About UPSC Prelims Previous Year Questions

This page contains subject-wise UPSC Prelims Previous Year questions, starting from 2012 till 2020. Following is the list of Subjects or you can click on any of the subjects on the left sidebar:

1. ANCIENT/MEDIEVAL HISTORY
2. ART & CULTURE
3. ECONOMY
4. ENVIRONMENT
5. GEOGRAPHY
6. INTERNATIONAL RELATION
7. MODERN HISTORY
8. POLITY
9. S&T
10. SOCIAL AND SCHEMES

You can now attempt all the questions like a normal quiz and also can refer to questions during your subject preparation.

About UPSC Exam and importance of UPSC Prelims Previous Year Questions

UPSC Civil Services Examination is considered one of the toughest and the most elite examinations in India.

It is an elite examination because top bureaucrats of the country framing all-important policies are selected through this exam.

Why UPSC Civil Service Exam is tough?

UPSC is undoubtedly a tough exam. Even an aspirant preparing for a long time or institutions helping aspirants in preparation for a long, cannot predict the trend of the upcoming exam. It is mainly because of the following reasons:

• This exam attracts the best minds of India. Many students try their fate in this examination after passing out from elite institutions like IIMs, IITs. Moreover, many doctors and scientists also leave their respected and established professions for this exam. Thus, the competition level is very high.
• Moreover, the UPSC syllabus is indicative and not exhaustive. The keywords mentioned in the syllabus are very broad keywords.

For example, the syllabus line in GS- Paper-1 “Post-independence consolidation and reorganization within the country”, represents full post-independence book. One cannot dispute any question by UPSC, on any aspect of Post- Independence India, on the pretext that it was not in syllabus.

Use of UPSC Previous Year’s Questions

Here comes the UPSC Previous Year’s Questions. It is undoubtedly the best source to understand the requirement of the exam. By going through Previous Year’s Questions of UPSC, one can understand the following aspects:

1. How to read a topic or the news. It is evident from questions asked by UPSC that reading just factual aspects of a topic are not sufficient. An aspirant needs to understand the application and analytical parts of the topics as well.
   • For example, Initially, UPSC prelims questions were focused more on factual MCQs. The questions were What/When/Where type of questions.
   • However, with time UPSC Exam methodology got changed. In the recent few years, specifically from 2013-13, UPSC started asking more application-based MCQs. This type of question requires more than just remembering the factual aspects of books.
2. How to attempt Prelims MCQs. Due to the vastness of the UPSC syllabus, Plain reading or remembering everything is not practical. This is why the method of elimination of options is very useful for UPSC Prelims. Aspirants have made good use of this method and get many questions right, even if they don’t remember all the given options of the question.
3. Although it is very rare, sometimes UPSC asks questions on the same topic more than once.
4. Further, the previous year’s UPSC questions will also test your knowledge of the topics, you have already studied.

However, as mentioned before, despite all the advantages, it is not useful to predict next year’s Mains Questions or Prelims MCQs.