Education and Career Forum

Tips to prepare for IAS exam? Syllabus and books to follow? Can you please help me with the categories of questions which will be asked? What type of preparation is needed to clear the exam? How much time do I need to take to prepare?

IAS (Indian Administration Service) exam is a civil service exam conducted by UPSC (Union Public Service Commission). This exam is conducted every year.

There are 3 stages of the exams to clear for becoming IAS officer they are:

- Preliminary
- Mains
- Personal interview

—The syllabus for the preliminary exam includes current affairs, general studies, history of India and aptitude.

— The syllabus for mains includes general studies, essay writing, Indian economy and geography.

The books you need to refer are many. Some of them are listed below:

- UPSC Civil service exam book by L. Prakash Kumar & V. V. K. Subburaj
- IAS General studies preliminary topics by new Vishal publications
- IAS General studies mains topics by Arihant experts
- History of modern India by Bipan Chandra
- India’s ancient past by R. S. Sharma
- Indian Economy by Ramesh Singh
- Verbal & Non verbal reasoning by R. S. Aggarwal
- Analytical reasoning by M. K. Pandey

IAS stands for Indian Administrative Services. It comes under Civil Services. Union Public Service Commission conducts Civil Services Examination for recruitment to different services like IAS, IPS, IRS, IFS etc.

The time required to crack this exam depend upon your dedication and devotion towards this exam and a bit of luck factor also. Generally, 1.5-2 years of preparation is good enough to clear this exam, one or two failure can stretch the duration to four years also.

There are three stages of this exam namely Preliminary, Main and Personal interview. Failing at any stage will lead to first stage again.

Tips to prepare for this examination:

>>In first stage of preparation, try to complete NCERT books of social studies from standard sixth to standard 12th.

>>After that you can refer to standard books like Indian Polity by Laxmikant, Modern History by Bipan Chandra, Economy by Ramesh Singh etc.

>>Practice is key to excel in this exam. Solve enough mock tests for the preliminary examination, write answers for main exam etc.

Click on the link to get all details regarding this exam UPSC Syllabus .