How much time is required to prepare for UPSC CSE?

Before diving into the details of the question. Let’s first understand the basic morals and UPSC. After graduation or during graduation or even in high school, you must have heard of the UPSC exam. For Now, let’s not talk about whether you are eligible or not. At that very time, you will be filled with the passion and desire to become an administrative officer and serve the country. Desire to prove yourself as a valuable asset to the country. If that is the case, then let’s see the difficulty level of the exam. The difficulty level is decided by the Number of Students appearing for the exam to the actual number of students who got recommended. Let’s analyze it from the 2021 stats. In 2021, around 970,000 candidates appeared for the UPSC CSE prelims examination, out of which about 10,000 candidates qualified for the mains. However, only 685 out of 712 post candidates got recommended for the administrative appointments by the commission. You will be surprised to know that the success rate is around 0.0706%. Hence, this is the reason why this exam is known as the immensely toughest exam in India.

About UPSC

Before jumping into our main topic. First let us understand, what is UPSC? UPSC is also interpreted as Union Public Service Commission. UPSC conducts the CSE (Civil Services Examination) every year in 3 phases. These three phases are 1st round, the Prelims exam consists of 2 objective papers, 2nd round is the Mains Exam consisting of 9 Descriptive Papers, and 3rd round is the Interview Personality Test. After passing the above exam phases, you will get the desired post of your will as per your merit. But only you have less than a 1% chance to succeed in the CSE exam.

Read Also: How to prepare current affairs for CLAT

Understanding the Question “How Much Time it takes to Prepare for UPSC?”

Actually, this type of question has no favorable, clear, and well-defined answer. If you ask a question like how much time it will take you to be a professional writer or cook? However, there is no specific trait to answer this question. It is because every profession or every exam has a certain pattern and difficulty level. So, it completely depends on your grasping power and intelligence. If you have a strong intellectual hold then you can easily understand the pattern of the exam. Thereby, it would be easier for you to crack the exam. However, there are examples of many students who have cracked the exam within the stipulated time period. Successively, it depends upon certain factors of the individual like time, ability, planning, and skills.

Preparation Strategy for UPSC CSE 

To know the exact answer to “How Much Time it takes to Prepare for UPSC?”. Let us analyze the preparation strategy. Hence, through this preparation strategy, you yourself can conclude that “How Much Time it takes to Prepare for UPSC?”.

So, the time required for preparing for the UPSC CSE can vary from student to student. As it depends on the aptitude, reasoning, general knowledge skills, and especially the nature of the students. Hence, to structure “How Much Time it takes to Prepare for UPSC?”, we need to first make a list of major attributes for the CSE Preparation:

  • Preparation Strategy for General Studies Static part asked in both Prelims and Mains phase
  • Preparation Strategy for Current Affairs part asked in both Prelims and Mains Stage
  • Preparation Strategy for the Optional Subject selection and preparation
  • Preparation Strategy for Essay structuring and writing
  • Preparation Strategy for Practicing Mock Tests and Efficient Answer Writing 

Now, let us discuss the time needed to prepare for each of the above sections separately. Here, we are assuming that you regularly study at least 6 hours per day on average.

1. Preparation Strategy for General Studies Static part asked in both Prelims and Mains phase:

General Studies- Paper-I (GS-I): (Geography, Modern Indian History, World History, Post-Independence History (Medieval and Ancient History), and Art and Culture, Society)

Sl. No. Subjects with authorsTime Duration in days (Approx.)
1.Art and Culture from Fine Arts NCERT of Class XI and Nitin Singhania (Weightage increased)5
2.Modern Indian History from NCERT Books and Spectrum by Rajiv Ahir7
3.World History from an old NCERT book by Arjun Dev3
4.Post-Independence from NCERT Class XII book ‘India Since Independence’3
5.Geography from NCERT Class XI and Class XII Books10
6.Total Number of Days Approx.28

Here, you can deduce that the overall time required to prepare the GS-I Section is around one month. Now, let’s consider the revision part. you must be requiring about half of the month to revise GS-I subjects. Hence, overall 2 revisions are required to properly get familiar with the subjects. As a result, you can conclude that GS-I requires about 60 days in total. 

GS- II (Governance, polity, neighboring countries, and International Relations): 

Sl. No.Subjects with AuthorTime Duration in days (Approx.)
1.Polity from M.Lakshmikanth20 +20 (Revision)
2.International Relations (with contemporary events)Simultaneously
3.Governance (contemporary) + Include main test series answers for adding more value5 + 5 (Revision)
4.Total Number of Days (Approx.)50

So, in total static GS-II took around 50 days to complete.

GS-III (Security, Environment, Science and Technology, Disaster Management and Economy): 

Sl. No.Subjects with AuthorTime Duration in days (Approx.)
1.Indian Economy – Ramesh Singh20
2.Current Affairs(Security, Environment, Science and Technology, Disaster Management) – Daily Newspaper ReadingSimultaneously
3.Total Number of Days (Approx.)20

Also Read: How to Prepare for CLAT 2023

So, the Coverage duration of static GS-III took is around 20 days.

GS-IV (Probity in Governance, Ethics, and Aptitude)

Sl. No.Subjects with AuthorTime Duration in days (Approx.)
1.Ethics and Probity in Governance10
2.Total Number of Days (Approx.)10

You can help from the above 3 GS sections to get the knowledge about the ethical section. This section requires the least effort and reading. 

Hence, the coverage period of Static GS-IV is 10 Days

2. Preparation Strategy for Current Affairs Section for both Prelims and Mains Stage:

Sl. No.Subjects with AuthorTime Duration in days (Approx.)
1.Current Affairs from Monthly Magazine15 Days prior to Exam Date (2 Days per Magazine) + 45 Days (2 – 3 Revisions)
2.Total Number of Days (Approx.)60

Thus, the total period is around 60 Days.

3. Preparation Strategy for the Optional Subject: 

Sl. No.Subjects with AuthorTime Duration in days (Approx.)
1.Optional Subject (Agriculture, Botany, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Economics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Geography, Law, Physics, Political Science & International Relations, and 14 more) Varies from person to person as per their comfort level
2.Total Number of Days (Approx.)60

So, the average time required by a student is about 60 Days for the Optional.

4. Preparation for Essay Paper: 

Sl. No.Subjects with AuthorTime Duration in days (Approx.)
1.Utilize the familiar data from Previous GS Sections. Here, just structure and frame the previous content properly like frequently asked themes (Yojana, Honours, and Awards, etc.)10
2.Total Number of Days (Approx.)60

This Section should last around 10 days.

5. Practicing Mock Tests and Answer Writing: 

This Section will improve your handwriting & vocabulary. However, it may require more than 30 days to practice mock as well as answer writing. 

Hence, as per our assessment, your overall duration for the Preparation for the UPSC CSE Exam is at least 300 Days or around 10 Months.

Final Verdict: 

Hence, now after analyzing the above content, you can deduce from the question “How Much Time it takes to prepare for UPSC CSE Exam?” that the overall time required for preparation for the UPSC CSE Examination is a minimum of 10 – 12 Months (Approx.). here, we would like to make some corrections i.e. there are many aphorisms related to cracking the UPSC CSE exam in 2 months/ 4 months/ 5 months is totally fallacious. The minimum time you require to prepare for the UPSC CSE exam is 10 Months. So, Don’t believe in false claims and hearsays. Believe in yourself that you can crack the crack and sooner or later you will. Rest everyone has their own Destiny Destined. 

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