UPSC IAS Mains Syllabus 2020

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), and Indian Police Service (IPS). 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 are counted followed by a personality test (interview).

IAS Main Exam has four general studies papers, two compulsory language papers, one essay paper and two papers of Optional subject. It is a descriptive type of exam and has a totally enhanced version of IAS Prelims exam.

IAS Main Exam 2020 Syllabus

Sl. No.	Name of Paper	Syllabus	Marks
1	Essay Paper	Any Topic/Topics (Current issues)	250
2	GS Paper I	Indian Heritage and Culture, Indian History, World History, World Geography, Indian Society, Important Geo-physical phenomena	250
3	GS Paper II	Governance, Indian Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations, Welfare Schemes, Statutory, regulatory and quasi-judicial bodies, Role of civil services in a democracy, India’s relation with neighbour countries, International institutions,	250
4	GS Paper III	Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Indian Economy and its various sectorsGovernment Budgeting Land Reforms Inclusive Growth Security and Disaster Management	250
5	GS Paper IV	Ethics and Human Interface Attitude Aptitude Emotional Intelligence Emotional Intelligence Public/Civil service value Probity in Governance Case study on above topics	250
6	Indian Language Paper	(i) Comprehension of given passages (ii) Précis Writing (iii) Usage and Vocabulary (iv) Short Essays (v) Translation from English to the Indian language and vice-versa	300
7	English	Comprehension of given passages Précis Writing Usage and Vocabulary Short Essays	300
8	Optional Paper I	As opted by Candidate	250
9	Optional Paper II	As opted by Candidate	250

List of Optional Subject in IAS Mains Exam 2020

The List of Optional Subjects is as follows:
(i) Agriculture
(ii) Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science
(iii) Anthropology
(iv) Botany
(v) Chemistry
(vi) Civil Engineering
(vii) Commerce and Accountancy
(viii) Economics
(ix) Electrical Engineering
(x) Geography
(xi) Geology
(xii) History
(xiii) Law
(xiv) Management
(xv) Mathematics
(xvi) Mechanical Engineering
(xvii) Medical Science
(xviii) Philosophy
(xix) Physics
(xx) Political Science and International Relations
(xxi) Psychology
(xxii) Public Administration
(xxiii) Sociology
(xxiv) Statistics
(xxv) Zoology

Literature of any one of the languages such as Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, English.