UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Exam 2020 Date – Prepare for IAS as per the UPSC Exam Calendar

To get selected into IAS or IPS, you need to appear for the UPSC Civil Services Exam. Are you searching for the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Exam 2020 date?

As per the official UPSC Exam Calendar, Civil Services Preliminary Exam 2020 (objective) will be conducted on May 31, 2020 (Sunday). The Main Exam (written) 2020 will start from September 18, 2020.

UPSC Examination Calendar 2020 – Important Dates

• Date of Notification for Civil Service Prelims and Indian Forest Service Prelims: February 12, 2020
• Last date to apply for Civil Service Prelims and Indian Forest Service Prelims: March 03, 2020
• Date of UPSC CSE Prelims 2020 and IFS Prelims 2018: May 31, 2020
• Date of UPSC CSE Mains 2020: September 18, 2020
• Date of UPSC IFS Mains 2020: November 22, 2020 (Only for Indian Forest Service Aspirants)

The dates of notification, commencement and duration of Examinations are liable to alteration if the circumstances so warrant. Aspirants will get more clarity on the UPSC Exam Calendar for 2020, once the UPSC CSE 2020 notification is out (Feb 12, 2020).

UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Exam 2020 Date: How Should You Prepare?

If you are entirely a beginner, 10-12 months of advance preparation before Prelims is usually advised to cover all topics for Prelims and Mains. This means, if you are planning to appear for Prelims 2020 (which is on June 2020), the recommended time to start preparing is June – August 2020.

However, there are many candidates who can clear the IAS exam successfully with 5-6 months (or even less) months of advance preparation as well. Thus the key point here is not the quantity of time, but the quality of time spent.

Aspirants should integrate Mains preparation with Prelims preparation, as you won’t get enough time to cover all Mains topics after Prelims (only 3.5 months). For efficient, fast, and focused preparation, candidates are advised to take ClearIAS Prelims Mock Test Series 2020 as per the timetable.

Ideally, you should take at least 1 mock exam every week – covering topics you studied the week before. This will help you cover almost all of the Prelims topics and many overlapping topics for Mains.

Parallel to this, you should study additional topics like Ethics, World History, India Since Independence, Indian Society, Internal Security etc – which are topics extra to Prelims syllabus, relevant mainly for the Main Exam (written).

ClearIAS UPSC Prelims Online Test Series 2020: Boost Your UPSC Prelims Score!

ClearIAS UPSC Prelims Online Mock Test Series integrates learning with test-taking and help you learn faster. More than 2,00,000 aspirants registered within a short span of time for ClearIAS UPSC Prelims Test Series acknowledging the quality of our tests. Take a free ClearIAS Prelims Mock Test and explore the features.

A lot of questions in actual UPSC CSE Prelims could have been answered from ClearIAS Test Series!

• 100+ Marks worth UPSC CSE Prelims 2018 Questions from ClearIAS Test Series 2018 and Notes.
• 100+ Marks worth UPSC CSE Prelims 2017 Questions from ClearIAS Test Series 2017 and Notes.
• 100+ Marks worth UPSC CSE Prelims 2016 Questions from ClearIAS Prelims Test Series 2016.

More than 100 marks worth questions were asked in UPSC Prelims 2016, 2017, and 2018 – directly or indirectly – which had asked in ClearIAS Prelims Test Series 2016, 2017, and 2018. Of course, there were a lot of questions in Prelims 2019 similar to ClearIAS 2019 questions. We are just started analysing the question-by-question comparison of ClearIAS Prelims Test Series 2019 with UPSC CSE Prelims 2019. The details will be published soon.

Our accurate question selection skills have been consistently helping a lot of our students who enrolled for ClearIAS Prelims Test Series to clear UPSC Prelims with ease. Enroll now for ClearIAS Prelims Test Series 2020 to get the early advantage.

Civil Services Exam – Preliminary Exam, Main Exam, and The Personality Test (Interview)

Prelims: The Civil Services Preliminary exam comprises of two compulsory papers of 200 marks each (General Studies Paper I and General Studies Paper II). The questions will be of multiple choice, objective type. The marks in prelims will not be counted for final ranking, but just for qualification for the main exam.

Note: GS Paper -II (popularly known as CSAT) has been made qualifying in nature. This means that the candidate has to just score 33% marks in it. Only marks for GS Paper 1 will be counted for selection towards Mains.

Mains: The written examination (main) will consist of the following nine papers, but only 7 papers will be counted for final merit ranking. For the rest two papers, the candidate should secure minimum marks prescribed by UPSC each year.

Personality Test: The candidate will be interviewed by a Board who will have before them a record of his/her career. He/she will be asked questions on matters of general interest. The object of the interview is to assess the personal suitability of the candidate for a career in public service by a Board of competent and unbiased observers. The test is intended to judge the mental calibre of a candidate.

Final Rank – A candidate’s rank in UPSC Civil Service Exam depends only on the mark scored in Main and Interview. The main exam has 1750 marks while interview has 275 marks.

Do you have any queries?

Please check the below links first, if you have any queries. If you still have concerns, feel free to post to your queries in the comment section.

• ClearIAS Beginners Guide
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