Minimum Qualifying Marks (Cut-offs) for Civil Services Exam 2013

UPSC declared the minimum qualifying marks for various communities for Civil Services Exam 2013. (UPSC uses the term ‘minimum qualifying mark’ instead of cut-off. This minimum qualifying mark is the mark of the last candidate (in the descending order of marks) who made it to the list, be it Mains list, Interview list or Final Rank list.)

Highlights of Official Cut-offs for UPSC Civil Services Exam 2013

It should be specifically noted that UPSC had kept separate cut-offs for individual papers in Prelims and Mains. For Prelims it was minimum of 30 marks in Paper-I and 70 marks in Paper-II. For Mains it was 10% marks in each of the seven competitive papers i.e. Essay, GS-I, GS-II, GS-III, GS-IV, Optional –I and Optional-II. This will account for minimum 25 marks for each paper out of 250.

2013 UPSC Civil Services Prelims Cut-off (Out of 400 marks)

• General – 241 (60.25%)
• OBC – 222
• SC – 207
• ST – 200
• PH-1 – 199
• PH-2 – 184
• PH-3 – 163 (40.75%)

2013 UPSC Civil Services Mains Cut-off (Out of 1750 marks)

• General – 564 (32.22%)
• OBC – 534
• SC – 518
• ST – 510
• PH-1 – 510
• PH-2 – 502
• PH-3 – 410 (23.42%)

2013 UPSC Civil Services Final Cut-off ie Mains + Interview (Out of 2025 marks)

• General – 775 (38.27%)
• OBC – 742
• SC – 719
• ST – 707
• PH-1 – 725
• PH-2 – 718
• PH-3 – 613 (30.27%)

Analysis of UPSC Prelims Cut-off

The cut-offs were more or less on the same lines as analysed and predicted by ClearIAS.com. This year the Prelims cut-off crossed the 60% figure (241 marks out of 400). From 2011 to 2013, one can observe a sharp increase in the cut-off marks. If question paper remains the same standard, the cut-offs may increase in coming years for Preliminary Exam. Have a look at the trend of Prelims marks in last few years.

Year	Cut-off Marks	Percentage
2005	284/450	63.11
2006	282/450	62.66
2007	256/450	56.88
2008	244/450	54.22
2009	250/450	55.55
2010	248/450	55.11
2011	198/400	49.5
2012	209/400	52.25
2013	241/400	60.25

Analysis of UPSC Mains+Interview Cut-off

Though the minimum qualifying mark of UPSC Prelims increased, the mains and interview marks as we can see from below table showcased a negative trend. This too was expected, with the decrease in number of optional papers and increase in the number general studies paper. 2013 marks followed the decreasing trend of mains marks.

Low scoring in UPSC Civil Services exam can be attributed to the tougher valuation and higher standards set by UPSC. It can also be due to the scaling effect in optional paper. But mains qualifying score touching below 40 percentage level also points to the fact that the difference of mains marks between each candidate would have been very minimal. Many candidates might have scored equal marks. Unless very high marks in UPSC Civil Services Mains exam, with crowding of candidate’s marks in the range of 564-600, it would have been the interview, which played the decisive role for most of the candidates.

The last rank candidate from General Category in Mains needed 211 (76.72%) marks to make it to the final rank list after interview (517 vacancies). This also points to the fact that with 32.22% marks in mains and 76.72% marks in interview, one can get into the final rank list. A 30 minute interview can be so crucial in your life!

Mains and Mains+Interview Marks (Total Marks) of Last Recommended Candidate in UPSC Civil Services Examination

Year	Mains Marks (out of 2000) of the last candidate	Mains Percentage of the last candidate (%)	Mains+Interview (out of 2300) marks of the last candidate	Mains+Interview Percentage of the last candidate (%)
2005	986	49.3	1203	52.3
2006	975	48.75	1179	51.26
2007	1005	50.25	1210	52.6
2008	954	47.7	1161	50.47
2009	899	44.95	1127	49
2010	904	45.2	1134	49.3
2011	842	42.1	1090	47.39
2012	700	35	936	40.69
2013	564 [out of 1750]	32.22	775 [out of 2025]	38.22

PS : Cut-off marks for various communities for 2013 Civil Services Exam is available in the pdf link from UPSC server.