HOW TO BECOME AN IAS OFFICER ?| Role of IAS Officer, IAS Salary ?

“Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds”

 Only if you score 33% in the CSAT and the required cut-off in the GS Paper I, you will be eligible to sit for the UPSC mains exam.

Round 2 – UPSC Mains

Here, you have to give 9 descriptive papers. There are four General Studies papers, 2 optional papers, 2 language papers (one English and one Indian language) and one essay paper. Check the following table for details:

Out of the 9 papers, the language papers (English and Indian language) are of qualifying nature and not counted for the merit ranking. You have to choose one optional subject out of the list given by the UPSC for both the optional papers. If you score the required cut-off in the mains exam, you will be called for the UPSC personality test.

Round 3 – UPSC Personality Test

In this final round of the IAS exam, you will be interviewed by the UPSC board and judged on, apart from knowledge, various aspects of your personality like leadership, clarity of thoughts and expression, ability to tackle stress, presence of mind, general awareness, etc. If you clear this round, you will find your name in the final merit list put out by the UPSC. After this, you will be allotted a service and cadre depending on your rank, category and the number of vacancies available in that category. The IAS requires a high rank as it is the most sought after service among all the services.

The last thing to do in Stage 2 is to go through the latest UPSC syllabus in detail. This will give you an idea of the subjects you have to study for the exam, and also the extent of detail you have to cover. Also, remember to go through the previous years’ UPSC question papers. This will enlighten you on the kind of questions asked in the IAS exam. A combined perusal of the past question papers and the UPSC syllabus will reveal that the UPSC asks almost all the questions from the syllabus but with a current affairs angle to it.

But don’t get overwhelmed about the mammoth nature of the task ahead of you. Any gigantic mountain can be conquered by taking baby steps one at a time.

Stage #3: Charting your IAS study plan

In this stage, you should break up the syllabus and make a realistic and time-bound study plan. Resolve yourself to stick to the plan no matter what.

Read this :-how to prepare a best time table for IAS or any exam

Stage #4: Marching ahead

This is the stage where you actually start studying. You will have to spend long hours at the study table. But also ensure to take the much-needed occasional breaks. Avoid burnout. A systematic approach can make your IAS preparation a smooth journey. Have a dedicated strategy for each round namely the UPSC prelims, the UPSC mains and the UPSC interview. BYJU’S gives you tested strategy and subject notes to make your life easier! We also focus on current affairs. To become IAS officers, it is imperative that you give special attention to this section. You must read the daily newspapers, important journals like Yojana, updates on PIB, and basically understand and be able to analyse any news that is of national importance politically, economically and socially. BYJU’S presents many sections exclusively to aid your current affairs preparation. Check out our Daily News Analysis, Gist of PIB, Gist of Yojana, Gist of Rajya Sabha TV, Issues in News, etc.

Stage #5: Assessing your course

It is extremely important that you take periodic tests to assess your preparation. Taking mock tests both for the prelims and the mains helps you know your weak areas like whether it is a few topics that require extra attention or a particular subject, or whether you need to up your speed while answering the papers. This is one of the most important steps in knowing how to become an IAS officer.

Stage #6: Keeping the faith

Have faith in yourself and your abilities. Harbouring doubts about your strengths only diminishes them. If you have adopted the right strategy and combined it with intense and steadfast effort, you will get the desired results and find your way into the hallowed Indian civil services.

How to become an IAS officer in India  

To become an IAS officer, you need to qualify the Civil Services Examination conducted by UPSC every year. The exam is conducted to recruit civil servants for about 25 services including IAS, IPS, IFS, Central government services as well as other allied services. UPSC releases the notification inviting the applications around January-February each year, and the first phase or the preliminary examination is usually held around the end of May or beginning of the June.

