Aspirants preparing for UPSC and other Civil Services Exams must use different strategies to practice and revise before appearing for the exam. One of the solutions to this can be solving previous years UPSC papers.
They are to give you a gist of the exam pattern and questions. The UPSC CSE Exam is divided in three stages – The Preliminary Examination, The Mains Exam and Personality Test / Personal Interview.
Let’s take a look at Previous 10 Years UPSC Question Papers that covers UPSC prelims Exam Ppares, UPSC Essay Exam Papers, UPSC Mains Exam Papers and UPSC Optional Subject Papers.
But before starting with Previous Years UPSC Papers, It is highly recommended to Take Free UPSC Mock Test Series to check your learning.
UPSC Prelims Previous Years Question Papers
UPSC Prelims Exam is the first stage of the UPSC exam. It is the screening test for candidates to enter the mains. There are two papers in prelims. The first prelims paper revolves around general knowledge questions while the second one focuses on communication skills with logical reasoning.
The marks scored in the prelims are not counted in the final score. These are links to previous year UPSC Previous Years Prelims Question Papers.
UPSC Mains Essay Previous Years Question Papers
Candidates have to write two essays from given topics in this paper of UPSC Mains Exam. There are usually 8 topics. The word count of each essay has to be between 1000 – 1200 words.
The Essay Paper holds 250 marks with each essay for 125 marks. Let’s take a look at UPSC Mains Essay Previous Year Question Papers –
UPSC Mains General Studies Previous Years Question Papers
There are four General Studies Papers in the UPSC Mains Exam. They are of 250 marks each with approx 20 questions in every paper. They are around History, Technology, Polity and Ethics. Let’s take a look at UPSC Mains Previous Year Question Papers –
UPSC Mains Optional Subjects Previous Years Question Papers
The first seven papers are fixed for UPSC Mains but for the last two papers, candidates can choose their subject. These subjects are called optional subjects which a candidate can choose according to her/his preference.
There are 48 UPSC optional subjects in total. Out of this 23 are literature subjects. Let’s take a look at UPSC Mains Optional Subjects Previous Year Question Papers –
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
UPSC Mains Literature Optional Subjects Previous Years Question Papers
2019
| Subject | UPSC Optional Paper I | UPSC Optional Paper II |
| Gujarati | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Kannada | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Bengali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sindhi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Tamil | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Telugu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Urdu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sanskrit | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Malayalam | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| English | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Assamese | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Manipuri | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Hindi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Maithili | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Odia | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Punjabi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Marathi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
2018
| Subject | UPSC Optional Paper I | UPSC Optional Paper II |
| Gujarati | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Kannada | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Bengali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sindhi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Tamil | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Telugu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Urdu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sanskrit | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Malayalam | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| English | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Assamese | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Manipuri | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Hindi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Maithili | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Odia | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Punjabi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Marathi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
2017
| Subject | UPSC Optional Paper I | UPSC Optional Paper II |
| Gujarati | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Kannada | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Bengali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sindhi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Tamil | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Telugu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Urdu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sanskrit | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Nepali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Malayalam | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| English | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Assamese | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Manipuri | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Hindi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Maithili | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Bodo | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Odia | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Punjabi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Marathi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
2016
| Subject | UPSC Optional Paper I | UPSC Optional Paper II |
| Gujarati | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Kannada | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Bengali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sindhi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Tamil | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Telugu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Urdu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sanskrit | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Malayalam | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| English | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Assamese | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Manipuri | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Hindi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Santali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Maithili | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Bodo | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Odia | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Punjabi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Marathi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
2015
| Subject | UPSC Optional Paper I | UPSC Optional Paper II |
| Gujarati | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Kannada | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Bengali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sindhi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Tamil | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Telugu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Urdu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sanskrit | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Malayalam | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| English | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Assamese | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Manipuri | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Hindi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Santali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Maithili | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Dogri | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Odia | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Punjabi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Marathi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
2014
| Subject | UPSC Optional Paper I | UPSC Optional Paper II |
| Gujarati | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Kannada | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Bengali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sindhi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Tamil | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Telugu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Urdu | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Sanskrit | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Malayalam | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| English | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Assamese | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Manipuri | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Hindi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Santali | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Maithili | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Odia | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Punjabi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
| Marathi | Question Paper I | Question Paper II |
Why Solving Previous Year UPSC Question Papers Will Improve Your score?
- Firstly, It will benefit your answer writing practise, which is important for time management in UPSC Mains Exam.
- Secondly, It will make you comfortable with the MCQ pattern of the UPSC preliminary examination.
- Further, This will help you avoid negative marks in the UPSC prelims exam as you will become more vigilant by solving Previous years UPSC IAS Question papers.
- Moreover, It will also help in understanding types of UPSC questions asked.
- Above all, It will give clarity on important and repetitive topics.
- Lastly, Civil service question papers should be solved to get an answer writing practice for the IAS exam.
Conclusion
To sum up, this article will help you get access to the previous years question papers for UPSC Prelims and Mains. Subsequently, It will give you clarity on your current preparation and where you need to improve. The aspirants should go through it once before appearing for the UPSC exams.