IAS EXAM- Preliminary Exam and Main Exam

Indian Administrative Service is one of the most lucrative career options in today’s time. It not only provides you with a healthy income but also gives you power, respect and honour. It has attracted the youth in large number, who work hard in order to become an IAS officer. However, due to the power and income it offers, it is high in demand and therefore much challenging to be a part of. In order to clear an IAS exam, candidates have to work hard for years. The recruitment process is divided into three stages; IAS prelims, IAS mains and IAS interview. All the three rounds are very tough and one needs to score high in all of them in order to be recruited as an IAS officer. The exams are held by Union Public Service Commission. It is a body especially designed to conduct examinations and interviews for recruitment in the civil services. It not only conducts exams for IAS, but also other service offered by civil services like IPS, IFS, etc.
The IAS exams are set up by a team of highly trained professionals. They are experienced in various fields and set a high standard of question paper. It ensures that only the most capable, intelligent and knowledgeable candidates are able to reach the final level. The two exams are extremely challenging and demand hard work and dedication.
IAS Prelims Exam:
Preliminary exam is conducted to test the capability of the candidate and his or her ability to make decisions.
There has been a change in the syllabus from 2011. The 23 optional subjects have been replaced by CSAT, civil service aptitude test.
It is a common aptitude test for all the candidates. It avoids variations in the scores and aims at testing their potential in the civil services.
There are more than 3 lakh candidates for this exam, whoever only some are selected for the next level. The scores of IAS prelims exam are not taken into consideration; this exam is mainly for selection basis.
IAS Mains Exam:
Only those candidates who clear the IAS prelim exam can appear for IAS mains exam,
It has one general studies paper, one essay paper and one language paper.
The language paper is divided into Indian language and general English at the level of class 10th. This is to test your mother language and English language.
The recruitment is done based on the scores of IAS mains exam.

These exams follow the interview session. it is the last stage in the recruitment process. Out of the lakhs of candidates that appear in the IAS prelims exam, only a few reach the IAS mains exam level which are again short-listed for the interview round. This process is difficult however, not impossible to achieve.