UPSC conducts the Civil Services Examination in three phases namely:

1. Preliminary Examination
2. Civil Services (Main) Examination
3. Personality Test or Interview

Let us briefly discuss the exam pattern for UPSC Civil Services Prelims:

Name of the Paper	No of Questions	Topics Included(Brief)	Marks Allotted	Time Allotted	Nature of Exam
Paper I: General Studies (Objective-type)	100	Questions from subjects like History, Polity, Geography, Science, Economy, Current Affairs are asked.	200	2 hours	The score will be considered for Cut-off
Paper-II: General Studies-II (CSAT) (Objective-Type)	80	Questions from topics like Maths, Logical Reasoning, Reading comprehension are asked.	200	2 hours	Qualifying Nature- Candidates will have to score 33% to qualify CSAT.

So, as you can see, the UPSC Prelims consists of two papers namely General Studies-I and General Studies-II or the CSAT paper. You can follow the given links to get complete information about these papers.

 

Coming to UPSC Civil Services (Main) examination, the Mains paper consists of 9 papers the details of which are mentioned in the table below. Follow the links of the subjects to get complete information about each paper:

Paper	Subject	Duration	Total marks	Time Allotted	Nature of paper	Type of Paper
Paper A	Compulsory Indian language	3 hours	300	3 hours	Qualifying	Descriptive
Paper B	English	3 hours	300	3 hours	Qualifying	Descriptive
Paper I	Essay	3 hours	250	3 hours	Merit	Descriptive
Paper-II	General Studies I	3 hours	250	3 hours	Merit	Descriptive
Paper III	General Studies II	3 hours	250	3 hours	Merit	Descriptive
Paper IV	General Studies III	3 hours	250	3 hours	Merit	Descriptive

How to prepare for the Civil Services exam to become an IAS officer?

 

 

The actual answer to ‘how to become an IAS officer in India’ starts from the preparation strategy! Usually, it takes about 8-12 months to prepare for the Civil Services examination. So, you need to start about a year in advance to prepare the entire syllabus holistically. Here are some basic steps that you need to follow to prepare for the Civil Services examination.

Step Zero: Know about the exam

It is extremely important that you know the exam pattern as well as the exam syllabus of UPSC extremely well. Always keep a copy of the syllabus on your table so that you can refer to it whenever you want to assess the relevance of any topic from examination point of view. So, it is imperative that you have the syllabus mapped in your mind for effective preparation. Next, glance through a few previous year papers to get an idea of how the questions are asked.

Step One: Work on building a strong foundation

A strong foundation is extremely instrumental if you want to offer a robust structure to your preparation. Hence, start with the basics. NCERTs are extremely important and basic source of information that will introduce you to the subjects that you need to study in detail for UPSC preparation. Hence, refer to the NCERTs to kickstart your preparation for UPSC!

Step Two: Read Standard Books

Now, the first question that might pop up in your minds would be “ Which are the standard books for UPSC preparation”! So, the standard books refer to the books that need to be studied cover to cover for a certain subject. The list of the standard books for UPSC is mentioned in this linked article. Go through it and source all the important books and start reading them. The article also has a list of NCERT books that can be easily downloaded from the official website of NCERT.

Step Three: Master the Current Affairs

Direct questions from the current affairs are asked in the Prelims examination every year. Hence, it is important to read the current affairs of about 12-18 months for UPSC. You can either join a course on Current affairs that will surely help you in collating the important information extremely easily or you can cover it via newspapers and magazines. For more details, you can read this article on the importance of current affairs for the UPSC exam.

Step Four: Mock Tests and Answer-writing Practice

Mock tests and answer-writing are the two most important pillars in the UPSC preparation. You cannot complete your UPSC preparation without them! While mock-test helps in analyzing your preparation and give you insights on your weak areas, answer-writing practicing helps in honing your writing skills and perfecting your answer-writing techniques. Hence, implement both of them in your preparation.

Step Five: Revision 

Revision is also the important part of the UPSC preparation. Multiple revisions of what you’ve studied are extremely important for concept retention. We tend to forget the dates and events in General Studies, hence it is very important to revise it multiple times in order to cement those concepts in your mind.

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