Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2026: tough by design or default?

The story so far:

The Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, introduced in 1979 following the Kothari Committee’s recommendations, was designed as a screening mechanism — a ‘filter and funnel’ — to shortlist candidates for the descriptive Main examination. In its original format, it consisted of two components: an optional subject paper at the graduate level and a General Studies paper, with the optional paper carrying greater weight. For many years, this system functioned smoothly with minor changes.

Break-up of marks needed to aid prep, say UPSC candidates

The Alagh Committee set up in 2000 observed that the preliminary exam should have an optional paper to assess the intellectual competence of the aspirant and maintain its connection with the university system. It also proposed a Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) which would evaluate skills such as general awareness, problem-solving, data analysis and decision-making. The committee also recommended that the questions at the preliminary exam should be made challenging and a case-study approach should be adopted.

In 2009, the S.K. Khanna Committee recommended that the Preliminary Examination should be renamed as the Civil Services Aptitude Test with two common papers at the Preliminary. The preliminary exam was reconstituted to comprise two papers — General Studies Paper- I and General Studies Paper- II. The Paper I covers all conventional areas in ‘Humanities’, while Paper- II has questions on quantitative aptitude, reasoning, comprehension, interpersonal skills and communication, decision-making and problem-solving. The components of Paper- II were designed to test whether the aspirant had the ability to imbibe new technologies. Both the papers had equal weightage and the combined marks in both the papers were taken to determine merit. This change practically delinked the Preliminary Examination with the university system. After a few years, due to protests, Paper-II known as CSAT was made qualifying in nature. In practice, this meant that nearly five lakh aspirants were narrowed down to about 10,000 candidates solely based on their performance in the 100 questions attempted over two hours.

Bringing down the vast pool of aspirants to a manageable number through a paper comprising just 100 questions is an inherently difficult task. As a result, examiners were forced to constantly reinvent and compile the most unpredictable questions. Over time, it became quite evident that the objective of selecting candidates was being overshadowed by the need to eliminate them. Even the qualifying paper became a tool for rejection, with overall difficulty level of questions rising.