Pattern is tabulated below. 

UPSC Mains Paper Pattern

Papers	Name of Subject	Nature	Time Duration	Marks
Paper A	Any Indian Language	Qualifying in Nature	3 Hours	300
Paper B	English (Objective)	Qualifying in Nature	3 Hours	300
Paper I	Essay	Counted for Merit	3 Hours	250
Paper II	General Studies (GS) I	Counted for Merit	3 Hours	250
Paper III	General Studies (GS) II	Counted for Merit	3 Hours	250
Paper IV	General Studies (GS) III	Counted for Merit	3 Hours	250
Paper V	General Studies (GS) IV	Counted for Merit	3 Hours	250
Paper VI	Optional Subject Paper-I	Counted for Merit	3 Hours	250
Paper VII	Optional Subject Paper-II	Counted for Merit	3 Hours	250

• The IAS Main exam will be both objective as well as subjective in nature.
• Two papers, Paper A and Paper B will be of qualifying nature which means that the students will have to obtain marks equal to or more than the cut off marks in order to qualify the exam.
• The cut off is decided on the basis of total vacancies, the difficulty level of paper and candidates appearing for the exam.
• There will be Negative Marking of 1/3 marks (0.66) for each wrong answer in objective paper only

The subjects that are covered under the General Studies Papers in Mains Exam are:

General Studies I	General Studies II	General Studies III	General Studies IV
Indian Heritage and Culture	Governance	Technology	Ethics
History and Geography of the World	Constitution	Economic Development	Integrity
Society	Polity	Bio-diversity	Aptitude
–	Social Justice	Environment	–
–	International relations	Security and Disaster Management	–

The students have to choose one subject for Paper VI & VII of the mains exam from the list given below:

Agriculture	Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science	Anthropology	Botany	Chemistry
Civil Engineering	Commerce and Accountancy	Economics	Electrical Engineering	Geography
Geology	History	Law	Management	Mathematics
Mechanical Engineering	Medical Science	Philosophy	Physics	Political Science and International Relations
Psychology	Public Administration	Sociology	Statistics	Zoology

The literature of any one of the following languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.